The genre for this particular music video is pop. When watching this music video, you are expecting the woman to stay at home whilst the male goes out with his friends and that there a lot of shots of the artist throughout the video. however, what is not expected within the music video would be fact that the male ended up having a one night stand with someone he met at the bar. There is an intertextual reference present in the song Writings on the wall by Plan B because it shares a line from the song Superstitions by Stevie Wonder.
Narrative
The theme running all the way through the music video is the theme of love and trust. The woman shows a lot of trust in the male when he goes out. The whole music video is set in the 60s-70s. It is about a relationship that is slowly falling apart. The woman stays at home to prepare and cook the dinner for her and her partner however, the male stays out later and goes to have some drinks with his friends. As a result at the end on the night he has a one night stand with a girl that he met at the bar. The two main people in this music video are the male artist who is playing a fictional character (Strickland Banks) and his partner the female protagonist. The lyrics suggest that the relationship that the two people are in is slowly falling apart. At the end of the music video there is a shot of a male artist and the female antagonist kissing in the elevator at this point in the song that lyrics being sung are "This time next year, we'll be no more" connoting that he doesn't think the relationship will last another year.
Representation
The music video is very stereotypical of gender, this is shown through the fact that the female stayed at home to cook the dinner for the two of them whilst the male was out singing/working to provide money for the both of them. The fact that he's shown as a celebrity connotes that overall he has more power as well. The artist himself plays a fictional character called Strickland Banks. This character is a well know celebrity in the music video and therefore he doesn't play an anonymous role because the character is incredibly well know, and is the centre of attention in most of the shot.
Visual Codes
The music video is set in three different locations: A night club, A kitchen and a hotel. Nothing in this music video screams modern, it is all set in the 60s/70s era this is obvious by the decorations around the house and the old fashioned telephone. The woman is surrounded by pure white walls in a lot of the shots connoting innocents. However, the male is dressed in very dark clothing connoting that the male could be very sinister/ disloyal. There is low key lighting in the night club where the male is drinking with his friends connoting that something suspicious is going to happen. Whereas the house where the female is cooking the dinner is very bright and colourful, connoting happiness and contentment. At the beginning of the music video there is a written typography covering the majority of the screen. The banner had the characters name written in big letters with the words sold out underneath it connoting that the character is very popular artist. There were a few different shot compositions that stood out to me, there was an extreme close up of the meal that the female was cooking connoting that this meal was important, it could suggest that this was the couples last chance to patch things up within their relationship. There was also a low angle shot of the main character Strickland Banks connoting that he has the power in the situation.
Technical codes
There was a close up of a saucepan in the kitchen where the female was cooking. The liquid with in the saucepan was beginning to bubble/rise, this has connotations of the love they have for each other bubbling over. Later on in the music video there is a long shot of the pan again just as the pan burns her, suggesting that the pan is symbolic of her relationship. This connotes that she is being hurt by her relationship with the male character. There are a lot of point of view shots suggesting that the male is moving around and we as the viewer get to see the evening from his perspective. Throughout the music video there are a lot of fast cuts between the different shot types this encourages the pace of the music video and helps it to stay consistent.
Audience
The target audience for this music video would be around teens to early 20s (young adult). It is obvious that this is the target audience because the actors/actresses within the actual music video are young adults and the majority of the video is shot in a young club, also the younger people may be able to relate to the narrative of the video because nowadays it is more common for young adults/teens to cheat on there partner. The music video is aimed at the demographic groups D (blue collar workers) and E (Students).
Institutions
the record company doesn't play a role within the music video, and Plan B played a character that sung his music so therefor he's promoting his album through the music video because the character shares his name with the album title (Strickland Banks)
Analyzing professional music videos will allow me to familiarize myself with the quality of their music videos and I will begins to see similarities between different music videos. It will also help influence what I chose to do for my own music video.
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