Lyric Analysis

Once, once upon a time

Thought that you'd be mine

But then you let your colors shine                          Girl realises the boy wasn't what she thought he was.

I wanted to believe                                                  True colours shine for the worst.

That you were right for me

Well how could I be so naive

Now we're broken    

Forget me not                                                         Relationship is broken.

I'm falling down and I can't stop

Let's go down to the apple tree

Naive as Adam and Eve                                         Girl metaphorically describes herself as the couple

Oh oh oh, oh oh oh                                                Adam & Eve, too naive to see her boyfriend cheat.

Let's go down to the apple tree

Fighting against gravity

Oh oh oh, oh oh oh

Falling too deep                                                    Wants him to fight for her and the relationship.

So can you catch me

Twice, twice I caught you out                                She let it go once, and her boyfriend took a chance     My head was in the clouds                                    and cheated again.

But I woke up and came around

To see, you play your stupid games                      Mind games are played.

Temptation in your way

Cause I went so fast from love to hate

Now I'm broken                                                    Girl is typically heartbroken.

Is this your plan

I'm falling down and I don't understand

Let's go down to the apple tree                          

As naive as Adam and Eve

Oh oh oh, oh oh oh

Et's go down to the apple tree                             Chorus repeated

Fighting against gravity

Oh oh oh, oh oh oh

Falling too deep

So can you catch me

You keep playing, you keep playing                    Mind games are continued through for e.g Jealousy.

I keep praying, I keep praying

That we could have been us

You keep playing, you keep playing

I keep saying, I keep saying

That it should have been us

So let's go down to the apple tree

As naive as Adam and Eve

Oh oh oh, oh oh oh                                              Chrous repeated

Let's go down to the apple tree

Fighting against gravity

Oh oh oh, oh oh oh

Falling too deep, can you catch me                                              She fell too deep in love with her

Falling too deep, mmmm, can you catch me                                boyfriend and lost independence.

Falling too deep, can you catch me, can you catch me               

Falling too deep

-What are the hidden meanings of your song?

-how have the group lyric annotations, assist you with planning the micro elements, style, target audience and conventions of your chosen song?

-include your annotations

The song itself is very simple and straight forward, straight away in the first paragraph the audience are aware that the lyrics are about a relationship between two young adults, that unfortunately didn't work out as true colours were shone. The relationship is broken up with the male character cheating on the female, not only once but twice due to getting away with it the first time. Metaphorically, she compares herself to Adam & Eve as she considered they had a natural and strong relationship which drew them together. She describes how she is now heartbroken but yet still willing to forgive offering him the chance to pick her back up again openhearted, despite any consequences. 

The lyric annotations completed by my group and i have assisted us with planning micro-elements of our chosen song, that are conventional to our chosen genre:

Mise-en-scene

• Clothing - we have chosen a style of clothing with black elements of clothing to rebel slightly against indie conventions. This shows the audience that the couple are very similar and share a match in personality. This may also in fact create connects with the audience as they can relate.
• Location- We have selected a variety of locations in which we will film, such as Brick lane, Camden, Drew's house, a forest and a block of flats. Locations such as the forest, where the performance is filmed is very conventional to the indie genre, however the others help more in terms of the storyline of their relationship.
• Positioning of Characters - Georgia, the artist, as well as girlfriend to character, Drew in the music video is positioned in the middle of the camera in the forest. She is seen to be playing guitar within the performance, which highlights the indie codes and conventions and portrays her down to earth personality and passion for music. 
• Lighting/Colour - During the performance section of the video high key lighting will be used to connote a positive atmosphere, maybe one that is letting go of all the bad, which may suggest letting go of her relationship for good. This also creates an understanding for the audience of the differentiation between performance and narrative. In some areas of the video the use of natural and high key lighting will be used in the narrative so theres clarity between narative and performance as some are filmed in low key lighting. 
• Iconography - A guitar will be used in the performance section to meet the audiences expectations, as it is a typical feature portrayed within indie genre music videos that is extremely conventional. This is to purely highlight their instrumental talent, along side their singing and to give off that sense of purity. 

