Mood Board for 'Erick Baker- When Will I Be Loved'

In this mood board I started with a gray background, I used this because I believe it represents the unhappiness in the song. I have used four words in my mood board 'Nobody', 'Hurt', 'Loneliness' and 'Heartache'. These are the feelings that I think the main character in the song will be sensitive to and it is what reflects on the audience when hearing the song. I have included a picture of a checkered shirt because this is the sort of mise en scene you would find in a traditional video from this genera. I have also incorporated a picture of a guitar because it is the main instrument used in the song. I have a few pictures of city areas because these are occasionally used in the setting of video's from the alternative rock genera, however I have also included a picture of a quiet rural area because this can also be associated with videos from an alternative rock genera. A lot of pictures also reflect the feeling of loneliness which is the main thing that is portrayed to the audience.

Lyrics Analysis

Lyrics

My crown of roses
Is filled with thorns
And the sleeve where my heart is
Is old and worn
I guess the time of my life
Is running late
And I don't know how much longer
I can wait

For your phone calls, four walls, at night fall in your bed
So my bruised ears will not hear this one clear thought in my head
When will I be loved

The older I get
The younger I want to be
Why do I fall
So Easily

For your phone calls, four walls, at night fall in your bed
Now my bruised ears can just hear this one clear thought in my head
When will I be loved
When will I be loved

Let's dance in the dust
Of another one of our days
I hope that tomorrow
I will find a way
I'll find a way

To your phone calls, four walls, at night fall in your bed
Now my bruised ears can just hear this one clear thought in my head
When will I be loved


Lyrics Analysis

My crown of roses,
Is filled with thorns
And the sleeve where my heart is
Is old and worn
I guess the time of my life
Is running late
And I don't know how much longer
I can wait


Lines 1, 3 and 5 are all describing something nice and this is contradicted by lines 2, 4 and 6 which describe how they are bad. Lines 1 and 2 are saying that something good that he used to have, the crown of roses, is no good any more because it is filled with thorns. Lines 3 and 4 could be suggesting that the love he used to have or the relationship he used to have is no longer, it is old and worn. Lines 5 and 6 are saying that the time of his life when he is happy in a relationship has not come yet and it will soon be too late, lines 7 and 8 are saying he doesn't know how much longer he can wait to meet a partner and be happy.

For your phone calls, four walls, at night fall in your bed

So my bruised ears will not hear this one clear thought in my head
When will I be loved

Carrying on from the verse before he doesn't know how much longer he can wait for his dream girlfriends phone calls, to move in with her and to be in her bed at night. Then lines 2 and 3 of this verse are just saying how he has this reoccurring thought in his head asking himself when he will be loved, he doesn't want to ask himself this any more, he just wants to know the answer.


The older I get

The younger I want to be
Why do I fall
So Easily

The older he gets the younger he wants to be because as he gets older, he is running out of time to find his dream girlfriend. Him asking himself why he falls for people so easily suggests he has not had a very good love life so far and he falls for people that break his heart and let him down.

For your phone calls, four walls, at night fall in your bed

Now my bruised ears can just hear this one clear thought in my head
When will I be loved
When will I be loved

This is the chorus again but he is now relating it to previous relationships. In the first line this time he is asking himself why he has fallen so easily in previous relationships for their "phone calls, four walls, at night fall in your bed". Lines 2 and 3 are now saying that all he can hear now in his head is him asking himself when he is going to be loved, he is blaming this on his previous relationships, he got heartbroken from them and now he doesn't know when he will be loved again. The extra "When will I be loved" really shows how much this means to him and how it is on his mind all of the time.

Let's dance in the dust

Of another one of our days
I hope that tomorrow
I will find a way
I'll find a way

There is a change in tempo of the song for this verse, the tempo raises and where the song up to this point has reflected unhappiness in the artist, it is now showing a glimpse hope of hope and belief in the artist. This hope is shown in the lyrics where he is saying he will find a way, he then repeats the line to assure himself.

To your phone calls, four walls, at night fall in your bed
Now my bruised ears can just hear this one clear thought in my head
When will I be loved

The tempo then drops again to close the song, the chorus is repeated but the hope is till there. In the first chorus he was aiming it on his next relationship in a negative way, then the second chorus he was aiming it at previous relationships in a negative way, and in the last chorus he is aiming it at the next relationship in a positive way, positive that he will find a way to make it work. 

