Pop Genre
Textual analysis on Ellie Goulding “on my mind� The song is recorded by Ellie Goulding a British singer and song writer, released on the 17th September. The video was shot in Las Vegas and directed by Emil Nava.
Theme I think that the narrative to this music video is a love story that goes wrong. Ellie the artist falls in love with the unknown man we see throughout the video, however things seem to start to go down hill as we see him shouting at her, looking quite violent. later on there is a scene which looks like he cheats on her. We also find out he has lots of money as we see him counting some cash and he owns a cuisine which explains all the quick shots of old people on fruit machines at the beginning, to the audience this reveals that he doesn't’t seem like a nice man and probably just rules Ellie with money and expects her to be happy.
In pop music there is not always a story line as its mostly based on performance in a way that attracts the audience. However the typical narratives are usually about parties and love story's. I feel that this song is both performance and narrative based as we see Ellie performing in front of the camera lip sinking and it has the typical love story. Because the artist is in the video it makes people want to watch it as they are made to look attractive also it has a story to the video it helps the audience to follow it. Other songs similar to this are Taylor Swift ‘we are never getting back together’, which is also about a break up. The song was released in 2012 and directed by Declan Whitebloom. A lot of the pop music videos are similar and this is because In the pop music industry, it tends to follow other pop songs and keep to the current trends and not make something new and unique.
Here are three images showing the relationship between both of them throughout the video. Ellie doesn’t look happy in any of these images this is showing us that their relationship isn’t great.
Ending The ending shows Ellie on a horse going through the casino to her boyfriends office, once she is in the office the camera position has made her look big and the dominant one as the man is sat down begging her not to do whatever she is going to do. Everything then goes dark as the light goes off and we see him tied up in a chair struggling to get out. This shows Ellie has got revenge and is now the dominant one as she has control which is un stereotypical. This is normally because Men are shown as big and strong and females are shown as girly, pretty and weak like Ellie was shown at the beginning.
The first image shows the two girls on the horses above the man. The other two images show that he’s not being so dominant anymore as he has no control.
Location Pop music videos are sometimes set in exotic beaches and this is trying to represent places where people would wish to live or want to be. They also use extravagant props which suggest a rich lifestyle as this is what everyone wants.
There are many different locations in this music video and these all suggest a rich way of living that everyone would want following the correct codes and conventions of the pop genre. For example, through out the video we see short clips of casinos and a sign which reads ‘ Las Vegas’ so, this instantly tells us where the video is set which helps to draw the audiences attention from the start. It is a place for gambling, where many rich people live and have lots of money to gamble with. It is also a place where lots of people want to go.
There is then scenes of Ellie in a glamorous bathroom and bedroom. Both rooms look big and full of expensive furniture. Also there is a room which has its own bar in, it looks like it is full of expensive liqueurs and sprits. The rooms in this house suggests to us that the person who owns this is obviously rich, it is a dream house where most people would love to live this helps to make the audience fantasize over the way she is living attracting them to want to continue watching.
However after seeing the house and how Ellie was living it flashes to a scene of her sat outside of a dirty caravan this instantly makes the audience snap to reality and shows the different between the two ways of living, showing us just how expensive the house looked. However this makes us want to continue watching as we want to see why she is at this caravan.
Lastly, we see Ellie in a salon getting her hair done, this shows her off stereotypically as she is having her hair done at a salon which can be quite costly, showing us her, rich glamorous side again.
Screen Shots of the Locations
The first four screen shots show Ellie’s glamorous life in the music video, however the last image shows the not so glamorous side.
Stereotypes of Male and Female Ellie is represented both stereotypically and un stereotypically. Stereotypically, because of the way she is being dominated at the beginning by the man, she’s also going out and getting her hair done and she wears dresses and other girly clothing. However she Is also shown unstereotypically near the end of the video as she is shown as the dominant one towards the man but we do not expect this as she looks weak and girly.
The man is shown strong and dominant near the beginning of the video which is stereotypical as men are meant to be powerful with their big muscles. He also looks like he is the one providing the money in the relationship as there is a scene of him flashing the cash. However near the end of the video he is shown not so powerful as he looks scared of Ellie as she is above him and ties him to a chair this now makes him look quite weak.
Editing In pop music videos it is important that the artist looks good and attractive as they are performing their own song in their video, also the audience looks up to the artist especially the youths. This means that In a majority of pop music videos the characters have been edited including the male artists. So, its most likely that Ellie has been Photo Shopped to ensure she looks perfect for the video as a close up shot reveals she has no spots or marks on her face and her face looks smooth and perfect suggesting that she has been edited. Also the video looks like it has a filter on it to boost the colours in then video making it look more effective. There was also lots of layering shots at the beginning that was of Ellie and images of casinos in Las Vegas which gave us an insight on what the video was going to be about.
Costume/Makeup In most pop music videos the actors in the video usually wear quite fashionable clothing as this makes them liked by their targeted audience because it is relatable to them. For example, Ellie is wearing shorts and a leather jacket in a couple of shots and this is quite a popular fashion for the youths, so if Ellie is wearing it then the audience thinks that is must be in fashionable and continue to wear it. Also some shots Ellie is wearing very revealing clothing as a lot of skin is revealed, there is even a scene that we see where she is wearing no clothes this is also popular in pop videos as this shows her in a ‘seductive’ way making her look ‘attractive’ to some of the audience.
Ellie’s makeup was quite natural through out, making her look elegant and pretty. This is unusual as most artists like to make a scene and wear extravagant make up to make an impression for example, Niki Manaj Starships where we see Niki with green and purple hair with quite a lot of make up on making her stand out from the rest of the video.
There are three shots of Ellie showing you what she’s wearing and in one of them its nothing. The close up to the right of Ellie’s face shows you just out little make up she’s wearing but here skin tone looks smooth as if it has been edited.
The photo above shows Nicki Manaj with bright purple hair. She is also wearing revealing clothing like Ellie.
Camerawork There are many close ups of Ellie’s face when she is singing this helps the audience to see the emotion on her face and also shows it’s a performance. I have noticed that the camera is nearly always on her through out the video, as she is the main character and the artist so its all about her. There is normally plenty of long shots of characters dancing and having a good time in pop music videos like in ‘What Makes you Beautiful’ by One Direction where they seem to be dancing about having a good time in their gang which is what youths like to do helping it to be relatable to audience, but in this video we see long shots of Ellie standing still or moving around slowly, not looking like she is having a good time at all, helping to create a story which reveals why she is low and not happy partying at her age that some of the audience may also be able to relate too.
Here is a long shot of One Direction a English-Irish boy band looking like they are having a good time. This is stereotypical in pop music videos as it looks more effective. The video was directed by John Urbano.
Where as in this video we see a long shot of Ellie sat down not looking like she is having a good time.