Research Into Chosen Artist

R E S E A R C H   I N T O   C H O S E N    A R T I S T : N I N A  N E S B I T T 

Objective: to be able to research into your chosen music artist

Outcomes:
All: will be able to research into their chosen music artist and describe the conventions (Grade E)
Most: will be able to research into the artist and explain the representation through examples and terminology (Grade C)
Some: will be able to discuss how the micro elements represents an artist through excellent examples and ter
minology (Grade A)

Our chosen artist Nina Nesbitt. This artist interests me on a personal level, being a fan of her music and the indie genre as well as from a director and produces perspective, to re brand the artist in a more edgier light as well as taking on one of her songs and changing the low budget video it comes with into something more Grundgey and iconic. Nina appears diverse, appealing to both a pop and indie music genre, in the music industry this is a plus point as it means she doesn't limit herself to just one target audience. She inspired us to create a music video based on her style, and her low budget video previously mentioned that accompanies the song means that our young target audience wont have preconceptions about our video and compare the song heavily to an artist, as the artists video isn't as memorable. In addiction to this most people also wouldn't have heard of her, as she is yet to be widely recognized which for us means we have pretty much a clean slate for re branding and building on the artist of the song which we will create.

Nina Nesbitt is a 19 year old music artist from Scotland who over the past 3 years has grown in popularity and is now producing music for a wide mainstream audience. Starting off as a purely indie acoustic artist she still represents the typical styles and has conventions of the indie genre yet her growth in popularity has allowed her to break into the mainstream charts and produce more high budget pop tracks that ultimately make her more successful in the pop world. Her growth in popularity comes after she previously dated Ed Sheeran, ( a fellow indie/pop artist who is globally successful now) now Nina regularly tours the UK selling our shows and even playing at large mainstream festivals such as 'V fest' which she played at in 2013. Nina Nesbitt is signed to Universal Music Group which is one of the biggest in America has  has a range of subsidiary companies in European cities one being Paris. Nina Nesbitt is best known for her hit single 'Stay Out' which reached no. 21 in the UK charts. she has released a variety of EP's: 'the apple tree' this was out in 2012 and features my groups chosen song 'The Apple Tree' which reached No. 6 on the itunes downloads charts after being played on BBC radio 1. 'The Way Of The World EP' remains Nina's most popular EP that has propelled her onto the mainstream music scene, and this most recent of her EPs success in the charts indicates that Nina is getting more and more successful and is now an up and coming star in the music industry selling over 10,000 copies of her most recent EP which shows her appealing to a young audience.

Music Video Analysis

The first video I looked at was Nina Nesbitt's 2012 hit single boy. This song comes when Nina was really just starting to appeal to the mainstream music industry, and the song began to get people talking about Nina after being played on mainstream radio stations such as BBC radio 1 which gave Nina publicity and inspired a wider audience to go and buy her 'Boy EP', as well as tickets to go onto her 2012 Boy - the uk tour to see Nina live.

The music video is basically about Nina's breakup and shows her being rebellious and gutsy about her and former boyfriend not being together. This fits in with Dyers theory as she is being an iconic young woman who doesn't need a relationship or a man to make her happy, this therefore inspires her target audience which is mainly younger 14-22 year olds (females) to be strong and individual and don't cry over men because they don't need a relationship to be happy. The branding of the artist in this way again makes her more successful as an artist and she is marketing herself as iconic and a strong individual which makes the audience relate to her as she is represented as an ordinary teenage girl who her target audience can look up to and idolize. The fade jump cut is frequently used within this video to portray the quick fast paced life of a teenage girl, and the memories are represented with clever adaptations of the fade shot, and the editing of the popcorn appearing on her book show that the memories are fresh in the artists head and she is thinking about her ex boyfriend.

Nina picks up letters, as the lyric 'pick it up' plays.

Goodwin's theory is also used in this video as there is a relationship between the lyrics and the video, with the lyrics 'pick it up, pick it up' being played when Nina goes to pick up a letter from her ex boyfriend. Her apprehension to pick it up shows that he meant a lot to her again showing that she and him had a good relationship yet it is now over, she later beings to tear apart loads of letters showing that she is over him and she doesn't care what he has to say to her. This shows her to be an iconic and rebellious teenager which according to

Dyers theory sells her more to the audience and inspires her target audience to want to be like that therefore making her more of a success in the music world. The artist is further represented as an ordinary teenager, when the fade shot shows popcorn appearing which highlights the memory of the artist and her boyfriend having a food fight with the popcorn. This is typical foolish and fun behavior expected from a young couple, which the audience can relate to as they have most likely done something similar with there partner. Low key lighting is also used to highlight the memory which shows the artist in a happier light, compared to the moody tone set in the present day with the high key and ordinary atmosphere she finds herself in, which shows that she has woken up from being in love and is now faced with the reality of the situation.

