The Saturdays "Notorious" and Jay Sean ft Lil Wayne "Hit The Lights"

Jay Sean:

Jay Sean’s video “Hit The Lights” is set between three different settings, one is set in what can perhaps resemble a club where people are both sitting around and standing, the second setting is where Jay Sean is depicted standing on a stage with floodlights gleaming behind him and the third setting is prominently set in a pink/purple room where all the dance sequences occur. When listening to the lyrics of his song, it discusses how the people in the club will be drinking and dancing until the morning, explaining how their enjoying their lives and enjoying a good night out together which is illustrated in the dancing scenes of the music video. Jay Sean also sings “put your lighters in the air, let em burn into the night,” whilst singing this line, the music video depicts lighters being lit and burning into the sky. The lyrics clearly fit with the music video exceptionally well.

The genre of this song is said to be dance-pop, R&B, and hip hop which I believe is cleverly achieved in his official music video due to the fact that Jay Sean uses special effects and lots of bright electric lights which are depicted flying in and out of different shots of his video which goes in time with the beat and tempo of the song, illustrating that Jay Sean thought carefully about how he could make it possible for the genre to be portrayed successfully in his music video. To me the bright electric lights resemble features that might be incorporated and added to a dance-pop music video!

As said previously, a music video is meant to provide pleasure for the viewer and to keep them interested so that they are encouraged to watch the video again and to perhaps get other people interested in the video if they haven’t already seen it. I believe that one of the shots that achieves this is that halfway through the song there is an instrumental bit and there a few shots which depict Jay Sean standing on the stage which the floodlights gleaming behind him, yet what makes this scene look exceptionally effective is the fact that these shots become fast paced and jump cuts are used to build up the excitement. Additionally, not all the shots are the same so it will jump from a close up to a long shot to an aerial shot and so on giving this section of the music video a real buzz about it.

One of the shots which happens to be my favourite throughout the music video is when Jay Sean and his dancers are showcased dancing on stage but the camera jumps in and out between them so one minute it will flow between close ups and mid shots and the next minute it will change to a long shot. Additionally, what makes this shot look so appealing to me is the fact that bright electric lights are used again but this time there are of the three primary colours, that is, red, blue and yellow and each one flicker in and out in the beat of the song.

I believe that this video is narrative and performance based as the narrative highlights how Jay Sean and his friends are celebrating having a good night out clubbing. Whilst, at the same time Jay Sean is depicted performing as he dances on stage either by himself or with his back up dancers clearly putting on a performance. However, all in all it is all of these features which happen to make “Hit The Lights” a successful music video.

The Saturdays:

The Saturdays official video “Notorious” is set between two settings, the first section of the song takes place in an office where all five girls are depicted sitting at desks answering phones and stamping pieces of paper with the phrase “Notorious,” drawing attention to the name of their single. Whilst the second half of the video is set in a club where the girls change out of their business wear and into their party clothes where they head off onto the dance floor dancing and singing the night away! When listening to the lyrics of the song I realised that the lyrics did link in well with the official video. One lyric which depicts this is “I’m a gangster on the dance floor,” which is highlighted when the girls are showcased dancing on the dance floor waving their hands in their air and moving about. The lyrics in the song are said to illustrate that the band are enjoying and loving life, they like to go out and enjoy themselves, however they can still work hard and have a naughty side to them. The lyrics of the song have also been described as being quite playful.

Additionally, the genre of this song is said to be dance-pop, electropop which I believe is definitely achieved and portrayed in the official video as each girl in the band begins to move in time with the electropop beat, for example when the girls walk out of the elevator for the first time, the camera changes to a close up of the girls legs and shoe, yet the footage begins to slow down and each time the girls step forward this goes in time with the beat demonstrating that the band thought carefully about how they could portray the genre of their song in the official video.

Music videos are usually designed to provide pleasure in order to keep the viewing audience interested and watching so that they would be encouraged to re-watch the video over again. I believe that The Saturdays achieve this by slowing down some of their shots, as said before, the walking shot after the girls leave the elevator. Also, there is a shot about a minute into the video where Vanessa is seen sitting at her desk singing into the telephone yet she repeats the lyric “I l-l-love this track,” and the shot jumps as she says ‘I l-l-love’ which makes the footage seem more exiting and enthralling as it is unusual.

One of the final shots in the music video happens to be my favourite for the reason that the girls are dancing about on the dance floor in their party clothes and the camera starts to jump between each of the girls as they each sing separate lines of the chorus. Yet, what makes this scene look remarkable is the fact that rather than switching between each of the girls one shot after the other, the producers have decided to use wire framing and have incorporated two sometimes three images onto one screen where each individual shot is doing something different. For me this makes the video a worthwhile watch. It’s interesting, different and captivating.

I believe that this video is narrative and concept based as the narrative discusses how the girls are enjoying their life and that they can work and achieve good things in their career but at the same time they know how to go out and have a good time. Whilst the concept of the music video, is slowing down the speed of a shot and using wire framing.

Lotus Project:



Radiohead Mash Up – Take On Me:

Our third preliminary exercise involved us using Radiohead’s official video for their single “Lotus Flower” and choosing a brand new song of our choice use that soundtrack to re-edit Radiohead’s video in order to show off the skills we had learnt over the past year, demonstrating how we could edit and place segments of the official video and make sure that each shot fit in with the beat of the song.  Additionally, we were able to use the ‘reverse’ technique and speed the images up again in order to make the video appear more gripping. We also wanted to be able to show off our ability of being able to create and use special effects in order to make the video seem more imaginative and creative.

The screen grab highlighted to the right of the screen illustrates where both Khushel and I experimented with the video timeline and used a pen technique to either decrease and increase the lighting of the image, allowing us to create a shadowy effect. You are able to achieve this effect by copying the original video and pasting it onto another timeline for example V1 and V2, making sure that one video is slightly over lapping the other. By tweaking the levels using the pen technique you can then create second delays so one video will start a few seconds after the first one has started therefore creating a shadowy effect since you had previously tweaked the lighting levels. (SCREEN GRAB TO COME OF TIMELINE)

In this screen grab we decided to use one of the special effects provided to us on Final Cut Express, that is, ‘Mirror Effect’ which does exactly as it says. It splits the image in half and mirrors it on the other side of the screen, duplicating the image. We thought that this would be a creative, interesting and artistic effect to use as it would bring something different to the video and perhaps capture more people’s attention.

Finally, we used a ‘blinking’ technique whereby two of our selected shots depicted a fast paced blinking effect which made the shots seem more exciting and enthralling. It also makes the footage appear to be playing faster than it really is which thankfully fit in well with the beat of our audio. This effect definitely was one of my favourite effects to use as it amplified the visual image.