The Song 'Erick Baker- When Will I Be Loved'

The song we have chosen to make a video for comes from an unsigned solo singer from an acoustic/folk genera Erick Baker. We found the artist on the website www.unsigned.com and were attracted to his genera and style of song. He sings the same sort of genera of music as James Morrison or Adele. Erick Baker had 3 songs on the website that we listened to and eventually we decided on his track 'When Will I Be Loved'. We chose this song because we thought the lyrics told more of a story than the other two songs did. The story of the song was about somebody heartbroken and throughout our research this is what we had learnt most about so we had a lot of ideas that we thought we could make a good video for this song.

Auteur Theory

I am going to analyse one director through a number of his videos that he has shot to see what different techniques he uses in all of his videos. The director that I am going to analyse is Robert Hales, he is a music video director and graphic designer from the UK. He has directed music videos by artists such as Jet, The Veronicas, Fuel, Stereophonics, The Donnas, Justin Timberlake, Nine Inch Nails, Miley Cyrus, Gnarls Barkley and Crowded House.

There are a few similarities between the videos that the director likes to use. Firstly, we can see that Hales likes to use a black and white effect on his videos. Janet Jackson, The Jonas Brothers and N.E.R.D all have the black and white themes throughout. Another similarity is between the video of The Jonas Brothers and N.E.R.D. These two videos follow the theme of a performance at a gig. It looks like footage from one of their concerts has been put together to create their videos. Hales also likes using special effects, green screening and camera trickery, he uses these in the video of Gnarls Barkley, Justin Timberlake, Janet Jackson and N.E.R.D.
These are just a few links to show how 1 director likes to use different effects through the different videos he directs.

Goodwin's Theory of Analysis

Andrew Goodwin in his book on the rise of MTV, 'Dancing in the Distraction Factory' (1992), identifies a number of key features which distinguish music video as a form:

• Relationship between the lyrics and the visuals (with the visuals either illustrating, amplifying or contradicting the lyrics).
• Relationship between the music and the visuals (with the visuals either illustrating, amplifying or contradicting the music).
• Particular genres having their own music video style (such as live stage performance in heavy rock).
• There is a demand on the pert of the record company for lots of close ups of the main artist/vocalist.
• Iconography developed by the artist that might become part of their image.
• Reference to voyeurism, particularly in the treatment of women, but also in systems of looking.  
• Inter-textual references.

When analysing music videos for research, I have made sure I have considered Goodwin's 7 points in my analysis. This has helped me to understand the video better and understand why the director shot the video the way he did, with the mise-en-scene used, camera angles used, links to the lyrics, music and visuals used. I have used Goodwin's theory in the video analysis' below.

Textual Analysis and Star Analysis of Adele

Star Analysis of 'Adele'

Adele was born to a single mum in Tottenham in 1988. Adele started singing at the age of 4 and claims that the Spice Girls were a major influence to her music career and they gave her the love and passion for music. At the age of 11, Adele and her mother moved to West Norwood in South London. West Norwood is the subject for Adele's first record, "Hometown Glory", written when she was 16. After moving to South London, she became interested in R&B artists such as Aaliyah, Destiny's Child and Mary J. Blige. Adele graduated from The BRIT School for Performing Arts & Technology in Croydon in May 2006. She recorded a 3 track demo for a class project and gave it to her friend who posted it on Myspace, It was very successful and this lead to her being contacted by XL Recordings. She didn't know if they were genuine because the only record label she had heard of was Virgin Records. Adele eventually got signed by XL Recordings in September 2006. Her breakthrough song "Hometown Glory" was released in October 2007.She became the first recipient of the BRIT AwardsCritics' Choice and was named the number-one predicted breakthrough act of 2008 in an annual BBC poll of music critics, Sound of 2008.

Adele released her debut album '19' in January 2008, it entered the chart at the top spot. She named the album after the age she was when she was recording the album. It didn't stay at the top spot for long but after an appearance on 'Saturday Night Live' the album topped the iTunes charts. At the Grammy Awards in 2009, Adele won awards in the categories of Best New Artist and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance. She was also nominated in the categories of Record of the Year and Song of the Year. Adele was also nominated for three Brit Awards in the categories of Best British Female, Best British Single and Best British Breakthrough Act. In 2010, Adele received a Grammy nomination for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance for 'Hometown Glory'.

Album Cover of Adele's debut album '19'.