The clothing of the artist is ordinary yet typical of an indie artist, This is overall the style of the music video as the diverse iconography in the background give the room a bohemian feel and the fact she wears a over sized red jumper shows she is both stylish and likes to dress different from the mainstream, making the music video very indie with a fun poppy feel. This inspires her target audience to also dress differently and to stand out from the crowd. The video is mainly performance based with Nina throwing letters into a massive pile which ultimately shows she is over her boyfriend and doesn't care about him anymore. This fits in with Goodwin's theory yet again as the symbolic nature of this pile of paper shows that her boyfriend wants her back because she is irresistible which makes her more of a success to the target audience who will admire her attitude and want to be more like her.

The next music video I analyzed was the Nina's biggest and most successful song to date 'stay out' the video takes place in Nina's home capital edinburgh. There she lives the typical student/teenage lifestyle and goes out late with her friends at university. This relates to dyers theory, firstly because she appears ordinary and doing ordinary activities and secondly because the fact she's going out late and having fun is typical for a young person and her young target audience can relate to this as her having fun with her friends is what her target audience is aiming to do. Fade shot at the beginning  of the video, and the words 'Nina Nessbitt' edited over the top establish her as the artist, with the shot allowing the audience to see she is a normal nice girl who just wants to play her song and sing. This will ultimately make her appeal to the target audience as they are able to look up to her and wish to buy her music because she comes across as a lovely person and artist.

  The fact Nina is playing the guitar is typical of the music genre indie which is who she is trying to appeal too. she looks iconic and independent overall appealing to the audience. Goodwins theory is used throughout the video as the lyrics relate to the visual when she is 'staying out' all night long. Nina also mildly flirts innocently with a few guys in the video, which uses Dyers theory of a stay as women artist use there sexuality to manipulate men. This shows the target audience what its like to go out and have fun as a teenager. We can tell Nina is a young artist also by the fact that her and her close friends get on public transport which is commonly associated with young people and indicates that Nina and her friends may be drinking. Nina also plays her guitar on the bus which shows she is having fun wherever she is going and again shows that she is appealing to the indie genre as she is playing her own instruments. Also this appeals to the audience who will be able to relate to the lifestyle nina is trying to portray with students having little money therefore frequently using busses.

Nina on public transport having fun

Another notable part of the video is throughout the jump cut is commonly used. This is because it gives the audience the impression of the fast paced nature of Nina's night out, and how having fun with friends is enjoyable and fast paced which relates to the mood of the song. This makes Nina more successful as an artist as she shows the audience how having fun is easy achievable without money and inspires the people listening to the music to go out and have fun giving the song a fun vibe and the audience therefore associate this vibe with the song
and going out.

The mise-en-scene effects the video, as the high key lighting shows the audience the happy expressions on her friends faces, with the positioning of the characters close together combined with the editing to show a 'selfie' is common for young people. This is building even more of a relationship with the audience is Nina is doing activities which her target audience understand and do themselves. The clothing is dark and tight, which is typical for a cool pop artist again making Nina's song appeal to a variety of indie pop genres which will boost her record sales and make her more of a successful artist. The style of the music video is very indie pop, as she plays her own guitar and wears dark clothes yet also looks stylish and does typical activities that appeal to a young pop audience such as having fun in a group of girls and going out on buses. Nina is marketed in this way because she can then appeal to more then one genre and get more record sales and have more of a fan base.

Nina poses with her friends

In summary our research of both music videos gave us a better understand of the target audience and how the creating of a music video directly relates them. Using aspects such as going out late, and appearing rebellious and iconic will make our music video successful as it will appeal to the audience and make them want to buy the single and watch our video. This research also gave us a better understanding of how our chosen artist relates to her genre, and inspired us to incorporate elements such as the use of instruments and her stylish clothing which will make our artist edgey and inspire our target audience of 13-22 year olds to dress like her.

Evaluation

The findings from our research gave us a greater understanding of what our target audience want and expect to see within a music video. Our case study and questionnaires were given to a wide range of people aged between 12 to 40 years old and highlighted popular elements within a music video. Our results were shown to us through our pie charts and our one on one interviews allowed us to see unprepared reactions to our chosen artist and elements we want to include within our video such as a narrative based video with elements of performance. The answers we received were interesting and gave us a lot to think about.Our research has assisted us in our planning and has shown us the popular elements that are liked by our target audience of younger 13-25 year olds. We will now consider including a more performance within our video and how our target audience wish the artist to be represented as the majority of people we questioned preferred this along side a narrative.

