Target Audience/Music Video Questionnaire

How old are you? (Circle One)

13-18      19-25     26+

What is your gender? (Circle One)

Female     Male     Prefer Not to Say

Favourite music genre at the moment? (Circle One)

Rock    Indie     Pop     R ‘n’ B     Hip Hop    Country

Other (if so please specify below)

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What do you think makes a good music video for your favourite genre?

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What makes you want to watch a music video? (Circle One)

If it includes your favourite artist     Word of Mouth       Advertisement    

How often do you watch music videos? (Circle One)

Daily    Weekly      Monthly     Never

How do you watch music videos? (You may circle more than one) 

Online (YouTube, Vevo, Artists Website etc)    TV (MTV, Kerrang)      

Social Media (Tumblr, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram)

What style of music video do you prefer? (circle one)

Narrative (a music video that tells a story)

Concept (music video based off of an idea/concept)

Performance (shots of the artist playing instruments/singing)

Hybrid (mixture of the above)

Music Video Analysis: Work From Home (Fifth Harmony)

'Work From Home' is is a song recorded by American girl group Fifth Harmony featuring rapper and singer Ty Dolla Sign. It was released on February 26, 2016, as the lead single from the group's second studio album, 7/27."Work from Home" was written by Joshua Coleman, Jude Demorest, Tyrone Griffin, Jr., Alexander Izquierdo, and Brian Lee. The song debuted at number 12 on the Billboard Hot 100 with 88,000 downloads sold, and reached number 4 in its thirteenth week quickly proving itself to be their highest charting single in the US so far, outstripping their previous single "Worth It", which peaked at number 12. "Work from Home" also became the first top-five single in the country by a girl group in ten years. And it has recently been announced that the single has sold 1.3 million copies in the United States and the music video (Directed by Director X) has now surpassed over 1 billion views on YouTube.

The Mise en Scene is fairly illustrative of the topic of the song which combines lexis related to sex and work, drawing implicit sexual references to the saying "work from home". The girl group (Fifth Harmony) are placed in a construction site type environment surrounded by building tools/equipment such as diggers, hammers and wheelbarrows and other such objects that are not usually associated with femininity and female sexuality. This creates a contradictory scene but the use of bright lighting in such a dark environment and the raw sense of grandeur of the house that seems to be being built throughout the video still manages to create a contrasting yet hyper-sexualised atmosphere. This is obviously helped by the attire that the artists are wearing that consists of of construction boots, tool belts, denim booty shorts/jeans and crop tops which creates a strong sense of female empowerment while also maintaining a sexual element that will draw in both male and female attention. 

The music artists are not the only actors to appear in the video however and we see a myriad of shirtless males appear in the frame throughout which helps to appeal to the female audience and makes the artist seem desirable. 

The music video is performance based, though shot in a very unconventional location, and features choreographed dancing and lip-syncing from the artists throughout. The artists often maintain eye contact with the camera whilst lip-syncing which helps to build a relationship, connection and sense of rapport with the audience and also creates a confident and independent image. The use of symmetry during more choreographed segments of the video where all of the group is present creates a unified and powerful image that denotes power and influence.

There are moments in the video when the shots are continuous (especially the beginning) but there are also frequent cuts to male faces and different angles that promotes that idea that they are being watched by many people. The moments of continuity in the shots are also very effective as it makes the video seem of a high production value both in terms of choreography and execution from the artists themselves. Points where slow motion is used, often when the artists engage with the males in the music video, creates tension and a sense of power coming from the women as we see how they affect the males they interact with. The video features shots where the artists are both depicted alone (lip-syncing their solo parts in the song) and all together painting them as strong women on their own and together as a group which is essential for the promotion of a girl group as people are drawn the unity and 'girl power' of the artists. 

Up angles and a variety of different levels are used when focusing on the artists reiterating the power that they have throughout the video and frequent uses of close ups during lip-sync moments shows the fierce expressions of the female artists and how the males react to them within the video. Long shots are used during choreographed and group moments gives the audience a wider view of the artist showing off both the choreography, their attire, the location and their skills as dancers. 

Star Image

The star image concept was created by Richard Dyer. His theory proposes that celebrities are merely images constructed to appeal to their target audience and genre and for the purpose of financial benefit. He also proposes that stars need to be an equal blend of both ordinary and extraordinary to set them apart from their target audience as what we should all aspire to be but must also have a side that the audience can relate to and not be so prodigious that their demographic feel like they could never reach the same status.

There are four categories used to create this image:

Construction:

Construction states that the image is created for audience and is based around them being likeable and appealing to the target demographic. They are essentially not created to function as a real individual but a product. This image is usually created by the record company.

