Formal Conventions

Costume Ideas

Location Ideas

Audience Research: Focus group

To give my audience research more credibility on top of the questionnaire and blog poll, I decided to get three people together who I think fit the bill for my pending target audience, and I asked them various questions regarding my music video. This gave me the opportunity to address my audience personally and hear their opinions.

The questions are:

1. What do you think is the most important element of a music video and why?

2. Do you prefer a narrative music video without lip-sync or an abstract video with lip-sync? Why?

3. Give an example of how a music video has grabbed your attention and influenced you to buy the album. How did it do this?

4. Do you prefer music videos shot inside, outside, or a combination of both? Why do you prefer this?

5. How many different settings/filming locations should a video have in your opinion? Why?

6. Do you prefer a more cinematic and smooth style of cinematography or a more unsteady and documentary feel? Why?

7. What conventions would you associate with the country genre of music? Mise-en scene, cinematography, editing etc

Artist Research

In order to explore the styles that country artist's use in their music videos, I have researched and produced in-depth analysis of the musical style of Carrie Underwood. I would've researched my chosen artist that I'm using for my music video, Ella Mae Bowen, but she is fairly unknown as an artist so the research wouldn't be as helpful. Researching Carrie Underwood is a perfect substitute as she's a similar yet more established country artist.

Audience Expectations

While I wait for the results of the blog poll and questionnaire that will determine my target audience, I have decided to make my own prediction on the gender, age, ethnicity and social class of my pending target audience. In order to make the prediction more credible and to back it up extensively, I have referred to Tessa Perkins' theory of stereotypes by discussing the common stereotypes of country music fans. If my prediction is correct, the reliability of stereotypes will have been proved.

Audience Research

To get an idea of which audience in particular I want to target for the focus of my music video, I designed this questionnaire for 15 people to answer it. These answers will determine the not only my target audience (gender and age group), but also other aspects of the music video, including the style, narrative, the content of it and how I will promote and release it once its been made. When I have the answers I will create some charts displaying the information, so the quantitative data will be much easier to interpret and analyse.

History of Country music videos

Unlike the pop genre, country music videos didn't come around until the mid-80's. Partly because country music has a much more loyal community and as the music is very raw, there wasn't a need for music videos. Live performances were well respected by fans and they acted for the substitute for music videos. Artists as classic as Hank Williams Sr performed on TV and awards shows, these satisfied the audience. The Grand Ole Opry was also a regular performance space for country artists.

In 1983, Country Music Television (CMT) was launched. CMT is a an American basic cable and satellite television channel that is owned by the MTV Networks Music & Logo Group. Programming on the channel includes country music videos, taped concerts, movies, biographies of country music stars, game shows, and reality programs. The rising popularity of CMT demanded the need for music videos. In 1984, Hank Williams Jr released premiered a music video for his song "All my rowdy friends are comin over tonight" and it premiered on CMT. 

Furthermore, the late 80's and 90's saw the increase in Country-pop (a crossover of pop and country music). Which also saw the increase in music videos for country, this is because pop music has always had a need for music videos due to the further success it can bring. If a popular song has a music video, the song is usually in the charts for longer. For example, Michael Jackson released a music video for his song, "Thriller" known independently as Michael Jackson's Thriller. At fourteen minutes the video is substantially longer than the song, which ties together a narrative featuring Jackson and actress Ola Ray in a setting heavily inspired by horror films of the 1950s. The video was immediately popular and received high critical acclaim, to the point where the music video outshone the song. It has been voted as the most influential pop music video of all time, and is also proved to have a profound effect on popular culture It is also the most watched music video of all time, seen by more than four billion people all over the world.

So when the Country-pop movement started in the early 90's, the demand for music videos increased to the point where videos were being made for just Country music. As a result, country music is now much more mainstream. To this day, music videos are a common part of country music. Some of the country-pop artists that started this revelation include Shania Twain, Faith Hill and Sara Evans.

Over the years, it is obvious that there has been a switch over in terms of which gender has the most authority over the country music industry. Throughout the early 20th century, country music was dominated by male artists such as Hank Williams, Red Foley and Roy Acuff, mainly because they had many female fans and it is common knowledge that sex appeal plays a huge part in selling records even today. 

