Comparing Music Videos with the Concept of Schools

Britney Spears - Baby One More Time

Genre

The Genre of this music video is Pop.

This can be said because of the Generic Signifiers that are present such as:

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  The pop style routined dancing all throughout the music video.
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  The drum beat at the background of the music is a popular beat to have in an average pop song.
• Britney's costume and other's costumes casted in the music video are wearing revealing clothes having her school shirt tied at the stomach to show of her curves.
• This music video, I feel attracts more of a teenage female audience as a lot of the music video is about Britney and how everything is seen through her female point of view. However, because of Britney's shortened scholl shirt, it may suggest some sort of sex appeal because she is making the school uniform "sexy", so therefore a male audience may feel interested in this video.

Structure

The main basis of the music video is of performances of many group dances. However, there is a feel of a concept as Britney is playing an american teenage girl in an american school, who seems to have the typical problem of boys and highschool relationships. The Pop genre normally is about love, which means that this song follows the conventions of a Pop Song.

Camera & Editing

• The shots throughout the music video switch between shots which are dominated by females and shots which are dominated by males. This reinforces the concept of Britney as a teenager going through a recent break-up with a boyfriend as the seperation of each gender is present on screen time.

• In the music video there were the odd shots of Brintney on her own. It reinforces some of the lyrics, "...my lonliness..." as she is seen alone in these shots.

• However, even though she is alone and lonely, she seems to still be glamorous as she has flawless make up on and wears revealing clothing. Therefore shots can be seen as Beauty Shots.

Representation

• As a whole, this music video is female dominated not only because the main artist is a female but because females took up most of the screen time in the music video.
• However, the problem of the break up seems to be all due to the male and because the affect of the break-up seems to be fairly big on Britney, it can be said that the male has the upper hand in this video because Britney wants the male back.
• The split between the two genders is also seen in the dance performances. Near the beginnning of the music video, there were either all female dancers or all male dancers. However, from the middle to the end, the dancers seem to have mixed with shows the two genders reuniting and in a way "solving the problem" of the break-up in the first place.

Busted - What I Go to School For

Genre

The Genre of this music video is Pop Rock.

This can be said because of the Generic Signifiers that are present such as:

• Again this music video is about love but in a different sense to the Britney Spears Music Video. In Britney's Music Video it was all about teenage love, and even though the Busted members are acting as teenage school kids they have a crush on their female teacher.

• I have classsed this Busted song as a Pop Rock song because even though it has Pop conventions like the topic of the song, it has instruments such as the Three Guitars which explains the Rock side of the song, as the Guitars are the main instruments used in this song.

• The target audience for this music video can be mixed because the Busted members are boys and the teenage boys may relate to them and their situation. However, I think that there may be more female teenage fans to this video because that they may fancy the Busted members.

Structure

The structure of this music video is similar to Britney Spears' music video as there is both performance and concept. Instead of dancing, there is a lot of singing with guitars.

The concept is that the three Busted boys are in highschool and fancy their female teacher and go out their way to try and get her attention.

Camera & Editing

• Like the Britney music video, there are alternate shots of females and then of males; just like they are seperated from each other. This can suggest that the female teacher is out of the Busted Boys league because she is a teacher not a teenage girl.
• There are a lot of shots of the female teacher and one of the Busted boys together which illustrates their fantasies of being with their teacher in a relationship. It emphasises the concept of the song and music video as it is "...what I go to school for..."; they go to school just to see the female teacher that they fancy and no other reason.
• Beauty shots are seen in this music video, but not of the Busted boys but of the female teacher. There are extreme close ups of the female teacher's face which emphasises her natural beauty to the audience to try and explain in a way why the Busted Boys fancy her. Also, the female teacher has shots of her on her own emphasises her curves and body.

Representation

• It is fair to say that the main concentration is the male memebers of Busted as they are the ones that have the most screen time as well as being the ones who are falling in love. Also at the end when they get chased by the teenage girls whilst they are cruising in their cars suggests their male importance as all those girls want them.

• Busted can also be seen as the victims of this video as they are the victims of love, falling in love with a teacher rather than someone their own age.

• There are a lot of females in this music video and because of this, they dominate the video. When there are shots of Busted singing along with the song there is a big crowd of teenagers behind them dancing along. When analysed closely, most of the teenagers behind them are teenage girls, which means that they are overpoweering the Busted boys as there are a lot more of the girls than the boys.

Wheatus - Teenage Dirtbag

Genre

The Genre of this music video is Pop Rock.
This can be said because of the Generic Signifiers that are present such as:

• Again this is Pop Rock and not just Pop because of the heavy influence of the guitar instrument in the whole song. Throughout the song there are guitars playing, but in the chorus there is heavy guitar playing, which is why I feel that this song is a Pop Rock song.

• Also, this song has the main concept of love, which is another convention of a Pop song as most Pop songs are about some sort of love issue or problem.

• I think the target audience for this music video is probably love sick teenagers who are probably in the same if not similar situation where they feel that they can't have who they want because they feel that they are both in different classes. This is because I feel that these teenagers would like this video because it would appeal to them as it may link to a personal experience. Also, because the music video is shot in the point of view of the boy, it may appeal to more boys than girls.

 Structure

The structue of this music video is different to the Britney Spears Music Video and the Busted Music Video. In the Britney Spears Music Video and the Busted Music Video, the artists were the main characters in the concept, however in this Wheatus Video, the band seem to be narrators of the love story that is happening.

The Music Video still has singing performances like the other two videos throughout, but has a narrative structure instead of a concept structure. This means that the Wheatus video tells a story with a beginning, middle and an end. The narrative is about an American teenage geek, who is secretly in love with the most popular girl in highschool. There's no chance of them getting together as the popular girl already has the typical popular boyfriend. But in the end there is a happy ending, as the geek gets the popular girl at the dance.

Camera & Editing

• Overall, the editing pattern turns between the narrative of the geek boy and his new girlfriend to the Wheatus band performing and singing the narrative of the song.

• Even though this love stpry is about seperation in the fact that the geek can't get the popular girl, the camera shots are very different to those in the Britney and Busted music video. In those videos the genders were pretty much seperated from each other in the camera shots. But in this video, it's not really about gender but about class; the popular girl being out of the geeks league. This is shown through the shots either having the geek involved or the popular girl involved.

• The narrative side of the music video is shot in the point of view of the geek as the audience see everything from the geeks point of view; from when he is coming down the stairs at highschool to when he is walking down the corridor and bumping into everyone he passes.

Representation

• Female's have the main power in this video as the geek feels that he "needs" the girl because even though at the beginning of the video the car she arrives in runs over his bike, he doesn't seemed to be too bothered because the girl takes his mind off things. Therefore this means that the world evolves around the girl as what she does affects what happens to the geek boy.

• The geek boy is seen as the victim in this music video as he is picked on and bullied by his fellow classmates both on the corridor and at lunch. He is seen as a victim of bullying as well as a victim of love.