The Use of Props in Music Videos

Props used in 'High By the Beach' by Lana Del Rey

In Lana Del Rey's music video 'High By the Beach', the gun is one of the main parts of the video. One reason is because it goes against gender stereotypes in the music industry- females are not seen to be strong or powerful therefore it may act as  shock to the viewer which attracts a larger audience. In our own video, our artist will probably 'abide' to gender stereotypes as she may be seen as a typical heartbroken girl. However in other areas of the video, she could be seen as less feminine in terms of the clothing she wears, which could be more of a tomboy look. This gives our artist are more androgynous appearance which could be more relatable to a target audience of both boys and girls. In terms of props, we don't think we are going to include any with a gender stereotype attached to it, a reason for this could be so that the audience form their own opinions on the artist without social influence.

In the same video, there is a closeup shot of a note- a wave is then seen to take it away along with the tide. This could be a 'love letter' and the wave hitting it could represent the destruction of a bitter relationship. I think it would be a good idea to use the symbolism of the note being washed ashore in our own video, except in a different manner. We have already discussed the fact that we like the idea of a bonfire scene in our video, therefore we could think about burning away a letter from our artist's lover as a representation of their breakup. I believe that this could be effective as it would provide the audience with a very symbolic clue of how the artist is feeling at that time so that they can follow the story along. 

In the next scene of this video, a medium shot shows Lana flicking through a magazine. I feel that the symbolism of her reading the gossip article comes from the fact that the paparazzi have had a negative impact on her life and she is turning over a new chapter in her life. A prop such as a magazine can be seen as effective as it shows the artist distracted and makes them look more intriguing to an audience as there is no direct eye contacts with the camera, mystifying the viewers. We aim to use either books or magazines in our music video too (such as in a cafe during the breakup scenes) as it can make the artist look very interesting and enchanting- something that could make an audience want to continue watching which is one of our main goals.

Props used in Lana Del Rey's 'National Anthem'

 A prop used in many areas of this video is the American flag, be this subtle or obvious. In this closeup shot of the flag, for example, it emphasises the significance of it in the song there is a very patriotic theme. This prop is particularly successful in this video as the visuals are representative of the lyrics- this is something we may consider in our own video as we very much plan to tell a story meaning that an audience can follow it along. The American theme runs throughout many of Del Rey's songs. An example in the song we have chosen ('Without You'), states 'live on the dark side of the American dream' which means that there is a very patriotic element existing in her music. We could put our own spin on this by including our own national flag in order to make it more personal to our British artist.

In Lana Del Rey's 'National Anthem' music video many props are used. A frequently seen prop that is used throughout the video are pink roses. Roses are typically shown to represent love- with the colour pink linking to romance. Also the fact that nature is a re-occurrence throughout presents raw emotion to an audience- this is something that we would also like to include in our own video as I feel that it makes the connection between the viewers and artist much stronger. A more personal relationship between the two could lead to increased popularity as it can show that the artist is very grounded which is a trait we would like our own artist to have.  

A microphone is used in this section of her song in a music video. We do not plan on using a microphone as I feel that that would be more suited to a performance based music video with lots of lip syncing which could prove difficult to look professional. As we would like more of a narrative music video I do not feel that this type of prop would be appropriate because we are going for a natural, more story telling appearance. 

Location Analysis

Locations in Music Videos

'High By the Beach' - Lana Del Rey

In this music video, there is one main location. Saying this, other locations shown still revolve around that same predominant location (being the beach). The location in this video (filmed in Malibu, California) is very consistent throughout- a reason for this may be due to the title of the song which includes the word 'beach' therefore the lyrics are synchronous with the visuals. I feel that this establishing shot of Del Rey running across the shore is very successful as it could represent a sense of freedom that she may feel in such a tranquil, open environment in comparison to the usual busy life she faces everyday. The rocks along the beach in this location may represent her troubles, therefore she is just running past them without a care in the world as the beach is one of few places she can truly relax.

The second location in this video is Del Rey's beach house along the beach. I think that using this location means that a more vivid contrast is shown- this is as the beach represents her liberty however her house, which is meant to bring safety, represents insecurity. This is because her house is where she spends her time worrying and is constantly spied on by the paparazzi therefore instead of bringing comfort, it makes her face further troubles. Although the colour white on the house represents peace, a juxtaposition is created when she is seen carrying a gun to shoot at the media invading her privacy. 

To conclude, I feel that the limited locations in this music videos prove to be very successful as there are two main contrasts. I think that, in terms of our own music video, using a couple of basic locations in detail could prove to also be successful as more of a thorough storyline can be told. 