Since the rise of Dolly Parton in the 80's, the demand for young and attractive female country singers increased. This increased even more during the pop crossover period in the 90's. The "good-girl" attitude of the female country artists made them role-models and created a very loyal fanbase target audience for them, young girls. This proved successful as the teenage girls are so desperate to be like them, that they buy anything that will get them closer to the artist. Shania Twain's album, "Come On Over", sold over 40 million copies and today it is still the biggest-selling studio album of all time by a female artist and the biggest-selling country music album ever.

Still today, country music fans (that are prominently female) are choosing the female country artists who are their role models, in favour of the male country artists that have some sex appeal. Another reason male country artists aren't as popular now is because a small percentage of the country music audience are male. Because of this, there aren't many males that idolise male country artists, so the male country artists don't that get the a huge boost in sales that the females get. There are only a few exceptions with male country artists like Luke Bryan, Blake Shelton, Jason Aldean, Brad Paisley and Hunter Hayes.

The country-pop success with female artists continues today with Taylor Swift and Carrie Underwood, and their videos are successful also. Another thing that is supporting the continued success is the artist's direction with their songs and image. Now their audience of females (mostly teens and young adults) who idolise them and see them as their role model has been established, the artists are able to adjust and compose their music to the audience's needs. For example, most of Taylor Swift's songs are about her experiences at as a teenager, which include love, break-ups, family issues, body and image issues, teen angst etc. The audience of teenage girls are able to strongly relate with the topics Swift is singing about, so the audience's fondness of her is more likely to grow extensively. Especially as they will think that the artist is just like them and they may be inspired to develop ambitions to become successful like them. Their image is another part of it, by not dressing provocatively like R&B and Pop artists (Rihanna, Lady Gaga, Katy Perry etc), they are able to not only maintain their "good-girl" image but also encourage young girls to not be influenced by the way these other artists dress, in fear of being inspired to dress like them. So they are contradicting Laura Mulvey's 'Male Gaze' thoery. So they are killing two birds with one stone. This technique in selling both their image and their music is one of the things that gives country music its respect, as the audience are never influenced to do anything bad due to the lack of provocativity, the admirable presentation of themselves and the realistic and relatable topics they sing about.

History of Country music genre

Country music is a genre of American popular music that originated in the rural regions of the Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from the southeastern genre of American folk music and Western music. Blues modes have been used extensively throughout its recorded history. Country music often consists of ballads and dance tunes with generally simple forms and harmonies accompanied by mostly string instruments such as banjos, electric and acoustic guitars, fiddles, and harmonicas.

The term country music gained popularity in the 1940s in preference to the earlier term hillbilly music; it came to encompass Western music, which evolved parallel to hillbilly music from similar roots, in the mid-20th century. The term country music is used today to describe many styles and subgenres. In 2009 country music was the most listened to rush hour radio genre during the evening commute, and second most popular in the morning commute in the United States.

There are many different subgenres of country music including: Bakersfield sound, Close harmony, Honky Tonk, Jug band, Lubbock sound, Nashville sound, Neotradtional country, Outlaw country, Red dirt, Western swing and Texas country. There are also fusion genres which are a mix of country music and other genres. These are: Alternative country, Country rock, Psychobilly, Rockabilly, Gothabilly, Cowpunk, Country-rap, Country pop, Country soul, Sertanejo and Southern soul.

The most popular variation of country music today is Country pop.  It first emerged in the 1970s with artists like Olivia Newton-John. Although the term first referred to country music songs and artists that crossed over to Top 40 radio, country pop acts are now more likely to cross over to adult contemporary. Even Dolly Parton, who had already achieved considerable success as a mainstream country artist, decided to crossover to pop music to expand her audience in 1977. Crossing over into the pop music world with No. 1 country and No. 3 pop hit that year called "Here You Come Again".

