Below I have picked out one of my favourite music video from the previous year and then deconstructed and decoded the music video. I looked into how the star image was represented through the use of mis-en-scene, editing, camera work and narrative.

What went well

• Really good editing with the flashing blue lights near the end of the video, it was very engaging as an audience and fits perfectly with the party music genre and edited well to the beat of the music.
• The video effect of the texts just adds something extra making the video more exciting to watch. It didn’t feel out of place it was executed efficiently.
• The narrative was clear to me and communicated successfully with the mis-en-scene and shots especially the use of the phone prop linked with a close up of the text message.

Any Improvements 

• Couldn’t see the costumes in the studio shoots would of been nice to have a wider range of shots other then just mid-shots and close ups during those scenes.
• The car setting was interesting and engaging but the rest of the shots were quite boring in studio so maybe they could of done a shoot in another cool location or added some props to one of the studio shoots.
• In the bedroom could have cleaned up and got rid of the dirty cups and the video quality was quite grainy in those scenes.

Overall, I really enjoyed this video it was filmed and edited really well the lip syncing and acting was excellent, the editing was very good with the cool effects of the text and flashing which just overall made this video stand out in a positive way. It followed the music video conventions of editing to the beat, having the star lip sync but also broke conventions by having lyrics appear on the screen. It was a mix of performance and narrative with a ratio of 7:3 the narrative was simple and illustrative to the song lyrics. The star has been represented as strong and independent after the breakup which has been communicated through the acting and lyrics of the song. The use of mis-en-scene like the  purple makeup with gems creates this extraordinary star image but also with the bedroom scene it also illustrates this ordinary image with the star being in ordinary comfy clothes (Dyer). The way the video has been edited with the modern text effects and flashing fits with the party music genre nicely representing a cool, trendy star image.

Thinking forward looking at a previous students work is very useful as it has given me an idea of what can realistically be achieved with our schools equipment as only looking at a professional music video would be unrealistic as they usually will have a large budget with top of the art equipment. It’s also interesting to see how they used editing to also represent the star and create a visually engaging video, which will be very useful when thinking about how I want my music video to look.