Textual Analysis 3 - 'Happy' by Pharrell Williams

I have created a Glog about Pharrell Williams' 'Happy' and its link to Web 2.0.
Glogster

'Happy' by Pharrel Williams

We were set the task of creating a 30 second recreation of the music video of 'Happy' by Pharrel Williams. The result was a full length video that was shown across the school and we are very proud of, including many members of staff, lip syncing and the practice needed before the 1 minute task that is to be set soon. Enjoy the video.

History of the Music Video

We were assigned the task to research the history of music videos, their origins and their evolution over time. I created a timeline using TimeToast to show what I believe are very significant events for the music video.

Textual Analysis 2 - Recommended Music Videos

In this lesson, we all recommended music videos to watch and analyze briefly. Below is a link to of Glogster post I made about the music videos I thought were the most interesting and creative.

Recommended Music Videos

Textual Analysis 1- Close to Me

The video for the song ‘Close to Me’ by The Cure involved the band going to the bottom of the ocean by falling off of a cliff in a wardrobe. The setting matched the music as it appeared a very relaxed scene underwater as the group were exploring the deep, (somehow without any breathing equipment).

There was a small amount of relevance between the visuals and the lyrics, the only exceptions being the ‘close to me’ whiles the group were in the wardrobe together and the close to me when the octopus is holding the lead singer. This also led to many close-ups of the lead singer both in and out of the wardrobe as he struggled to get away from the octopus. The rest of the song had little relevance to vocals; however the song itself did only consist of a six verses.

Despite the lack of lyrics, it made up for it in using the music and linking it with the visuals well, timing sways to the beat of the song as well as cuts to new shots consistently when the bar moves on. This can also be seen with the octopus as when the brass instruments play, the shots shift focus to it with a set of brass instruments playing.

There were no intertextual references found in the piece itself, but critics describe the scene as a ‘Goth pop version of The Little Mermaid’, despite the film being released after this. There were little aspects seen of looking. Very few shots had the cast looking at the camera itself, and were more interested in their surroundings.

Task Overview - Introductory Post

During my A2 Media Studies, I shall be creating a music video within a group for the song of our choice. My preliminary task is to make a shorter music video of about one minute in length to help understand the complexity of the main task and how to improve on it.

I hope to improve on the skills I learned in AS involving editing as that is one of my better areas, but I also enjoy being in front of the camera and I am likely to play a role in the film itself.

I am very much looking forward to the task as I am an interest in music and analyzing music videos has already been interesting, but very deep and complex. Despite this, I am ready to proceed with this task.