Cultural Belief's / Hegemony:

These types of stars are created to reflect and promote the popular current beliefs of society. This makes the artist relevant in popular culture and creates a role model that the target audience can look up to and replicate. 

Audience and Institutions: 

This type of star image is created purely for the production of money so the record company's focus their efforts on producing artists that will be the most commercially popular and base their artists on what they think they audience will want so that they can produce the highest profit possible. 

Case Study, Halsey:

Halsey is an example of an artist that fits into the different sub-sections of star theory. Halsey began her career by posting cover songs on YouTube under her real name, 'Ashley Frangipane'. In 2014, she recorded a song called "Ghost" and posted it on SoundCloud, this song gained Halsey attention and she signed with the 'Astralwerks record label' and is still represented by them. Her debut concept album, Badlands, was released on August 28, 2015 and has been described as an angry feminist record. The album included three singles, New Americana, Ghost and Colors and as a five track remix EP called "Complementary Colors". 

Halsey adopts and androgynous style, sporting short hair and often wearing gender non-conforming clothing articles in her music videos (see above) and concerts, though her style can vary depending on the situation, her more feminine side can be seen in videos such as ‘Colors’ for example. This style emits a certain sense of confidence and authority that we all strive for and she a personality that screams "do not mess with me" and this is heavily reflected in her music which she says is about "sex and being sad". Her stage name 'Halsey' is an anagram of her real name and also the name of a street in Brooklyn where she spent a lot of her youth which show her audience that she stays true to her roots whilst still maintaining her own sense of identity.This paints her as an original on trend artist that would appeals to her growing target audience of alternative teens.

Halsey has been consistently open about her background, sexuality (bisexual) and mental health (suffers from bipolar disorder) and how this translates in her music and the type of content she produces. This sense of honesty allows her fanbase to feel more connected to her as an artist and enables her to reach a wider audience who can relate and feel empowered by her to be unapologetically themselves. She is both something to aspire to wards being like but still genuine enough for her fans to relate to (Richards Dyer's perfect blend of ordinary and extraordinary).

I believe Halsey fits Richard Dyer's Star Theory as he says "it can be argued that stars are representations of persons which reinforce, legitimate or occasionally alter the prevalent preconceptions of what it is to be a human being in this society." which is essentially what Halsey does. She blends together youthfulness, sexual magnetism, creativity as well as disregard for social values and consumption of sex, drugs and material goods (things that Richard Dyers considers essential for an artist to embody). Halsey's on trend and edgy persona gives off a youthful vibe that the teenage audience to identify with her and the themes that run through her songs of teenage rebellion and emotional turmoil and the content of her music videos (mainly 'Colors' and 'Ghost') could be viewed as sexually provocative and appeal to both men and women alike. They fact that Halsey is so vocal about issues affecting both race, LGBT topics and issues affecting women reinforces and promotes the opinions currently emulated by society and popular culture. 

Male Gaze

The Male Gaze theory was first developed by Laura Mulvey, in 1975, who proposed that the asymmetric gender power that exists in society controls the way media depicts females and femininity for the pleasure of a heterosexual male.

The Male Gaze theory refers to the way in which media (art, literature, popular culture) depicts women and the female form. There are three perspectives that should be referenced when talking about the male gaze; the perspective of the person behind the camera, the characters within the media and the consumer of the media.

Typical features of a music video involving the Male Gaze theory would be lingering camera shots (moving slowly when showing a female and focusing on her curves),use of slow motion when following a woman's movements and longshots may also be used to show a woman's full body and display her clothing or lack of.

An example of this is Fifth Harmony's 'All In My Head (Flex)' music video. We see all three of these different shots come into play, for example slow motion is often used when focusing on females provocative movements and we also see many longshots showing off their swimsuit clad bodies.

Another example is Ariana Grande's 'Dangerous Woman' music video. The artist is depicted wearing lacy lingerie and though a lot of close angles shots are used instead of longshots the video focuses on her figure and the camera moves slowly to create the idea of a lingering gaze. The use of handheld camera shots creates a voyeuristic feel to the video which is characteristic of the male gaze.