Adele released her second studio album '21' on 24 January 2011. '21' made number 1 in 18 countries, including the United States. Up until June 2011, Adele had sold 2.5 million copies and 992,000 digital copies of 21 in the United States, making it the best-selling album in both categories in the first half of 2011. The album also hit number 1 in the UK album chart selling 208,000 copies in its first week making it the highest selling January release in the past five years. The album spent 11 consecutive weeks before being knocked off the top spot by 'The Foo Fighters- Wasting Light'. However a week later, the album regained the top spot and stayed there for a further 5 weeks. In July a single off of '21' called 'Someone Like You' set a record having become the first song to sell over a million copies in the UK this decade. In September the album sold over 3 million units and Adele became the first artist in the UK music history to hit 3 million sales of an album in one calender year.

Album Cover of Adele's second album '21'

Textual Analysis of 'Adele- Chasing Pavements'

The video that I am analysing is 'Adele- Chasing Pavements'. This is a single off of her debut album '19'. The video is directed by Matthew Cullen and set in Hyde Park in London. The song belongs to a Soul/Blues/Pop genera. The characteristics of these genera's that this video has is that it is set outside. Also the clothes worn by the characters add to the characteristics of the genera.

A re-occurring link between the lyrics and visuals are where the lyrics say 'Should I give up or should I just keep chasing pavements'. These lyrics happen in the chorus of the song so they come up a total of 6 times during the duration of the song. Most of the video is set around a strip of pavement that has the two casualties from a car accident on, every time the chorus is played and the lyrics are sung the shot cuts to a birds-eye view of the couple laid on the pavement who then perform a laying down dance routine. 

Most of the song has a very slow tempo with very little background music behind the voice, this is represented on screen with the visuals being slow tempo. Movement in the shots and cutting between camera shots are slow to go along with the pace of the music. However, the tempo of the music, amount of background music and volume of the music all increase for the chorus, this is represented in the visuals with the birds eye view of a dance routine being performed by the couple laid on the pavement, this shows an increase in tempo because there only slow movements for most of the video with no performance aspects but when the music increases for the chorus the performance aspect is introduced with the dancing.   

Throughout the video, there are often close ups shots when the artist singing along to the track. She does not do this for the whole video, only parts. At the 0.11 in the video is where the singing starts, this is where the first close up is shown. The close up here shows the seriousness of the lyrics and grabs the attention of the audience as soon as the music starts. You could say that the record company may be using close ups as a way of selling the track, to sexualise the artist. A lot of Adele's songs are about her being heartbroken and looking for love, this is the image of the artist that is being offered.

The artist could be believed to be on sexual display in this video due to the close ups and the amount of time the artist is on screen. For people who find the artist attractive, the use of a lot of close ups will help sell the music. However, the artist is not wearing very revealing clothing and there is not any dancing or anything else which would suggest that the artist is being sexualised. The video is based on a car crash and for a lot of the video the artist is looking at the casualties of the car crash and just watching what is happening to them. It is almost like she is narrating on the video and not playing a part in the action that is happening.

This video is partly narrative based and partly concept based, 90% narrative to 10% concept. The narrative based aspect to the video comes from the car crash, There is a couple that crash into a tree and it ends up that they are both laying on a pavement by the tree. When the chorus of the song is played the two laid on the pavement perform a little dance sequence while laying down down, at this point a birds eye view shot is shown so it looks like they are performing a normal dance stood up. They then get help from paramedics once they have gone back to their original state after the chorus is played. The concept part of the video comes from the line 'Should I give up'. The people involved in the car crash are the characters that illustrate this line. every time the line is sung, they go from a state of no movement looking very injured after they have been involved in a car crash, to moving and dancing, not giving up on each other.

To summarise the video, it is a very quiet video which allows the audience to concentrate on the music and lyrics in the song rather than having to concentrate too much on what's happening in the video. It is a simple video that is very easy to understand. The video mainly focuses on the story of the couple that are involved in the car crash, however it also has elements of lip singing in it.

Star Analysis and Textual Analysis of 'James Morrison'

Star Analysis of 'James Morrison'

James Morrison was born in the town of Rugby in 1984. He grew up surrounded by music with his mother a keen listener of soul music and his father a fan of folk and country music. His uncle got him into playing the guitar as a child and he pursued his interest in this throughout his childhood. After years of covering songs by other artists he started to write his own music. He attributes his distinctive voice to a severe bout with whooping cough that nearly killed him when he was a baby. Doctors gave him a 30% chance of survival from this illness, and if he did survive there would be a high chance of being servilely brain damage. There was one time where he went blue and stopped breathing, doctors had to resuscitate him four times. He used to get bullied at school for being so into his music rather than being interested in sport, this all changed when he moved to Cornwall in his teens where people accepted his passion for music and he gained confidence. When he got a bit older is where his musical career started to break through where when working in Derby, he found an Irish bar that had an open mic night on Wednesday and Sunday nights, he met Kev Andrews at one of these nights who later helped produce James' demo tape.