As country music fans were becoming restless, country pop suffered a decline as country radio was dominated by neotraditional artists for the next several years. In the 1990s, country pop enjoyed a resurgence, starting with successful artists like Shania Twain. Many country artists experienced huge crossover success. These artists include Billy Ray Cyrus, Tim McGraw, Faith Hill, The Dixie Chicks, Jo Dee Messina, Martina McBride, Reba McEntire, Lonestar, Sara Evans and LeAnn Rimes.

Into the 21st century, country pop is still popular and successful. With her exposure on TV's American Idol, Carrie Underwood became a crossover success in 2006 and 2007 though, with her hit single "Before He Cheats". Taylor Swift also had crossover success in the late 2000s with her eponymous debut album and its follow up, "Fearless" Which has sold 9 million copies worldwide and was the album became the year's best-seller, making Swift, 20 at the time, the youngest artist to have one. Furthermore, it became the only album to elapse a full year in the top ten of the Billboard 200. Fearless is the second biggest-selling album in the last five years (behind Adele's 21). At the 52nd Grammy Awards, Fearless won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year and Best Country Album. It is the most awarded album in the history of country music.

In the 2010s, Taylor Swift and Lady Antebellum have achieved success recently, including winning numerous Grammy Awards. Taylor Swift's 2010-release album Speak Now and 2012's Red had become top charters in multiple charts, including the Top Country Albums and Billboard 200; both of those album sold 1 million copies in their debut week sales, opening 1.0 million for Speak Now and 1.2 million for Red. Lady Antebellum scored another crossover hit in the summer of 2011 with the song "Just a Kiss", and also during this past year The Band Perry song "If I Die Young" crossed over to pop radio.

Notable country artists:

"King of Country"

Red Foley

Hank Williams

Roy Acuff

"Queen of Country"

 Kitty Wells

 Dolly Parton

Tammy Wynette 

"Queen of Country-Pop"

Shania Twain

Carrie Underwood

Taylor Swift

Initial Ideas

This slideshow explains in detail three different ideas for my music video's story-line  They are all very different as one has a narrative structure, while the other two are abstract and performance- style. I haven't decided yet which one I with, but this decision will be made soon as I plan to start filming in 2 weeks.

Lyric Timings: "Girl On Fire"

Lyrics Analysis - "Girl On Fire"

In order to show my ideas on how I want to present these lyrics in my music video, I have taken some of the lyrics that I highlighted in orange and put them into a table in which I have found pictures that represent my ideas.

Textual Analysis 3: Carrie Underwood - "Two Black Cadillacs"

Written by: Carrie Underwood, Hillary Lindsey, Josh Kear

Director: P.R. Brown

Genre: Country pop
Structure: Narrative/Abstract


This music video has a strong and dark narrative that is very obvious to the viewer/audience, but very unusual but not unconventional to the genre. In summary, a man is married and also has a mistress/girlfriend, this is unbeknownst to both women. The wife finds an unknown number on his phone and calls it, and both women discover each other's identity, realising that their lover is a liar. They devise a plan to murder the man as punishment for his lies and deceit. The mistress (played by the artist, Carrie Underwood) lures him into an alleyway one night, and his wife rams him with her car (a black Cadillac), killing him. At the end, the two women travel separately to his funeral, and meet face to face for the first and the last time, sealing their lover's fate and the dark secret they share. Most of the narrative is told through storytelling in the music video, as not many of the story's events are shown. Instead, the story is told through the song's lyrics that the artist sings, for example:

"Two months ago his wife called the number on his phone, Turns out he'd been lying to both of them for oh so long"
"It was the first and the last time they saw each other face to face, they shared a crimson smile and just walked away, and left the secret at the grave"

While the video's narrative is very obvious to the viewer due to the heavy use of storytelling and the showing of the story's key events (The man getting killed, the two women arriving at his funeral), there are still a small number of connotations, symbols that develop the narrative even more. The first is what the song's title is referring to, the two black cadillacs, they are key props in the video as well as imagery, they both represent the man's love for both women, as he bought them both this car. But it also hints and symbolises the theme of death due to the connotation of the colour black. You could also say that the two black cadillacs represent the two women's lack of morality, as they murdered a man in cold blood and the colour black connotes death.

