Filming Prep-Male Gaze

To challenge the convention of the male gaze, as our target audience is predominantly younger females, we plan to film the woman in the view of other women.

Laura Mulvey came up with the idea of the 'Male Gaze' in 1975. It's the idea about how the audience views the characters from the male heterosexual perspective. And this convention will be challenged by us in our pop music video. We will do this by focusing on her voice rather that her image and body features.

Carly Rae Jepson-Call Me Maybe

I decided to look at this music video as it has very similar themes that we want to create in our music video. It's about a girl crushing on a guy and imagines herself with him. She has a dream in the middle of the song of them two together, we want to portray that story as well. 

Firths music theory can be applied to this as there is performance an narrative to this video. We see the artist singing the song to the audience (and the male character) but we also see a narrative where she is imagining herself with him, and also a story throughout, living everyday life ending up with the male character handing his number to part of the band. The narrative and performance also overlap a lot in the video as we see her singing as we see the story progressing.

We want to apply this to our video, a mixture of performance and narrative, with overlaps, as this is very typical of a pop music video.

Meghan Trainor-All About That Bass (Theories)

Meghan Trainor is our chosen artist so I thought it would be a good idea to look at her other work. She has recently had a very successful song 'All About That Bass'.

Theory

Applying Goodwins theory to this music video it is a very amplified video. It exaggerates the key theme and meaning to the video so much, which is the fact you should be comfortable with yourself an have confidence no matter what anyone says. This could also link to Levi-Strauss' theory that there are binary oppositions within the video. There are clear opposites in this, the main one being thin and curvy but also elements of young and old, and men and women. 

The artist herself is subjective in the video as it is her telling the story and performing rather than watching over the performance. 

Visuals

The video consists of a lot of colour, particularly pastel colours which is very girl-y. This is what a pop video should have, she has kept to the conventions here. Another convention applied in this music video is the performance, there is a lot of dancing which projects a very lively feel to draw the audience in. It often cuts to different scenes of different people dancing and different outfits and different orders, this appeals to the audience as they get to see the artist in many ways and at different angles.

Lyrics
The lyrics are very repetitive in this song, the artist looks at the camera and we see her sing to the important lyrics that she means and the phrases she wants to get out to the audience and her beliefs she wants to portray. These lyrics include one about herself, and the audience, 'every inch of you is perfect', 'I'm no stick thin barbie doll'. You could consider Steve Archer's theory for the use of lyrics in this music video. The artist in this video is the centre of attention (also typical of pop in general) there is lots of close-ups of her lip syncing and dancing, being in the heart of the video, suggesting that the feeling and moods about the song and video are more genuine.

Andrew Goodwin's Theory

This is Goodwin's theory of music genre, we learnt it in todays lesson.

• The visuals either illustrate, amplify or contradict the lyrics and music.
• Genres often have their own music style/iconography.
• Close-ups should always be included.
• The artist/band might want to develop their own star iconography, which becomes their star image.
• Voyeurism is a common theme within music videos.
• Intertextual references are also popular.
• Goodwin also argues that female performers are often objectified for display purposes, often through a combination of camerawork and editing with fragmented body shots emphasising a sexualised treatment of the star.