Textual Analysis: Past Student Example 2

I have also decided to look at another previous student example, by Cristina Shaw. It was submitted earlier this year and so is very recent. Not only is it one of my favourite student examples, but Cristina's video has a very similar feel indeed to the kind of vibe I am going for in my video. It is a very up-beat song and is just a bit of fun!

I love this video. In my opinion, the video has elements of narrative, concept and performance videos and so it is difficult to put into a specific category. It does very well at having a professional feel to it. 

The editing of this music video is what stands out for me most. It has a lot of really cleverly edited parts. For example, Cristina makes really good use of the green screen. There is one part when the main characters are sat around a tea party table with the green screen background, giving it the appearance they are in a forest. I love the impact the green screen can have and so I would like to use the green screen in my video.

The green screen is also used near the end when Cristina makes use of keyframes. She filmed all of the people individually in front of the green screen and this meant that she could remove the background from them. She then changed the size and position of the frames, including rotating some so that they are upside down, and played them all simultaneously in the clip. I think this is a brilliant way to end the song and I would love to do something like that to end my music video.


Cristina also inserted titles at the beginning of her video. I love them! I think they are so happy and suit the mood of the song. I also like the way she inserted them on top of her video, meaning there was still action in the background whilst conveying the artist's name. I am going to try and layer my titles on top of the video behind to make sure it is as entertaining as possible.

Colour effects were also used in Cristina's video. For example, she used split screen in her video and changed the colours of the frame so that the two characters were different colours. Interestingly the colours of the characters could be interpreted of stereotypical of gender, because the girl is pink and the boy is bluey purple.

Evidently Cristina's video is very heavily based on editing, and I love this because it is exactly the kind of video I aim to achieve. I want my video to rely on the editing to make it effective and I also want my video to have a similar feel to Cristina's. I really love the video!

There is not an overwhelming use of camera movement. A lot of the shots are static. However, there are some shots, such as the one when they are sitting together singing, that clearly pans from one character to the other. The camera is handheld and does not use a tripod or steadicam, but this gives the shot a kind of personal feel to it, it makes it feel less professional but in a good way. I would like to try and use some handheld shots in my video, but I want it to be done as cleverly as this one, so that it doesn't look like I just didn't bother to use a tripod!

Close up shots are also used. There is one CU during the green screen scene of the main character singing to the camera. This kind of shot is great in videos like Cristina's as it clearly establishes the main singer (who would usually be the artist) in the video. This links into Goodwin's Seven, which states that the record label would usually demand that there are CUs of the artist because this helps to raise their profile.

Medium shots are also used, such as this shot near the very beginning of the video. This shot helps to establish the characters and gives the audience an opportunity to look at their costumes. In the case of this video. It also shows the audience where they are, which in the case of this video, is deliberately not made hugely clear; hence the lack of any establishing shots.

One of my favourite shots in the video is this wide shot. I love the way that the shot is silhouetted so that you can't quite make out who it is (although the audience already knows from previous shots) and you can see the location all around them. I think this shot really helps to convey the mood of the song - very happy, relaxed and content.

Various locations are used, but one example is the library. The target audience for this video is 15 - 25 year olds, and using this location was great because it means that the target audience are able to relate to the location. It is likely that a lot of people that age have been to a library at some point!

No particular lighting is used other than natural lighting, but every shot is very clear, bright and nice to look at. It is very reflective of the mood of the video and I would very much like to use lighting like this in my video. Especially since my song is Mr. Blue Sky, I want it to be very sunny and bright for the whole of my video!

There isn't very much that I would change about the video. I think it is perfect for the song, it has a very professional and yet personal feel to it and is ideal for the audience to which it is targeting. However, I do feel that the video could have benefitted from the use of colour alteration tools to make the locations look even brighter and bubblier!

Overall, I really love this video and I would probably class this past student example as the main source of inspiration for my video.