Music Video Analysis 3: (Love Songs & Use of Cinematography)

Alesha Dixon: To Love Again

Length: 3:57 Minutes.

For my final textual analysis I decided to look at the genre of love songs as I am doing a break up song I decided to look a contrasting genre to look at how I could possible parody the genre to create a narrative for my own music video, the main use of a love song music video is to create a sense of happiness within the audience, also to exaggerate the use of love, therefore we see main elements of this in the music video. I chose to look at Alesha Dixon ‘To Love Again’ in the video the artist is walking through central park with main other couples singing about her love for somebody, she then finds the love she was looking for and the final scene is show which features, the artist and the other couples shown letting go of lanterns, over the sky line of New York.

The main mise-en-scene is focused around the location in then video which seems to be a location in New York (Possibly Central Park), as we can see the back drop of the city. This adds to the genre convention of love songs as the video is set some where romantic in contrast to an average park. Along side the use of location, we have the use of lighting which gives an angelic appearance in the video, again a use of a genre convention giving the feeling of love towards the love song and again aimed at the audience. The use of the lighting becomes a main factor of the video as we see it with most of the shots and it becomes an apparent fixture of the video. When the scene becomes dark and we are given the shot of New York at night the light again gives an angelic look however it becomes much stronger. We also have the use of the mist/fog to give a dream like impression within the diegsis again is convention of the genre as it gives a fairytale type feel to the video. Furthermore we get a feel of romance from the use of mise-en-scene within the video, with the aid of the couples walking past Alesha, also the use of the lanterns being let off at a night by the couples becomes a romantic icon giving the audience a feel of romance through the means of the diegsis. We also see this with the use of the wind and the leaves blowing, however the use of the leaves and fog is juxtaposed against the theme of love to give a better image of the genre with the autumn theme contrasting with the theme of love.

The main focus of the cinematography is the use of the tracking shot, in which we can see the artist walking towards the camera as it back tracks, while she is walking down central park, with the fog/mist behind her and the use of the leaves blowing in the wind. The use of the shot is to create a tranquil scene within the diegesis; the use of tranquillity in the video is a main convention of the music videos to love songs as seems again slow and romantic; however I will try and contrast this idea to create a juxtaposed shot for my video. We see the tracking shot throughout the video, creating this imagery through out the video. Alongside the use of the tracking shot we also have the use of the main conventional sequence shots which are; Long shot (establishing), Medium shot and Close up. The long shot is mainly use in the video to give the viewer a establishment of where the video is set, we can se this in the video with the use of the long shot detailing that the video is set in the New York with the use of a long shot on a crane giving a high angle shot of the couples releasing the lanterns into the night sky. Although we get a scene of where we are we also get a sense of romance with the use of this shot. We also get this with the use of the close up of the singer and a man kissing within the diegsis, with the use of this shot we see the love and emotion between the artist and the male character again giving a over all sense of love within the video.

Next I will look at the use of the sound and editing in the video and see how I follow the conventions of the genre of love songs. Firstly the sound in the video is only focused on the use of the track in the video and is the only main focus of sound in the video. On the other hand the use of editing becomes a strong focus of the video as it has a romantic feel to the video. For example the main use of the editing comes fro the use of fades within the video, such as the fade from the close up the artist to the close up of the characters kissing the use of the fade gives a soft, romantic feel to the video, we also get the use of the fade with the shot changing to the couples letting the lanterns go, therefore I will convert this to change the shot from been romantic and soft to the shot been more hard and emotionless to contrast the genre of love songs to the genre of break up songs.. Furthermore the main use of the editing is continuity as the events seem to all take place on the same day in the same location allowing the audience to follow the narrative easily. The second predominant use of editing is the use of the basic cut to switch from scene to scene, this it to give a light feel to the video alongside the rest of the editing.