James Morrison released his debut album 'Undiscovered' in July 2006. The album topped the UK album charts within the first week of its release selling over one million copies around the world making him the UK best selling male solo artist on 2006. In 2007 he was nominated for 3 BRIT Awards: Best British Male Solo Artist, Best British Breakthrough Act and Best British Single. He managed to win the Best British Male Solo Artist award. There was a total of 2 top 10 singles from this album.

Album Cover of James Morrison's debut album 'Undiscovered'.

James' second album was released in September 2008. 'Songs for You, Truths for Me' reached number 3 in the UK album chart and managed to stay in the top 10 for a total of 5 weeks. 20 weeks after its first release, the album found its self back in the top 10 at number 4 and then the next week at number 5 again, this helped boost the album up the Irish album chart all the way to the top spot making it his second number 1 album. He worked with a lot of different people in his second album including a duet with the Canadian superstar Nelly Furtado on the track 'Broken Strings'. This song managed to get to number 2 in the UK singles chart and was the highest charting single on the album.


Album Cover for James Morrison's second album 'Songs For You, Truths For Me'.

On September 26th 2011 he released his third studio album, 'The Awakening' it managed to get number 1 in the UK Album Chart.


Album Cover for James Morrison's third album 'The Awakening'.

Textual Analysis on 'James Morrison- Undiscovered'


The video I am analysing is 'Undiscovered' by the pop rock artist 'James Morrison'. The song I am analysing is from Morrison's debut album 'Undiscovered'. The genera of the track is pop rock, the only way this genera is really shown in the video is with how James Morrison is dressed.

The video shows quite a few links between the lyrics and the visuals. The first this happens is 0:46 in where the lyrics say 'I just want you to find me' and at this time in the video the star man accidentally bumps into a woman and it is like the woman has found him just like it says in the lyrics. However, the video contradicts these lyrics just after when the woman actually walks off away from the man. Another example is at 2:35 where the lyrics say 'Were all the same as each other', at this time, the video shows the man discovering a little window where his heart is just as everybody else in the video has had, this shows that he is the same as everybody else just as the lyrics are saying. One last example of this at the end of the video at 3:12, this time the lyrics contradict the video, 'I'm not lost, no, just undiscovered'. In the video the man actually gets discovered by the same woman as in the start of the video, the two then walk off together, this shows the contradiction where the lyrics say undiscovered but the video shows him being discovered.

There are not many links between the music and the video. The only one that that was obvious is at 2:50 the music changes slightly where a lot of backing vocals are added for the chorus. The rest of the video has just James Morrison's vocals and this links to the video by there being mainly only the one single man, however where the backing singers start to kick in there is suddenly lots of people all in the video and it is all quite hectic and busy just like the music.

There are a lot of close ups of James in this video which suggests that the record company may be trying to sell the music on the looks of the artist. Women that think James Morrison is good looking would like that this video has lots of close ups of his face. The artist is being presented as heartbroken, it is like he is singing about himself in the song with a character playing his role in the story within the video. He is singing about not being discovered yet by women, saying he needs to find a woman. This may also help towards the selling of the track with women feeling sorry for the artist and buying the record. Most videos by James Morrison involve him doing a lot of singing to the camera, this is a star image motif that is shown across most of the videos.

I get the impression that the artist is on sexual display from this video. There are a lot of close ups of his face during the video which could be seen as a selling point for the artist. However, nothing else but the close ups in the video suggest this, it is not also represented by anything like the costumes, dance routines or anything else.

This is a narrative based video. The story to the video mainly involves the well dressed man and the blonde woman that bump into each other near the beginning of the video. When they bump into each other there is a spark between them but they both walk off in opposite directions, the man thinks he should go back for her so he turns round but because she is walking off he thinks better of it. The man starts to walk off again and walks off screen. However, he re enters the other side of the screen, he soon realises that he can not leave. various other people enter the screen and everybody has a small window on their chest. The man just has an old looking, dirty, broken heart in his window. There are lots of other people that are shown such as young couples with bright, gleaming hearts in their windows. He just wants to find love to complete his heart again and at the end of the video this is what happens and he manages to leave the place with the girl that he missed out on at the beginning of the video. I think this is 100% narrative based.

In summary, this is a narrative based video all about a man trying to find love. This is used because a lot of people could relate to the video and it shows the man eventually finding love which gives everybody relating to the video hope that there is someone out there. The video is very effective in the effect it gives to the audience.