Gabriella Sarmiento Wilson is a 23-year-old R&B singer and songwriter who was born in California. She's been a musician since 2009 meaning she's been on the music scene for 12 years. In her time in the spotlight, she has worked with many big names such as Bryson Tiller, Ella Mai & Chris Brown. She's won many awards such as four Grammys for 'best song', 'best r&b song' and so on. One of her most popular songs being "Best Part" feat. Daniel Caesar, "Damage" and "Could've Been" feat. Bryson Tiller, all garnering millions of streams on Spotify alone. She has multiple music videos but not all of her most popular songs have one, they on average have between 50-100M views and seem to trend well on YouTube. The name "H.E.R" is an acronym for 'Having everything revealed', she chooses to go by this name as she believes you don't have to be as public and open even when working in a job such as hers. Her first public appearance was when she covered piano for famous singer Alicia Keys when she was only 12 years old. She is signed with RCA Records and has been since age 14 when they offered her a record label.

Ashton Dumar Norwill Simmonds is 26 years old and lives in Toronto, Canada. He goes by Daniel Caesar and has since starting his singing/ songwriting career back in 2014 when he realised his debut EP, "Praise break". Soul and gospel heavily influence his music style; he sings about his childhood and topics related to falling in love. He often talks about who he is inspired by, naming artists like Frank Ocean and Kanye West; he has worked with some huge names in the music industry, such as Justin Bieber and Kali Uchis. He has won 2 'Soul Train' awards for best new artists and Best Collaboration Performance with H.E.R. He has also won one Grammy for 'Best Part' in his career. This was for the best R&B performance, and the award was shared once again with H.E.R. He co-founded his record label 'Golden Child Recordings' back in 2015 with producers Matthew Burnett and Jordan Evans and has worked closely with them on all of his tracks, co-producing them. In 2017 he released his album 'Freudian'. Many songs from this album are among the most streamed songs he's released, such as 'Get you', which has close to 500,000,000 streams on Spotify alone, qualifying it for 2x Platinum certification.

Yellow by Coldplay:

This music video has elements that i would like in my music video which is why i have decided to analyse it. It is filmed at a beach using what looks like a dolly to keep the camera focused on the man who is the focal point of the video. It feel very personal and is not overly edited or produced, this gives it a raw feeling which i believe goes perfectly with the song. The video has one camera angle throughout the whole video and this is a medium close up. The music video is filmed to come across as if its being sung to you and there isn't anything in the video that is meant to distract you from the personal feeling they are trying to get across. It seems to be a mix between a performance and a narrative music video as it's like the song is being sung directly to you.

The song is about love and he sings about how the woman in the song is his "Yellow" he is referring to the one he loves the most, she is his yellow which reminds him of happiness. He shows this because in the lyrics "I swam across, I jumped across for you, Oh, what a thing to do 'Cause you were all yellow" He's saying that there isn't anything he wouldn't do for the woman he loves and that he would swim across oceans for her.

Demographic:

When producing a music video you haver to take into account who you are targeting it too and who is actually watching it as sometimes these are very different things. The majority of Coldplay's audience are between 18-40 and mainly female, they will be thinking about this when they film a music video/ market a product. The lyrics to this song are more marketed at that demographic rather than the music video itself as the song.

Demographic:

Her demographic is around 67% female and 33% male, the age range for both is between 16-24 years old and this is true for her music and social media. The concept of love and heartbreak she sings about often lean more towards the younger generation as they are young adults and can more so relate to what is being sung. She films her music videos in a way that a super fan can understand all the hidden 'easter-eggs' but someone who has never heard of her before can also watch and enjoy which really helps her music videos and songs to do very well.

Lover by Taylor Swift:

The music video for Lover by Taylor Swift is very different to the music video for Yellow but the emotion of romance is prominent in both. "Lover" is a very high production music video with a full set that is made to look like a house cut in half. The different rooms that the music video is filmed in show specific colours, these colours seem to represent her past albums and all bring something in that connects to them. Some fans on Twitter pointed out that each room colour also matches the emotions she sings about in each of these albums. They make their way through these rooms as if it's a story and they are going from the beginning to the present/ end.

The music video is filmed in a narrative style as it plays like a story, every location and decoration has a meaning and a story behind it which can make for a very interesting watch. At the beginning of the music video you see a kid opening a gift which is a snow globe, the camera pans into the snow globe and the entire music video happens within it. This is directly pulled from one of her earlier songs "You are in love" the lyrics are "You two are dancing in a snow globe round and round", Taylor Swift often does this to bring it all together with a connection.

Into You by Ariana Grande:

This music video interested me because of its great use of colour via tint effects that are visible in some of the shots. I think this is something I would like to incorporate into my music video as pulled the different scenes and settings together. The use of multiple locations added an interesting element to the music video as it made it play out more story like than some other music videos. I would also like to use multiple locations in my music video as I can see it worked very well here. The theme of romance in this music video as with the other videos I have analysed help me to plan for my music video as this is my theme too.

The narrative style this music video is filmed is targeted towards her target audience as the majority of people who watch her music videos are younger therefore enjoy a story like video to follow. I would like a story like video for my music video as it is easier to follow and gives the video some structure. I think when a music video has more structure it can seem more professional and planned out. I would like to implement a lot of things seen in this music such as the colour tints, as my idea is a beach I think this could help to make it seem more interesting. 