The purpose of a target audience is having a clear group of people in which to target a specific publication, video or advertisement at. In the music industry a target audience is important as it allows us to narrow down the type of people we want to enjoy our music video.  Our research into the music industry allowed us to understand that to target a music video to a specific age group effects the success and profit of the video. For example, younger people are generally more interested in music and are more likely to be engaging with music videos, therefore as an artist targeting this age group with a interesting, impressive video will earn them and there record label more money as the target audience will want to buy the song based on the quality of video that the artist produces. We carried out primary research with our questionnaires, in order to find what the people of today want to see in the music video and what makes a video enjoyable. Our video interview research gave us a further insight into this as the people questioned were able to give us there own ideas and elaborate from just black and white questionnaires. Our vox pops were a success as the questions and answers received in this way were more detailed and being in close contact with these people allowed us to meet our target audience face to face and get a better feel of who we want to successfully appeal too.

We asked 40 people in total aged between 12 and 40. A wide diverse cross section gave our results more diversity and allowed us to compare what younger and more mature audiences expect to see in music videos. A large proportion of people wished to see the artist within the video being reckless. This was interesting and typical of a younger group of people who wish videos to be exciting and stimulating to watch. We will take this on board and try to incorporate a reckless element to our artist without making the video explicit which would limit our audience and make our video less successful.
The majority of the people interviewed were aged between 12 and 19 this target audience wanted the artist to be iconic so we will listen to their opinions the most in order to make our music appealing to a younger audience. A question we also asked in our questionnaire is whether people preferred upbeat or slow elements in music videos. The vast majority liked the idea of an upbeat music video. despite out chosen song being quite mellow and slow we have decided to make the video upbeat and have strong elements of a pop video style, but with diverse iconography that is a common feature in indie music videos. The final question we received that made us think about our music video, was have you heard of Nina Nesbitt? the modal answer of this was no. Rather than discouraging us from using Nina as our chosen artist, it actually made us want to use her more as the audience wont have preconceptions of her therefor allowing us to display our artist as different and non simply a copy that the audience already recognise making our video more of a success.

Subculture in the music industry is defined by a group of people who unite against a common value system. These people are positioned outside the mainstream with traditional or neophyte (new ideas) that they build onto an exsisting genre. There is also a tribal/gang rivalry as well as contrasting elements such as attitudes to capitalism and consumerism, links to values and conformity and rebellionWhen studying subculture we came across three different ideas from numerous media theorists. The first one was a man named McCraken who stated that music genres are diverse, creative and dynamic. The post modern world is filled with diversity and music videos dipict dynamic creativity. If we look at the array of values and idealogies we cant say that all sub cultures come from one culture therefore new sub cultures are constantly being created. CCSS ignores Cracken and states that all subcultures come from the mainstream because people want to rebel against it. Pop is the mainstream, therefore people rebel and listen to other Genres. Hebdige came to the conclusion that all subcultures only appear to be different, yet orignate from the same subculture that changes slightly.

Our music video fits in mainly with CCSS's views of music video, as it will feature strong elements of the pop genre yet with indie and alternative twists. The upbeat narrative being typical of a pop video but with iconic iconography which is typical of an indie music video. CCSS, also fits in with our music video ideas as people will listen to our music video and be exposed to a new music genre therefor rebelling against conformist pop and making our music video a success.

Vox Pops

Our final part of our target audience research was to interview a small cross section of people around the school, of varying ages. We asked questions regarding music videos and wanted to know what they enjoyed seeing and how they wished the artist to come across. We used this part of our research to assisted us in choosing a music genre and to include elements that would be popular, making our video more of a success.




Our interviews we conducted went very well and allowed us to see exactly what people wanted from a music video and elements they enjoyed. It also allowed us to question people about our chosen artist Nina Nesbitt and wether people had heard of her. some did and the feedback we got on screen was positive. We will take into consideration our research when planning our music video, and elements we've found to be popular will be included which will make our finished video more popular.

Pie charts

The creation of our pie charts was essentially to display our results and give us a quick and easy way in which to show our results collected from our questionnaire.

 

Questionnaires

An important tool for marketing any music video is questionnaires. These assist the creators and gives them a direct insight into what the general public typically expect to find and enjoy within a music video and how the targeted audience of a song wish there artist to be represented. Questionaries give the directors of music videos an insight into there target audience enjoy. To gather information regarding our target audience we spoke to 40 people aged between 12-40 about there favourite aspects of music videos and gathered their results.

This is a sample of our questionnaire:

We decided to interview 40 people as we believed this would gives us a good indication of our target audience. We asked questions that would gives us a better insight into the video we want to produce and how we should market our video according to what people enjoy seeing. We displayed our results on pie charts so we could easily see the results which gave us a visual aid in deciding what the majority of people wanted.

