Textual Analysis – Birdy Skinny Love

  I have chosen to do a textual analysis of Birdy's “Skinny Love” because this is the genre of music I plan to create my music video for. It is song similar to the Gabrielle Aplin song that I want to use.  

The term skinny love is defined as "When you're in a relationship because you need to be, but that's not necessarily why you should be in a relationship. And that's skinny; it doesn't have weight. Skinny love doesn't have a chance because it's not nourished."

 

   One of the first shots in the music video is a mid-close up of the artist at a piano, this shot is pretty cliché for this genre of music. But it gives the audience an impression of what the video is going to be like. It also implies that the singer has written the song as they are playing it at the piano. Therefore making it more impressive for the audience. The duration of the shot is five seconds which is quite a slow for an editing pace, but it suits the pace to the song.  

The next few shots are of the singer walking through a run-down house which again, is pretty cliché for this genre of music.

Camera Shots

 Mid Shot

 Close up

 Mid-Close up

 Long Shot

Extreme Close up

The camera shots throughout the music video there aren't really any long-shots besides the one which I have shown, I think this is because the song is very emotional and they want the audience to feel this, making it quite intimate and more relatable. 

Mis En Scene

The mise en scene in the video is all very natural and neutral. The setting is all very run down which implies the song is about a bad memory or just a memory of the relationship she is or was in.  

Cinematography 

Focus graphs are a huge factor of Indie music videos. 

Sound

The sound throughout is non-diegetic as it is a song added after editing.  

Who is the target audience for this text? – From watching the “Skinny Love” video I think it is pretty clear who the target audience from the text is. From the age of the singer, emotion of the video I think it is targeted at teenage girls. 

Representations of social groups

The social groups represented in this text are young females. People always stereotype teenage girls as 'emotional' and in your teen years you start to grow up and develop the type of person you become as an adult, which is what I think this song is about. Birdy (the singer) doesn't really show a significant emotion in the video, like the rest of the conventions of the video she is very neutral. This represents her as a sensitive teenage girl which is stereotypical for the age of her. 

Summary – Doing this textual analysis has helped me to decide what I want in my music video and what I do not want. It has also helped to reassure me in the conventions of a indie pop video so I know what is important for me to recreate within mine.

In the “Skinny Love” video I thought that the connection between the song and the text was very effective. When you first watch the video it is hard to tell what the meaning of the video is, it just looks as though Birdy is performing a song a the piano. Once I watched the video a few more times, and knew what the term 'Skinny Love' meant I began to understand the connection and I think it was a clever and effective way of doing it. It shows her letting out her feelings of her relationship.

I also found that the neutral colours that were used throughout the video worked very well. The colours gave the video the same emotion as the song. 

Although there were many things I liked about the text, there were also some things that I disliked.I found that the video was too dark and although it was good for the mood of the song they could have used lighter natural colours. 

In the text that I create I will avoid using alot of low lighting because the audience may find the video too hard to follow or struggle to see the shots. I will work out the target audience for the song, and then keep the same target audience for the video.

My own music video is very similar to this one with the settings of the wood and the shabby feel in the video. In addition, the conventions of an indoe pop music video are seen, with the isolated location, the story line, the artist singing, the camera shots and movements such as pans across the setting as all evident in this music video. This confirming that to make a good acoustic music video it is best to stick to the conventions to make it look convincing and be successful is put out into the media light as a real media text.