music video deconstruction: boybands

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Boyband Music Video Deconstruction( s) JLS, “TAKE A CHANCE ON ME” ONE DIRECTION, “KISS YOU” THE VAMPS, “LAST NIGHT”

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Page 1: Music Video Deconstruction: Boybands

Boyband Music Video Deconstruction(s)JLS, “TAKE A CHANCE ON ME”

ONE DIRECTION, “KISS YOU”

THE VAMPS, “LAST NIGHT”

Page 2: Music Video Deconstruction: Boybands

The Music Videos

JLS, “Take A Chance On Me”

www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIzw7BHmkN4

One Direction, “Kiss You”

www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4cdfRohhcg

The Vamps, “Last Night”

www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLyHSOXhZhY

Page 3: Music Video Deconstruction: Boybands

Context

JLS (short for ‘Jack the Lad Swing’) are a boyband that formed through ITVs famous talent show, ‘The X Factor’ after making it through to the final 12 to win. Despite the fact they didn’t win, they were widely renowned for their various top 40 singles (such as, “Take A Chance On Me”). Formed of four members – Aston, JB, Marvin and Oritse – they split up in 2013 after a five year run.

One Direction rose to fame in a similar way but two years after JLS (and are currently still together). Again, they have had many top 40 singles (most of which made number 1 in the charts at some point) and are known worldwide as one of the most popular Boybands of the century. The band is formed of five members: Niall, Zayn, Liam, Harry and Louis.

The Vamps are a more conventional ‘band’ in the sense that they each play an instrument (but all sing parts of their songs in similar ways to the above boybands), and are relatively new to the music scene (forming in 2012) – however they have still had top ten hits both in the UK and USA. Formed of four members – Connor, Tristan, James and Brad – they are still together.

Page 4: Music Video Deconstruction: Boybands

Boyband Conventions

As you’d expect in any modern day pop video (as said in Goodwin’s Theory) the video shows off the artist, as per the record label’s wants. However, in boybands this is more present as they tend to be more fan orientated – meaning, in order to keep the audience interested in the band, they need to give them what they want (which is to see the boys performing).

This would link to the target audience which (for all three bands) is likely to be younger females – i.e. teenagers – because the boys themselves are attractive, and so the record label are using this to their advantage and ensuring that there are a large amount of close ups of them singing and dancing in the music videos.

Page 5: Music Video Deconstruction: Boybands

Goodwin’s Theory

Aspects of Goodwin’s Theory of Music Videos can be found in all three videos; where the lyrics match the visuals (for example, shots of night-time in The Vamps’ video), the music matching the visuals (i.e. fast paced editing that’s in sync with the beat of the song, like in One Direction’s video) and the idea of lots of close ups of the artists (as seen in JLS’s video) to promote them – as per the record label’s requests.

That said, all three videos incorporate all three of these aspects of Goodwin’s theory, thus meaning that they are what the audience would expect to see in every boyband video (because they are a common characteristic of them all).

Page 6: Music Video Deconstruction: Boybands

Goodwin’s TheoryAll three music videos are primarily performance based, apart from ‘Last Night’ which has a basic narrative as well (in the sense that the song talks about the party they had last night, and the music video follows them through the night; thus helping to tell the story of the song).

Adding to this, One Direction’s and The Vamps’ videos show the band having a good time, and joking around with each other. This gives the videos more of a friendly feel to them, which appeals to the target audience because they want to see the band(s) enjoying themselves and having a good time shooting their videos. JLS’s video on the other hand (for “Take A Chance On Me” at least) has a more emotional side to it, as the song has a deeper, more pressing meaning than the other bands. This could be because JLS are more likely to have a slightly older, slightly moremature audience – so the video portrays the band in a different way to the other bands, thus showing how the music video is different depending on the meaning and pace of the songit’s for.

Page 7: Music Video Deconstruction: Boybands

Record Label

As mentioned previously, the Record Label for each of the bands would have ensured that the music videos include a variety of close up shots of each member of the band, as that’s what the target audience would like to see. The Record Label would have realised that the artists themselves are the attraction, and not necessarily the music, as it’s a common theme within modern day society that teenage girls seem to have some form of crush on members of a boyband, meaning that the audience’s wants and needs are met in order for the artist to be successful.

Adding to this, they’d want to ensurethat the artists are up to date with thelatest trends and popular items etc., as seen in The Vamps’ video where one of the band members are wearing apair of ‘Beats’ headphones (which is apopular brand of headphone withinpeople of the target audience, and a form of product placement, which could be a form of promoting that product).

Page 8: Music Video Deconstruction: Boybands

Mise-en-Scene

The Mise-en-Scene seems to be rather similar in some respects for all three videos. As mentioned earlier, The Vamps’ and One Direction’s videos present the band in a more light, fun and informal manner, with the members all joking around. The costumes they use lends to this effect of fun and informity. The atmosphere of these two videos are shown through the bright lighting, vibrant special effects and the striking strobe lighting which all have connotations of people enjoying themselves, and having a good time; thus lending to the party atmosphere. This helps the appeal of the video – and the artists themselves – to the target audience, as it’s something they’d be familiar with.

Because the members of JLS are older than those in One Direction and The Vamps, JLS’s video has a more mature and formal feel to it, shown through the darker colours (i.e. the darkness of night-time) as well as the little amount of street lighting in the background, which appeals more to their slightly older target audience.

All three videos however share similar camera shots, such as the rule of thirds for example. In each video, all the members of the video (at some point throughout) have a shot on their own either in the centre of the screen or using the rule of thirds. Using this type of camera shot gives importance to the person in the scene; therefore, because all members of the band are presented in this way, they are all of equal importance.

Page 9: Music Video Deconstruction: Boybands

Production Values

As expected with most boyband videos, the production values are high with a high budget (particularly ‘Last Night’ where the band hired an entire funfair just for the music video, as well as all the instruments, costumes and other props – i.e. the branded headphones one member wore etc.).

However, each video has features which suggest the high production values. For example the JLS video which has the band members wandering around areas of a city which are apparently deserted. This in itself would have cost the record label a considerable amount of money to be able to block off the areas they needed for the video.

These examples of high production values can be seen even more clearly in the ‘Kiss You’ video for One Direction. The video relies heavily a range of different props, costumes, special effects and green screens. This further supports the idea that the production of the video was very costly.