Digipak Analysis

This is a digipak by the well known pop artist Rihanna, she uses certain colours and text to appeal to her audience of late teens to early 20 year olds. She firstly does this by the text, it looks professional and more mature when in comparison to s teen star like Jessie J, this kind of style of font looks like it could be used at proffessional events this is how she appeals to her later classy teens, which is a different kind of audience for Rihanna as she is known as a "sex" idol. Breaking on to the point of her being a sex idol she does do this through the colour of red in this piece, the colour red is everywhere and this connotes danger as most commonly seen as this kind of connotation so maybe she is trying to promote herself as kind of an antagonist who goes against the rules which links in to her appealing to late teens as rebellion is most commonly linked to teens.

The roses also have a huge connotation to the artist of Rihanna because there is a well known saying whihc goes "every rose has a thorn" this is commonly used when speaking about a good looking individual in this case it would be Rihanna and it means that there is always some bad in anyone, in this case Rihanna is saying that although she may seem sweet and nice on the outside she has some hidden dark side that she is hiding away.

Other Students Music Video

Genre - The genre of this piece is clear pop, we can tell this by the fast paced cuts and transitions that make it appealing to a younger audience. We can also tell it is pop through the use of many artist shots and the artist being the main part of the narrative which is commenly found in most pop videos as it makes the audience connect with the artist more. Finally the use of close ups make it pop genre as well because pop is all about promoting the artist by doing this through close ups really helps.

Narrative -The narrative although hard to understand sometimes is about a relationship where in which the girl cheats on the main protagonist guy, they showed this through the texts with all the kisses and asking to meet up.

Representation - This video has limited representation as it wasn't clearly thought through and doesn't make sense in areas however the black and white effect has connotations to the past and what has come of their relationship, how it has turned to darkness.

Audience - The audience for this piece is clearly teenagers through the sue of teenage outfits and the whole teenage love and fighting going on. This appeals to this audience because they fele like they can relate to the characters in this piece, mainly the protagonist, if anyone has cheated on them, they feel like they know the pain.

Institution - The institution for this piece is a mass industry as it is quite clear to be a pop video and appeal to a huge audience however the kind of camera and shots use make it seem very low budget and niche although this is something which was not intentional.

Todorovs Theory

Todorov devised a theory upon music videos, focusing upon the narrative of the music video, he believed music video went through 5 stages of a narrative, these are:

Equilibrium - This is when the introduction of the characters and the main themes are shown.
Disruption - This is when some kind of disturbance or a break from the equilibrium norm happens, this is usually when a antagonist is introduced, if there is one.
Recognition - This is when the protagonist or other characters notice the disruption and start to device some kind of way to fix this disruption.
Repair - This is when the execution of the fix happens and nearly always successeds but leads on to everything having some sort of norm.
Equilibrium - This is when it rotates back to the start and has some sort of norm again.

In this video we see the equlibrium being them winning all these medals and being some of the best figure skaters in the world. The disruption would be the guy hurting his ankle and not being able to compete which leads on to the repair being Robbie Williams stepping in and trying to skate really well to win the competition. Then the equilibrium would be them winning the competition and it being back to normal. The protagonist is also the antagonist in this piece being Robbie Williams because he is horrible to his co worker which is the guy skater because Robbie is in love with the girl in this video.

Lyric Analysis and Their Importance

Lyrics are a key component when creating a music video, as they are the whole basis for the video and the meaning, if the video has no meaning to the lyrics then the music video can seem pointless and disinterest audiences. So this being considered for our music video we will need to analyse lyrics and see what kind of connotations we can take from it or literal narrative we can use for our music video. These are the lyrics for my music video:

And so our sun may set, we've been in winter for so long

Don't give up on me yet, I will give you what you deserve

Though our arguments are many, and your eyes are always sore

I promise you we'll get there, this war is almost won

This war is almost won

And lose if you have to

Oh lose if you have to

Cause I've been putting you through this hell for so long

As long this stands your choice my dear, don't lose or we have won

Don't let your heart grow cold, when you go to sleep upset

Grow with me till we're old, we will find a way to heal

The bruises that will appear, from choices long ago

Hold on to our love my dear, don't think it's dead and done

When this war is almost won

And lose if you have to

Oh lose if you have to

Cause I've been putting you this hell for so long

As long this stands your choice my dear, don't lose or we have won

I'm running round in circles drinking whiskey and your wine

To drown the sound of endless questions in your mind

Forget the way I treated you and trust that I will love you better

Give me all your patience, give me time

Give me all your patience, give me time

Give me all your patience, give me time

From the start of the song we see a hidden meaning from the first line "And so our sun may set, we've been in winter for so long" this has a hidden meaning to their relationship it means that the sun setting connotes the spark in their relationship is diminishing and he doesnt her to give up on him as the second line connotes that even though they have had some bad times previously they the good times will come soon is what he is trying to say. "This war is almost won" this connotes the war of their relationship and how he is saying that the that the bad is almost done and it will be good again. "Oh lose if you have to" this connotes the relationship again and he is saying that if you can't do it then you can leave if you must.