The song researched was Micheal Jackson - the girl is mine and i thought this would be a good song to research because Micheal Jackson is considered the 'king of pop'. The record label that he recorded for were the main ones like Universal and Sony. First of all the title of the song is a typical convention in the fact that its what you would expect a pop song to be called. In previous research i have learnt that pop song are generally about love or life, and so the title is following that trend.
This is one of the first things you see with the music video and it shows the main girl and her friends. You know which one is the main girl through the good use of the camera movement and angle and lighting. The woman in the middle is the one which is the main female character of the video. The camera angle on this part when introducing them always made sure that she was in the middle. In the editing aswell it showed a close up shot of her aswell to let the audience know which one to look at. This was to give the audience a close up of what the woman looked like, this might have been so they know who to watch throughout the video. In terms of the lighting you can notice that she is the one with most of the light on, letting people know that she is the most important. I found this interesting in the fact that even though there is a group of people, through the use of lighting/editing angles you can make it easier for the viewer to spot who is important and who is not. This was used throughout the video. The video was filmed at night, and so in the places where there is no lighting were obviously quite dark, but with the lighting, they lit up what they wanted you to see, but still gave that mysterious romantic feeling.
In terms of the fashion, which is a key convention with pop music, the girls' hair is something that was very popular in those days. So despite being from at least 30 years ago they still follow the same conventions of using the latest fashion in order to attract viewers.
The same can be said for what Michael Jackson is wearing. He will be wearing the latest clothes no matter what the location is because at the time he was seen as being a trend setter. The location of the video was a dark ally way. I think the reason why they used this is because it makes the song seem romantic. Like i said earlier pop songs are usually bout love, and so for him to have found a girl in a dark ally way makes it seem that bit more special. In terms of the lighting, it is behind them, and what this is doing is making them see like shadows, and that makes it seem more romantic in the fact that you just see their bodies.
One thing i noticed was the fact that there was very little lighting, and with what lighting there was, it was always on those two, and it added an effect in a way that made it seem as though it was shadows that were dancing because you couldn't see there face.
Here is an example to show that. It had a happy ending which everyone back then would have been happy about and made them believe that they would find love.
In terms of the camera angles it was very jumpy. The camera usually followed the characters rather than the editing stage where they use a different camera angle every 1-3 seconds. This is something i have noticed with pop videos even in today's age, and so that is something i now come to expect when i'm watching pop songs. A majority of shots though however were medium to close ups. The reason why i think this is because of the fact that there was a lot going on within the video at the same time, and they wanted the audience to see it all go on. The camera was moving constantly trying to show everything going on, and i think the person who made this video thought that using medium to long shots throughout the video like the one above were the easiest way to show this, and the shots which meant you could fit more in, whilst keeping the audiences attention and managing to help them understand what the video is about.
However compared to today's modern pop songs the shots are not as fast paced as you see now. The editing is closely matched towards the pace of the music and the lyrics and i think that is something we will have to look into. This might however though put us off going for a fast paced song, as it would mean we would have to film a number of shots, and then spend a long time editing and putting each shot together.
Overall i think if i hadn't been analysing things like the lighting and the camera shots and mise en scene, then i wouldn't say the video is very good as it didn't particularly make a lot of sense, however if you look deeper into the video then it is actually very good in the way that they make you realise who the main characters, and the fact that you are always following them. I think the use of lighting in this video was very good, and helped build that 'romantic' atmosphere in the video.
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