Research & Planning

For this year’s A2 Media coursework, we have to create a music video, website homepage and CD cover for a particular artist/group. The artist I have chosen is Kelly Clarkson, a pop/rock/soul singer who found fame on the reality T.V. programme American Idol. I have chosen to use Kelly Clarkson because, although she is targeted as pop, her music and styles vary from song-to-song, album-to-album. Below is the music video for the song “Because of You” released in 2005.

From youtube.com, Posted by kellyclarkson

Kelly Clarkson Because Of You from the album Because Of You
(C) 2005 19 Recordings Limited

“Because of You” is a narrative video, intercut with performance shots where the artist sings to the camera, breaking the fourth wall. The focus of the video is the artist, shown through medium close ups and close ups of her throughout the video. She is rarely not in a shot. Within the narrative, there is continuity editing to create the story. Montage editing is used in the performance shots, which are random and do not need to make sense. These elements, intertwined, make the video surreal. This convention for music videos means they do not entirely need to make sense. As with this video, shots are edited to the pace and beat of the song, with long shots for slow music and short, jump cut shots for fast paced music. The shots range from wide to extreme close up, depending on the action. Close ups and extreme close ups are used mainly to focus on the artist. The lighting reflects the mood and setting of the song, with present day scenes in a dim, underexposed lighting and flashback scenes overexposed to create a dream-like state. Stereotypical representations are created through mise-en-scene as the flashback characters are recognisable as people in a broken, dysfunctional family. The modern family represent a part of the dysfunctional family, but also show love towards each other. These features are seen through figure expression and performance. Other mise-en-scene to show this is costume, the flashback mother in her nightwear and dressing gown, too exhausted to change, and props, the flashback father is portrayed as distant as he fails to look at his daughter’s drawing, instead concentrating on his phone call. There are also special effects used, like slow motion, to build up dramatic tension.

I will draw inspiration from this video as I need to keep within the same conventions as used for this artist. These conventions include, main focus on the artist, the use of narrative and performance styles and editing to the pace of the music.

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