Textual Analysis

Evaluation for Treatment

I planned my treatment carefully, watching many music videos on youtube, DVD's and researching music lyrics by different artists. It is important to plan in an organized way, and to look at other peoples work in detail and take notes/screen grabs. This gives ideas about how other music videos attempted to entertain the audience and whether they succeeded or not. One of the problems i encountered along the way was finding a song with interesting lyrics, that didn't already have a music video. I thought it was better that the song didn't already have a video, as that way all the ideas would be my own, and i couldn't be persuaded by anything in an existing video.
I really liked Britney's video for 'Womanizer'. There are so many points that allow it to appeal to its audience, for example the way she puts the message of the man being a womanizer across. She does this with one man, and her changing costume/hair, playing the roles of several different women, and the womanizer not realizing. Also there are certain technical details that are worth watching out for, the close ups of Britney are particularly interesting because the way they are shot allows us to see how beautiful she is, and more importantly, how her hair is at the moment. Also, seeing the location, clothing and effects used to perfect her image as in other videos she's made grabs our attention. The fact that the woman is the stronger character in the video and not the man makes it appeal to women more, as this is unusual. Some scenes are very outrageous but this is not uncommon for a Britney video. Her fans would be expecting this on some level, and 'Womanizer', seeing Britney driving cars with her foot, fails to disappoint.


With a product such as 'My Baby' by Britney Spears, the audience may be expecting a really soft, calm video because of the kind of song it is. My idea does fit in with the lyrics as the video i have planned is like a short re-run of Britneys life, and the clips are all very moving. Although it fits in, my idea is quite unoriginal as i've put all the scenes in black and white, apart from Britney being in colour to capture her emotions with clothing more, and to draw attention to her.

Most of Britneys music videos are very typical and refer to the genre characteristics of girly pop; dance routines, big costumes/dresses. The video i have planned, is slightly different. There are no dance routines, and no big dresses. Clothing however, will be used in different ways to grab attention, and in the opposite way, making people blend into the background more. As it is different , and not something people would normally see from Britney, it will draw peoples interest, making the video more successful.

My idea has been developed for an audience of mainly girls. I think they would be able to relate to it more as the song is about a mothers life being completed when she has her baby. I've used close-ups to capture the emotion, because the story behind this song is really emotional after fans watching Britneys struggle in life with her own two young sons. Panning shots appear alot during the flashback scenes, with lots of different shots being used inbetween. This is because the memories are played back like a short movie.

Some of the current media output is similar to my idea with the flashback video, but as the song is individual, i think my idea for the video will stand out and give it sucess, especially with such a targeted audience.
I think it would perform well within current media practice because i have attempted to re-package Britney as a more sensitive and vunerable woman rather than the object that appears in her previous music videos.

If i were to attempt this again i would choose a song with more varied lyrics so that my video could be more interesting and different, but i think my idea worked really well considering the lyrics are quite basic.

On the other hand, the very spesific audience held me back a little, and i think if the song had been open to a bigger audience, then i could have developed my ideas further. But i think considering the constraint, i think i planned my ideas well.
Another constraint i had to consider while planning for my music video was, when changing Britney's image, whether this could potentially lose some of her original fan base.

Treatment for My Baby.

Treatment plan for ‘Britney Spears – My Baby’.

I am going to create a music video for Britney Spears’ song, My Baby, off her new album, Circus. The video will be narrative in order to interest the viewer more and keep my video flowing.

The song is gentle and timid, with lovely lyrics. This encourages me to make a slow, peaceful, yet moving video, nothing too busy, or distracting, but will still have a unique selling point. Britney (the brand) is shown in many of her videos to be provocative and alluring, my video goes against expectations as i wanted it to capture attention as something unusual, and not like the original video for this song.
The genre conventions of pop music of this sort are glitzy, glamorous music videos normally with a narrative structure, that also include choreographed dance. Video of this sort are often shot to include the female body in close up to appeal to the audience mostly men. This appeals to their voyeuristic tendencies. This is a point that Goodwin makes in his analysis of music video.
When the music first starts to play, the screen is black, and slowly fades into a clip of Britney’s hand, with a baby’s hand resting on it. This is linking the lyrics to the visuals, ‘tiny hands’, being the first line of the song.
She’ll be on her own for the first 30 seconds, in a bright lighted room, that’s quite bare, to make you focus on her and the lyrics more. A 360 degrees panning shot at eye level will be used here to capture large images of Britneys surroundings, finishing with a close up of Britneys face.
During the track, you see Britney in and around her house and garden. She’s bringing up her baby, on her own, but she is always smiling and happy. The video has been treated with an effect that bleaches out the visuals, for example, when she is walking past some lillies, the morning sun sends a lens flare across the viewers eyeline. Whilst this is happening, we cut back to clips of her earlier life, before she had the baby, and in one of them she’s in a city. There are loads of people around her, all rushing past, yet she is walking around slowly, looking really out of place.