Demographic:

Ariana Grande's demographic is different for different aspects, for example her merch sales seem to be 75% female and 25% male whereas the people who listen to her music is almost a perfect 50/50 between male and female. As proven by these statistics she has something that all different people like, her age range is mainly from young teens to 30 year olds give or take a few years. As she has grown up her fan base have grown up with her and you can see she is starting to allow herself to be an adult in the public eye which always helps when trying to relate to your audience.

Symbolic Conventions

Symbolic Conventions is the meaning behind what you can see right in front of you, for example, if you are looking at a music video and trying to understand why certain things are happening you may need to look at things such as facial expressions and gestures the actors/ characters in the video are making. 

Colour Theory

Colour theory is how colour is used in video to manipulate the mood of the video, certain colours make your brain think the video is going to be based around a specific emotion. Red is seen as a colour that portrays passion and courage, it is used also to show caution or draw attention to something possibly important for the progression of the scene. Yellow is used to instantly affect the mood and bring more happiness/ positivity to the scene.

Mise en scene

Mise en scene refers to everything that is visible in a scene from the background and props to the actors, it's everything that is visible in the camera. It is a french saying and when translated means "placing on stage", actors are a big part of mise en scene because while they're on the screen they are often the main focus of the shot therefore contributing the most to the look and feel of the scene.

Genre themes/ tropes

Some of the biggest genres in music are; Hip hop, pop, rock, rap, grime, folk & country. These genres in music can be portrayed in the music videos that relate to them, a grime/ rap video will follow a specific style, normally they show wide shots and pan shots with expensive cars. Most music videos that are in the same music genre have similarities unless the artists have gone for a style that hasn't been done before.

Lighting

Lighting is as important as anything when it comes to film, this is because the lighting of a scene can completely change the end product. Because of this, you have to be very sure of what style you want to go for before working out the lighting. Light/ dark lighting can change the video from looking happy and positive to negative and sad.

CGI & Chroma-Key

CGI is used in this music video to make the people wearing morph suits into monkeys, they had to use the morph suits and a 3D design of a monkey to edit them in. It is a very long process that involves many people doing their part to bring it all together. They make the monkey faces by trying their best to match them to the faces of the members wearing the morph suits. CGI can make a music video much more interesting than a normal video because you can almost create anything you want.

Parody

A Parady music video is a media that exists to mock and make fun of a person/ thing, they might exaggerate what they are mocking to make it more comical, an example of a parody music video (and song) is Death Cab for Cutie's "Million Dollar Loan" music video. The song is based around Donald Trump and general mocking of him. They have an actor dress up as Donald Trump in the music video as the wall is being built around him. (it's actually a pretty good song lol)

Performance

A performance music video is normal a music video of the artist/ band in a live performance; this is meant to capture more than just the talent of the artist. By filming the live performance, you can capture the energy that the crowd have, and in turn, it can make the music video better because you can imagine being performed too. My example is Stormzy's song "CROWN" and the performance video he made of it, the difference here is that there is no live audience but it still feels as if its being performed to you as its a personal video.

Homage

A homage style music video is similar to a parody but it id meant to show respect to the chosen person/ group rather than mock. They will take certain elements of a video without completely copying it, they take inspiration from it enough for you to be able to tell what it is they are referencing. The "thank u, next" music video by Ariana Grande is a Homage style music video as it references multiple movies including Mean Girls, Legally Blonde, Bring It On and 13 Going on 30.

Narrative

A narrative music video is a video that shows a story play out that relates to the song. So if the song is about a sad story, you would watch the characters play out the story, and because of this, it amplifies the sad emotions that the video is trying to portray. In my example of Taylor Swift's "You Belong With Me" Taylor plays a girl whos in love with Lucas Till, the boy next door. The song plays out, and you see how the beat picks up, and during the second chorus she becomes more confident and tells him how she feels, this is the story it told.

Animation

Impressionist

Impressionist music videos are about more than the small details that are visible when watching a music video; they are about the bigger picture and the mood that the music video can make when watched by someone. In Rolling in the deep music video by Adele, as her emotion builds up more and more starts to happen, such as more plates are being thrown at the wall and shattering everywhere. The cups of water move more and more as the beat gets louder, and this can show the overall mood, which is of disappointment, sadness and anger.

Interpretive

An interpretive music video is when it can be taken anyway by the viewer, often this is done by having dance be shown in the music video, or the whole video is interpretive dance. This is because dance is really what the viewer makes of it, you can see dance and imagine a story to go with it, and this could change from person to person. Interpretive videos are about every person who watches them getting something different from them. My example "Elastic Heart" by Sia (starring Maddie Ziegler & Shia LaBeouf) is just that, its a dance that can be interpreted in whatever way the viewer wants.

Surrealist

Surrealist music videos are meant to feel like a dream; they don't always have to have anything to do with the song its self, they can be completely unrelated to it. They are normally very abstract, and unlike a music video that has been made before, in this case, the music video for the song "E.T." by Katy Perry is all about space and aliens. It is filmed abstractly and is very easy to get wrapped up In as you can't wait to see what happens next and that means it does what its meant to do because it has the shock factor it needs to be interesting.

Using the research tracker helps to show where you learnt different parts of work from and can be helpful to ensure no work is being forged. Putting the links can also be helpful if you need to go back and look at a website you used before for any work in the future.