Analysing a Music Video

I looked at a massive amount of music videos for songs which i liked however i couldn't find a music video which i particularly liked or that used techniques which i thought i might want to use. I moved onto songs which are popular but which i would not normally listen to. In the end i chose a Britney Spears music video for the song "3" directed by Diane Martel who this year has also directed music videos for;

Pixie Lott


Ciara ft Justin Timberlake


Neyo


And more...

In the past Diane Martel has also directed videos for The Pussycat Dolls (2008), Alicia Keys (2007), Snoop Dog (2002), Christina Aguilera (1999) and many more. It is clear that Diane Martel Directs music vidoes for a lot of the latest stars of the hip-hop/pop scene. I like the genre of her work and i am planning to come back to this director to do more research later in the project but for now i am going to focus on analysing the video from Britney Spears.



I like the way this video has been filmed using the technique which we were taught when doing the lip sync practice. They have filmed the entire routine on about 5 different sets with possibly 3 different costumes. They then put all the footage into an editing program and cut between the clips. I'm sure they must have had some kind of plan as to how the clips would be cut together unlike when we did our practice.

Behind a sheet of glass. Has a misty look to it. Wearing a white leotard.

With extra dancers on a pole. Wearing the same white leotard.

With Male backing dancers. Wearing Black leotard with Black tights.

Close up shots wearing a black strap top.

Most of the video is set on a white background with Britney and the backing dancers wearing black. The only time she is wearing white is the bit behind the sheet of glass. This gives the video a very minimalist feel although towards the end there is a lot going on. At the beginning of the video all of the cuts are fairly clean and the camera work is all either static or hardly moving a part from the tiny cut aways which are almost impossible to get a screen grab of because they are so blurred. However i am not saying this is a bad thing as it gives the video a nice build up to the end where there is a lot of quick, blurred camera movement and fast cuts.



The video also uses lighting techniques. I am not sure if these where applied in the edit or if they are real but I like them and feel that the video would be lacking in something without them. These lighting techniques are not very complex and still keep the minimalist look as they still don't use colour. The light changes go to the beat of the music and are quick. You can see in the screen grabs below how fast the lighting changes from a grey colour back to white again by looking at how much the dancers have moved.