Close ups are used throughout the video in order to create a sense of intimacy between the viewer and Britney. The close ups also show close detailing of Britneys face showing her still looking glamorous, which inspires viewers to idolize the popstar.

Because Britney is the main person in the video, and needs to stand out, during the city scenes she is dressed brightly, whereas everybody else in the scene is in black and white. There is hardly any music playing, so the basic sound is Britney singing.

The video is very growing up orientated, and all the people in it are happy, except Britney, until she has her baby. This links with the lyrics, ‘Cause without you, How did I get through, All of my days, Without you?’.

In the video, attention is grabbed by the soft, unusually quiet atmosphere, and Britneys closeness to her baby, and the sadness she displays. It makes you want to find out what’s happening in the song, which generally leads to having a popular track if more people enjoy the video.
The whole video will be based on Britneys life, featuring clips of her past successful music videos. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unBACOHFXes,http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kaw6hfuQXQ0&feature=channel) It will also show clips of her leaving the recording studio, and doing previous jobs, but showing her being unhappy.

Then, it will show her after having her baby, with a new found happiness, and feeling like her baby is what she's been missing for the past few years of her life.

As the video is very narrative, and tells a story of a life, there will be lots of close ups. The close ups will not just be used to capture emotion, but to help focus on tiny detail that would normally be missed, although facial expressions caught with close ups will be a important part of the video, to show the depression and new found happiness that Britney discovers.

Lyrics for My baby.

Tiny hands.
Yes, that's you.
And all you show,
It's simply true.
I smell your breathe,
It makes me cry.
I wonder how, I've lived my life.

(Chorus)
Cause without you,
How did I get through,
All of my days, Without you?
Now living with you,
See everything's true,
My baby, it's you.
My baby.My baby, My baby.

With no words at all,
So tiny and small.
In love I fall, So deep.
So deep.
My precious love,
Sent from above.
My baby boo,
God I thank you.
God I thank you.

(Chorus 2x)

Music Video Production Evaluation

For my GCSE production piece as a group we decided to make a music video. The first thing we decided to do when we picked our groups was to choose the perfect song. This was really difficult because there was so many songs we liked and so many videos that we also enjoyed watching. After much discussion and argument we settled on what we thought would be the perfect song, 'Love Is Gone' by David Guetta. We thought this was the perfect choice as the lyrics to the song were really easy to understand, and would be easy to film and would give us a good choice in effects to use later on.

However, we found out it wasnt as easy as it seemed when we wrote our treatment. Our plan for our video seemed confusing, and we decided that it wouldn't be clear what was happening when people watched it. Therefore, our plan changed and a new idea for the video was in force.

Following this, we created a storyboard.
Another problem we came across was not having filmed enough footage for our video and we had certain parts of the song without scenes filmed. This caused problems amongst the group as certain team members felt we were making the work harder and more complicated for ourselves.
When it came to using the macs everyone became a little frustrated as the software (final cut) did not always seem correctly installed.
Ethically, we suddenly thought that we may have a problem with one of our scenes. We had filmed one of our actors on the toilet, with a magazine covering essential parts. We discussed whether this was suitable for our audience and asked fellow members of the class, whether or not they found it appropriate. After discussions, we decided to include this scene as many people found it amusing and funny, rather than offensive. I personally felt that the scene was acceptable, and added a humorous edge to the love story.
As i have just mentioned, the use of humor within the video i.e tim in the bathroom, links to the target audience because it reflects the sense of humor of most teenagers. Also, the romantic side to the story reflects modern teen relationships. The fact that the video is in black and white suggests more drama involved in a teenage relationship. I spoke to a focus group and asked their opinion of the video to which they responded positively, stating that one of the things they liked most about the video was the way the video was cut in time with the music. They stated that this made the video seem "fast paced and quirky".
In relationship to professional music videos, my video didnt seem as glossy and glamorous as we didn't have the necessary lighting, quality of camera equipment and budget. However, i feel one of the positives about the video was the quality of acting, and good use of mise en scene. We used a range of suitable locations, which were relevant to the theme of our video as they were local places, not too ambitious.
In my music video there is a scene where the opening of the door goes to the beat of the music. This initially happened due to copy and pasting errors, however on reflection i decided that this was a good effect and would make my video original to the rest of the groups efforts, as we had the same clips to work from.
My video would ideally be shown on tv shows such as T4 on a saturday morning, inbetween interviews and commonly shown programmes, as interviews may attract one time viewers, and commonly shown programmes would create a fixed audience that matched my target audience.
If i was to do this project again, i would have chosen different people to work with, as i feel the work would of been done quicker if i wasn't working with close friends. Also, i think it would have been easier and more organised if every team member was assigned a specific role within the production team.
If more time was spent at the start, planning exactly what was needed to be done including which shots and props were going to be used, then the filming process could have been made a significant amount shorter, and lessened the work load.