2. Justin Bieber – Sorry
The song ‘sorry’ is by a Canadian singer and songwriter, Justin Bieber. Released
in October 2015 as the second single from his fourth studio album, Purpose.
Written by Julia Michaels, Justin Tranter, Sonny Moore, Michael Tucker and
Bieber; the song was produced by Skrillex and Blood. A dancehall-pop and
tropical house song, "Sorry" contains in its instrumentation "brassy horn bleats",
warm island rhythms and a dembow riddim beat. Lyrically, "Sorry" is a plea for a
chance to apologize to a lover, with Bieber asking forgiveness and a second
chance to redeem himself. The official music video for "Sorry" was released on
October 22, 2015, which features the New Zealand dancers of ReQuest Dance
Crew and The Royal Family dance crew, was directed and choreographed by
New Zealander Parris Goebel, who also appears as a dancer. The video was
initially intended to be a lyric video and was eventually kept as a dance video.
Describing it as "colourful, fun, and upbeat", Goebel said: “We wanted to just
bring more life to it. We were going for a vintage '90s vibe. Me and two of my
friends pretty much styled everyone. We all did our own makeup and were
spontaneous... Most of it was my wardrobe, actually. We just kind of put together
what we had." As of August 2017, the music video has received 2.7 billion views
on YouTube, making it the fourth most viewed video on the site, the 22nd to
reach 1 billion, the fourth fastest to reach 1 billion (behind Adele's "Hello").
3. Music videos demonstrate genre
characteristics.
Lighting.
In this music video the lighting is bright which allows all the dancers to be
seen clearly. The bright lighting reflects the energy of the upbeat song and
the dancing during the video. The lighting stays the same all the way
through the video to focus on the dancer rather than different lighting effects
which can be distracting for the audience. The bright lighting is enhanced
by the white background which makes it seem brighter. This type of lighting
is conventional for a pop/ dance performance music video.
Performance.
This music video is performance amplification based (which is
conventional for the pop/ chart music genre). However it is more
common for bands/ groups to have performance based videos where they
perform dance routine. Most songs of this genre are dance songs and
therefore link to performance based videos. The video shows a group of
all female dancers performing a dance routine to the song. The all female
dance group addresses a male audience and links to the male gaze. The
dance routine performance by the dancers is a lively and upbeat modern
dance associated with the pop genre of music.
4. Music videos demonstrate genre
characteristics 2.
Styling.
All the dancers in this video are wearing different outfits which can be
unconventional for a dance group as usually they are all dressed in the same way
with the lead artist/artists in a different outfit to make them stand out more than the
dancers in the background. However the artist (Justin Bieber) doesn’t feature in
this video therefore doesn’t have to standout over the dancers. The dancers are
wearing bright, colourful and unique outfits to make them stand out against the
white back drop. The costumes are casual outfits to make the dancers more
relatable to their audience of mainly young girls as well as fitting in with the current
trends as this genre of music heavily focuses on fashion and styling. The clothing
appears to fit with an 80s style of bright colours. The woman wear tight and short
outfits to appeal to the male gaze (Laura Mulvey's theory).The overall style of the
video fits the genre of music and song. The mise en scene other than the dancers
outfits is basic with nothing else in the video.
Editing/ camera work.
Continuity editing is used throughout the video to make it seem more realistic
and make the video an easy watch without confusing the audience. The video
has jump cuts which are in time with the music to emphases the beats in the
music but most of the time the shots are just cute to make it look smooth and
following.
5. There is a relationship between music
and visuals.
There is a clear relationship between the visuals and the music for this
music video. It is convention for the pop/dance/chart genre of music to
have a performance based video where a group of dancers preform a
routine as it best connections to the genre of music. The fun style of the
song match's the fun dance routine and outfits they are wearing. The
dance routine is in time with the song so there is a connection between
the music and the video which is convention for a music video and
makes it run smoothly when watching and listening to the video. A jump
cut is used for the main beats of the song in the chorus to emphasise
the beats as this is the most important and memorable part of the song.
This is unlike disjunctive videos were the video and music have no
relationship. The editing of the video connects with the fun and lively
tempo of the song as it is quick which means the visuals and song links
in all areas.
