Whilst in the process of storyboarding, my group and I looked more closely at the lyrics of the song to analyse the actual meaning in the song. This will then help us with the process of storyboarding because the lyrics may ignite ideas and we will be able to accurately represent the song.
You You You
The first verse introduces the audience to the content of the song and the lyrics begin with a question. This is important to us because there is a personal feel with this song and so at the places where a question is posed we could have our artist looking directly at the camera - connecting to the audience. From the song lyrics, we also gain a sense that the artist is a strong female figure as she has an attitude, blaming what we assume to be her boyfriend, making a scene, "making me tell other people I don't know you". This emphasises that our demographic is mainly teenage girls with the sense of 'girl power'. A common theme in the song is that the persona is saying that her boyfriend is overly dramatic; she responds with sarcasm saying "like the world will end..." maintaining a playful feel.
The lyrics in the chorus are quite serious as a girl is clearly annoyed with her boyfriend. Therefore it is the music which dilutes the seriousness by making the chorus very upbeat. The repetition of 'you' is fun and the audience can sense that the song is about after a girl has broken up with her boyfriend and so the song gives a sense of women empowerment, getting over an ex.
The second verse has a very similar structure to the first. There is the rhetorical question where we feel that the artist should look at the camera. Also we wanted a common shot in music videos of a close-up on the mouth. It would be appropriate here as there is an irony that now she can 'get a word in'. Her attitude is represented particularly in this verse as she is stating her boyfriend's imperfections. Many people in our audience research said that Jessica Drake's song reminded them of Avril Lavigne. This may be because the artist is quite rebellious as she is challenging materialist ideas: "why you gotta buy these things so you can show everybody". One important line in this verse has centred a discussion in our group that is whether we should have a male in the video acting as the ex. Through out most of the video the artist is directly speaking to her ex, however she states that he's "not even there". This means that we don't have to include a male in our video because she can be seen to speak for many girls and therefore speak to the camera. This would increase our target audience because we are not defining the boy that the artist is talking to, making it more inclusive for consumers. At the end of the verse she suggests that she'll "get a move on" so whilst still wanting to keep it playful, we could direct our actress to do a little wave conveying she's moved on.
This part of the song is different from the verse-chorus structure, which maintains the audience's attention. Again the artist begins with a question also calling him a "diva". We also see a different side of the artist as she expresses "I know you're not that bad". But she gives a warning which we feel she should perform by looking directly at the camera. This is a short deviance from her rebellious attitude and resumes at the end calling him a "dramatic queen", insulting his masculinity - conveying the empowerment to women.
From looking at these lyrics in more depth, we can gain a sense of the messages in the song- one of the most important being 'girl power'. However it is important to note that the song does not specifically say that the person she is singing about is an ex boyfriend. This leaves it open to interpretation, however as a group we have decided to interpret her singing about a boyfriend. Also this has aided us with looking at stage performance of our actress seeing at what points we need her to look at the camera.
No comments:
Post a Comment