Correlations Between Lyrics and Visuals

There are three different categories of that relationships between visuals and lyrics can be divided into three distinctive categories, according to Andrew Goodwin whose ideas we discussed previously, and these are:

Amplification

Disjuncture

Illustrative

Amplification:
Amplification involves taking a deeper look into the meaning behind the song whilst still maintaining links to the lyrics. Whilst other music videos sometime move away from the songs topic this type of video 'Amplifies' it. These types of videos are usually narrative based but can involve aspects of performance. An example of Amplification being used in a music video is 'Homecoming' by Kanye West, where we see West walking the streets of his hometown much like in the lyrics:

Another example is REMs 'Imitation of Life' video (it really is an imitation of life which shows in a very stylistic way all how many events take place at the same time in all different types of peoples life's):

Disjuncture:

Disjuncture is when the music video visuals have no real link to the song lyrics or contradict the song completely. These are often narrative videos but may feature performance occasionally. An example of a music video that uses disjuncture is the Artic Monkey's 'Fluorescent Adolescent':

Another example of a music video that features disjuncture is Coldplay's 'Paradise': 

Illustrative:

Illustrative music videos often have visuals that explicitly reference the lyrics of the song, this is the simplest video technique of the three and the easiest to follow for the viewer. An example of this type of music video is Owl City's 'Fireflies' (The word Fireflies appears on the radio display) :

Another example of this is Demi Lovato's 'Skyscraper' (The lyrics talk about glass and we see the artist standing in front of a square of glass):

Intertextuality

Intertextuality is the way in which one media product may reference another.

This tends to happen quite frequently in music videos as media inspires the production of other media. The inclusion of intertextuality can also help to increase the popularity of a music video as the inclusion of popular culture creates a more interesting and familiar media. References to any kind of media such as books, social media, films, TV, iconic figures and other artist works. intertextuality can also present itself in the form of advertisements and promotions.

Kanye West’s controversial 'Famous' video is a reference to Vincent Desiderio's painting 'Sleeping'. As you can see from looking at side by side comparisons of the media there is a direct correlation in how the wax works have been laid out and the positioning of the people in the painting. 

Another example intertextuality is Taylor Swift's 'Love Story' music video which references Romeo and Juliet both lyrically and visually, as it adopts both the style of the era and storyline. 

Songs written for movie soundtracks usually create music videos that reference the film the song will appear in, for example Death Cab for Cutie's song 'Meet Me On The Equinox' appears in the Twilight franchise movie New Moon and the music video feature footage from the film.

The song doesn't have to be in a movie to make reference to it however. Iggy Azalea's music video for 'Fancy' makes references to the 90's film Clueless especially in terms of fashion and setting.

Genre Conventions

Pop:

Pop music videos are often more extravagant than most indie or rock videos as due to the high popularity of the style have much higher funded budgets. The idea of a pop music video is to advertise the artist and the song and usually have a very upbeat and positive tone to them. Pop music videos are often performance oriented but do usually contain some kind of narrative which classifies them as hybrid music videos. Successful music videos tend to feature choreography (Single Ladies – Beyoncé) that often perpetuates into the rest of pop culture and may turn into an internet meme (Hotline Bling – Drake).  As Star Images are much more prevalent in pop music the way the artist is portrayed is very important in the filming of the video. This high budget type of production allows for the use of top of the range filming equipment and ground breaking special effect techniques to create a very high quality piece of media.

Indie:

Indie music videos don’t usually focus on the idea of Star Image as much as pop videos tend to, indie music isn’t gimmicky and puts more emphasise on the meaning of the lyrics and the sound of the music and because of this are usually narrative based. Concepts about the world and society are included in indie music videos and they are often hybrids of narrative and performance though indie band performances are usually filmed on a smaller scale (e.g. A garage vibe) than pop videos. Though indie music is increasing in popularity the videos are usually still small budget so feature less special effects and high budget backdrops.

Rock:

Rock videos, like pop, generally tend to focus on the band or artist and favour mostly performance based footage over narrative with the song lyrics synced to the artists mouthing. Rock videos don’t just focus on the lead vocalist as a lot of pop videos do though and they feature the rest of the band often playing their instruments (e.g. Pretender – Foo Fighters and Heart of Fire – Black Veil Brides). If a story-line is introduced into a rock music video they are usually hybrid videos featuring aspects of both performance and narrative based videos.

Hip Hop/R ‘n’ B:

Hip Hop and R ‘n’ B are new and emerging genres in popular culture and have only really began to gain interest in popular culture since the 90’s. This newfound popularity has caused a lot of hip hop/R ‘n’ B music videos to take on a lot of the characteristics of pop music videos due to the large budget and type of audience they are trying to reach. This genre of music often plays about with the idea of creating a star image (Kanye’s persona) focusing more on wealth and prosperity, reflected in the mise en scene and costumes used in the video, than likability as some pop artists do. The large budgets used in such music videos like (insert music video) helps to create that idea that the artist lead a lavish lifestyle and have intimidating personas.