While the music video primarily follows a narrative, there is a subtle use of some abstractness shown through symbolism and imagery. The first of this is towards the end of the video, when the crushed car (crushed from ramming the man into the wall killing him) repairs itself in a distorted manner. This could represent the women's skill of covering up the murder as well as showing their dedication to keep this dark secret between them. Another ambiguous clip in the video is right at the end. The two women leave the funeral together in one of the black cadillacs, they sit in the back passenger seats and the car drives away by itself with no driver, possibly representing their determination as well as guilt. This clip is very difficult to interpret, but it gives the music video a very mysterious and ethereal tone.

Although the video conveys a darker tone than the typical country music video, it still shares the same natural conventions. The setting is a common convention as country videos are usually associated with nature, as the artist is either in a field or a wood in a part of the video at least. In the video, one of the main settings is a graveyard, which is a key convention of dark country music.The other main setting in the music video, inside Cadillac, is also conventional in its own right, but quite rare.The season this video was shot in also represents the sadness and tragedy of the song's deep meaning. Typically, country music videos are shot in the summer as sunlight is associated with happiness, which suggests that the average country song is upbeat and positive  While it follows the setting convention it could be argued that this is unconventional in the sense as the video is shot in the autumn/winter.

Another unconventional feature of the music video is the artist's choice of costume. Usually, due to most country music videos being shot in the summer, the choice of attire is usually appropriate for this season e.g sundresses, plaid shirts, jean shorts, jeans, cowboy hats etc. A very common and important piece of country-style clothing, cowboy boots, are also omitted due to the nature of the video (themes of death, deep meaning etc) It could be argued that the clothing is only different to adjust to the season in which the video was shot in (winter), but at the same time the costume isn't at all suitable for winter. 

In terms of mise-en-scene, the major settings of this music video are in a rural graveyard during a funeral and inside a Cadillac car. Like I mentioned earlier, a nature based setting is a common convention of country music. There is strong pathetic fallacy with this setting as the weather reflects the mood. There is a strong use of mist or fog, which is also very appropriate. As the song and video is about death, the fog is very good at representing the sadness yet evil tone in the music video. It also makes the setting much more ethereal and spiritual, as fog in some way is similar to how you'd expect ghosts to look.

Looking closely into costume, it is essentially funeral attire, as she is dressed all in black. It includes black ankle boots, a long white black coat and a black dress. A key accessory she also wears is some dark sunglasses, which she wears to hide her joy of her lover's death in her eyes so no one is suspicious.  Analysing this costume further, it seems to be a "mourning" choice of attire (people wear black when someone close to them has passed away). But linking to John Berger's theory of "Ways if seeing" this makes me see the attire in an entirely different way.The wife's costume is very traditional as she's wearing a long dress and veil, while the mistress's is quite provocative as it accentuates her legs. This makes it seem that the her gaze is meant to entice the viewer despite the song being very serious with no suggestion of this.

The cinematography in the video is very smooth, so it seems to have been shot with either a steadicam or a track. Since the majority of the shots of Underwood are of driving in the Cadillac car, the track is designed to keep the shots still on her and allows the audience's focus to be completely on her. The smooth cinematography gives the music video a very ethereal and spiritual tone, which is suitable as the song and the video is essentially about death and vengeance.

In terms of editing, the video is cut in continuity, which means it is telling a story with narrative continuity, but it also cuts to a flashback a number of times to show the husband being killed. The smooth flow from shot to shot and flashbacks help develop the narrative for the audience. Continuity editing also creates realism as the edit is invisible so the action appears real instead of constructed. The verisimilitude is very important for this music video as the aim is to make you feel the same way as the character is feeling. The more real it appears, the more likely the audience is to believe it and engage with the emotions of the song.

Another editing technique I picked up on was the use of slow motion. This isn't entirely obvious but I noticed this starting with the horse. I felt that this was used to again make the video seem ethereal which fits in with the song and music video's theme of death and vengeance. To add slow motion effectively in a way where the artist is still lip-syncing in time, the artist has to lip-sync to the song twice as fast. The slow motion doesn't just represent the theme but it also fits with the pace and rhythm of the song, as it is of a slow rhythm, there is more realism.