Research into Goodwins Theory

Goodwin’s Theory

Music theory is an important aspect to analyze because of audience. By looking at and analyzing the theory of music video’s and the elements included in these theories the viewer can funny understand how the video appeals to the audience and why the videos include particular elements.
Andrew Goodwin writing in ‘Dancing in the Distraction Factory’ (Routledge 1992) There are seven characteristics included in this theory.

1. Music videos demonstrate genre characteristics (e.g stage performance in metal video, dance routine for boy/girl band)

2. There is a relationship between music + visuals (either illustrative, amplifying, contradicting)

3. Relationship between lyrics + visuals

4. The demands of the record label will include the need for lots of close ups of the artist and the artist may develop motifs may develop motifs which recur across their work (a visual style)

5. There is frequently reference to notion of looking (screens, telescopes, etc) and particularly voyeuristic treatment of the female body

6. There is often intersexual reference (to films, tv programmes, other music videos etc)

7. Whether the video is primarily performance based, narrative based or concept based and hoe elements of each is used in it.

Analyzing music videos are vitally important as it allows us as the audience to break down the conventions that are expected to be seen within any  music video. Looking within a music video, you would typically expect to find dancing, singing or instrument being played, depending on what type of genre the music video comes under. The theory I shall be exploring during this Essay Is Goodwin's theory, and the seven characteristics he expects to find within a music video. For this I looked at the music video 'WILD' by British artist Jessie J. this video is very conventional of the pop music genre and has the seven characteristics that are featured in Goodwin's theory.

The first point he expects to see is how the music video demonstrates genre characteristics. Within this music video Jessie J uses a semi routine. As she repeats the same dance moves over, but she effectively hides this to appear as if she is dancing along to the song. The fact she is dancing is conventional to the dance music genre which widens her target audience and makes the song appeal to more people in clubs and bars which would now wish to play her track.

Secondly, the element used would be the relationship between the music and visuals. This is evident as Jessie J dancing to the beat throughout the music video. It shows that the song has a beat that can be danced to. This would then appeal to the target audience as the age group she is targeting would want to listen and buy that song. The purpose would be too sell more albums and songs to make more profit.

The third characteristic that Goodwin expects to see covered with a music video is the relationship between lyrics and visuals. This was evident when she sings “is this a dream or am I alive” where she touches her head and moves her body around showing that she has woken herself up and that her 'crazy' lifestyle is in fact a reality.  The way in which she walks on set also shows her to be owning the stage therefor making her the key character in the song and also an ordinary yet extraordinary idol as the set is visible yet she appears as an attractive superstar.This appeals to an audience who see Jessie to be completely honest with them, yet still shows her to be attractive and talented as the set looks like a fashion modeling set in which she appears flawless as if on a magazine. This relates to the audience is females would look at her and wish to be her.

The next element is the demand of a label to make the artist a label. The producers have done this within Jessie J’s video as they have close ups on her to show her facial expressions, and her iconic edgy hairstyle. The record label has also used a colabration with two major artists one being dizie rascal. The purpose of this is again to widen the audience therefore attracting Dizzee rascal fans. Jessie J appears iconic wearing all black which contrasts with the high key white lighting this makes her stand out as an artist which for the record label is ideal as it makes her more of a success and inspires the target audience who would want to be like her. This would then promote the fashion therefore making her a fashion icon and label. The target audience would want to wear her clothes and copy her style.

The fifth point that Goodwin thinks is a common feature is the frequent reference to nation of looking and particular voyenuristic between the female bodies. It is evident in the music video from the long shot when her whole body is shown that Jessie is wearing minimal provocative clothing. This shows off her assets and her amazing figure. The purpose of this is to sell the artist as a sexy young attractive female not only to gain male attention but also to become an idol for women who would want to be like her. This basically makes the target audience much lager therefore her song becomes more successful and she is able to sell more albums. T

The sixth element needed is the often intertexual reference to films, mags and TV programmes. This is evident when  Jessie comes out in an all black leotard and iconically big earrings therefor selling the clothes to her audience who would want to go out and buy similar clothing to be like her. This also opens doors for the artist as she can start new trends therefor making more money and being more of a success.

The final element of Goodwins theory is looking at whether the video is primarily narrative or performance based. This video Wild is 99% performance based meaning there is nearly no narrative whatsoever. The purpose of this is to advertise purely the song and to promote the artist in an iconic and surreal setting.This is conventional of pop videos as the artist is made into an icon and therefore videos such as this make Jessie J more successful.

Looking at this theory has greatly enhanced my knowledge of music videos and allowed me to break down the conventions of music videos with ease. This theory will help me further when creating my own music videos and guide myself and my group on what to include that will make our video a success.