Typical Synopsis

I am going to watch four different music videos from the Pop genre and summarize each in a simple paragraph discussing the main themes, trends and conventions in them. The first video is Rihanna's 'Where have you been'. This song is very much focused on the changing of setting and eyes. The theme of the song is searching, so with each repetition of the line 'I've been everywhere, man, looking for someone' we see the setting of the video change. The shots change and pulsate to the beat of the music. A great deal of close-ups are used and we also see the speed of the shot changes and camera movement is in accordance to the pace of the song at each particular moment in time. There is a use of dance which adds a degree of versatility to the video, too. Overall the song stays true to its lyrics, picking the common theme to link each changing scene to. The shots change quickly and a great deal of movement and colour is used to make the video appealing to its target audience. The second video is Carly Rae Jepsen's 'Call me Maybe'. We see a strong simple story being told through the lyrics of the song in which a girl falls in love with her gardener and goes on a quest to give him her phone number. We see a heavy focus on the main singer throughout with a great deal of close-up shots to emphasize her emotions and what she's looking at. We see cross-cutting between the story being told and the main singer singing the song with people playing instruments around her. The lighting is bright and the setting is carefree, humorous and happy. The song once again works to appeal to a young target audience and certain situations which they may well be able to relate to. In this video, Eliza Doolittle's 'Skinny Jeans' we see a few common themes such as people using other people as instruments. We see one girl's back being used as a mock keyboard, and another person's leg being used as a pretend guitar. The video has a playful and imaginative theme, often showing fairly random creative and different clips of something happening at the point of the whistle in the chorus. We have familiar settings which are returned to a lot, such as Eliza singing on her bed with legs swaying in the background. Slow motion shots are used in the chorus, people are dancing, there is a great use of light and bright colours. All in all the video is very much in keeping with the bright cheerful tune of the song. The final video I have chosen to look at is 'Price Tag' by Jessie J. The theme in this video is money and toys. A great deal of close up shots are used, the background is kept as a simple colour wash, occasionally changing from pink to blue, but otherwise remaining simple, the focus being on the singers and the toys. We see some dancing and interaction with the toys on scene, but the main focus is merely on the singer and their performance, the occasional use of something which is referred to in the lyrics such as 'high heels' or 'money' being brought up to link the subject matter and video together.