6. There is a relationship between lyrics and
visuals.
This music video is a performance based video so therefore the lyrics
and visuals of the dancers don’t have much of a connection. Lyric and
visual relationships are mainly seen in narrative music videos. It is
unconventional to see a dance group singing along to a song while
dancing in the music video shown by this video where the dancers only
repeat one word in the song. However the whole dance routine is in time
with the beats of the song and some parts of the video link to the lyrics.
The line “missing more than just your body” is linked to the
visuals as the dancers rub there bodies during this line.
The word “sorry” is repeated as part of the chorus where the
dancers also sing that one word.
In the middle of the song at the chorus five dancers stand in front of
the camera and song along to the lyrics and include hand actions; at
the line “missing more than just your body” one of the dancers
holds up her arm while anther dancer touches her arm to link to the
lyric.
7. The demands of the record label will include the need for lots of close ups of
the artist and the artist may develop motifs which recur across their work
(a visual style).
It is important fro close up shots to be used in music videos for the artist
to be recognised and for the audience to become familiar with them. This
music video is unconventional as it doesn’t feature the artist (Bieber) in
the video therefore there is no close up shots of the artist which may
develop a motif across their work. There are close up shots of the main
dancers in the video yet these aren’t as important as the dancers don’t
need to be recognised. There isn’t one main character in the video which
is also unconventional in music videos. Justin Bieber doesn’t have a
particular visual style which is carried through all his music videos as each
one is different to the last. ‘Cold water’ and ‘Love yourself’ are both
performance based videos which doesn’t feature the artist Justin Bieber in
the same way as ‘sorry’ doesn’t. Yet ‘what do you mean?’, ‘ I'm the one’
and ‘purpose’ do feature the
artist(s).
In the music videos that the artist, Justin Bieber, does feature in
such as “what do you mean?” or “I'm the one” they do include
close up images of the artists face and body mainly to create a motif.
After releasing four studio albums Justin Bieber is already a well
recognised artist therefore has already created a visual style in his
earlier work and now doesn’t need to feature in his nee music videos
8. There are often intertextual
reference.
After Justin Biebers very public relationship and black up with Selena
Gomez people believed that the song “sorry” was a apology to her;
However in an interview Bieber revealed the true meaning of the song
as he says after having a couple of run-ins with the law and general
bad behaviour he wanted to say sorry to everyone including the
media. The artist said his album purpose (which contained “sorry”)
was about him turning over a new leaf in his life.
At the start of the music video the dancers are seen holding up a
sign with the title of the song, “sorry” on it. This is similar to the
film love actually where a character is also seen holding up a sign
with writing on it (as shown in the image to the right).
The dancers outfits are branded such as Adidas, Kappa,
Timberland and Nike. The video promotes these brands as an
audience watching the video might want to buy the outfits after
watching the video.
9. There is frequently reference to notion of looking and particularly voyeuristic treatment of the
female body.
All the characters/dancers in the music video are females with some
of the actors wearing short shorts, crop tops and tight tops which
could be seen as sexual, however the video doesn’t particularly
contain voyeuristic treatment of the female body as the song is a pop
song targeted at a younger teenage audience. The lyrics do
reference a woman's body as its says “missing more than just your
body” where the dancers then touch there own bodies.
However some of Justin Bieber other music videos such as “I'm the
one” do reference and feature voyeuristic treatment of the female
body as shown in the images to the right. The video is conventional
in the way that the actors do make eye contact with the audience and
look straight at the camera to make the audience feel involved and
connected with the visuals.
10. The artist may develop motifs or iconography that recur across
their work (a visual style)
This artist doesn’t have an iconic motif that is developed across his work
as each music videos he creates is different for a different type and genre
of song. Bieber works with a lot of other artist such as, Major Lazer, DJ
Khaled and Nicki Minaj so therefore the videos for the songs that he is
featured on aren’t created to develop his own style as they have to be for
the other artists as well. Bieber is usually the featured artist on the song
and therefore the video focuses on the main artist in the music video
visuals. However Justin Bieber does have a character he has to maintain
across all of his work.