'Shades of Cool'- Lana Del Rey

In Lana's music video 'Shades of Cool' multiple locations are used. This is an establishing long shot of a dark street with few lights and I feel that this is a successful location to use as it reflects the deeper meaning of the song. As the theme of the song is down the 'dark' route, this type of nighttime location relates to the isolation she is feeling as the road shows only one car which could represent the glimmer of hope she has for her love driving away, leaving her in complete darkness. I think that this type of shot adds to the loneliness that it elicits to the audience.

The next location shown is the mid-shot of the artist in an outside environment surrounded by palm trees. I feel that more of a contrast is created here because the outdoors is typically linked to freedom and happiness however the lyrics of the song portray a sense of worthlessness and sorrow- possibly reflecting on a past summer she had once experienced. 

The swimming pool location, I feel, has more of a lyrically visual representation. This is as the line and song title 'shades of cool' is repeated throughout and the cool colour is very dominant here. The colour blue is often typically associated with depression and sadness and the fact that she is swimming in water could symbolise the fact that she feels like she is emotionally drowning. I do feel as though this location is successful as it is very different to the other scenes filmed on 'dry land' therefore it stands out further and is more memorable to the audience.

A studio location is used for the parts of the music video where the chorus is featured and reoccurs throughout- this shows consistency in the video and is a scene that viewers are able to come back and relate to. As the artist moves, iridescent neon colours radiate from her body whilst an element of double exposure is used where a rose is seen growing from her head. Not only does a rose symbolise love and passion, but also highlights the fact that her emotions appear very raw like in nature. 

In terms of our own music video, I think we should consider using a studio on location and studio effects in places such as when lip syncing. This is because I believe that a plain room/backdrop draws the audience's attention more to the emotions portrayed by the artist which is vital for us in our song.

We would like to draw inspiration from the consistent theme of nature used throughout as it has lots of symbolism and adds a sense of reality to the scene- for this we would use a variety of natural outdoor locations. 

'Ride'- Lana Del Rey

 In this music video, Lana Del Rey focuses on one main location but uses a mass of smaller locations in order to create more of a dynamic video. The video predominantly features a range of flashbacks however, throughout, it always resumes back to this scene of Lana swinging on a tyre in a desert. I feel that this location is highly successful as it is just the artist alone in such an open landscape. Although it could be interpreted as a desolate place and evoke feelings of isolation in the audience, the lyrics suggest to us that it is a place of freedom for her. The lyrics, to me, are a true representation of the visuals which may be more pleasing to the viewers and encourage them to continue watching which is definitely a positive factor and something we aim to include in our video. The line in particular ''i am fucking crazy but i am free'' I feel truly symbolises this scene and location as it appears to be such a calming environment. I feel that in our video we should also have lyrics synchronous with the visuals as it helps the audience to understand the story further and creates a stronger connection between the artist and viewers.

 The theme of motorbikes on location became apparent to me, this included the artist riding the back of the vehicle in long establishing shots like shown above. I think that the appearance of a road trip look which is being portrayed looks successful as it correctly shows a sense of living a wild and exciting life- this is what the lyrics of the song are all about.

Something else I noticed when viewing this video is the weather conditions on location.I saw that sunsets are often used included and sunny 'summer' appearing weather. This portrays a happy and 'free' atmosphere, reflecting the mood of the song perfectly. This is something we wish to seriously consider when filming our video- although the weather can be very unpredictable, I have understood through my research the type of 'vibe' that it can create- rainy weather would also be good in other parts of our video (such as the breakup) as that sends a sadder message.

 The video includes a variety of flashbacks from the artist's troublesome past. Del Rey started off as a small independent artist and the music video has scenes of her performing on location at a theater on stage. This makes part of the music video performance based which is quite a conventional feature and looks very effective for this song as she is portraying quite a glamorous brand. I do not think any performance based stage location scenes would be very appropriate for our song as we plan to focus more wholly on flashbacks of our artist's life and lip syncing on these outdoor locations.

I particularly liked the outdoor location of the bonfire. I think that the fire looks very effective as it is of a rich, striking colour and is bright so attracts the audience which is very important.
At the start and end of the video, there is a monologue where she puts the song into more context, this is whilst a variety of different locations are shown, synchronous with the visuals. The lines ''When i'm not at war with myself, I ride, I just ride'' is linked with on her riding the back of motorbikes round the edge of the mountain. Although this feature of the music video is what makes me fully appreciate it so much, I don't think our group should include this as it would be very difficult to make it look/sound fully professional which is the look we are fully going for. We want to stick to the song and lip syncing and avoid the use of our actual artist's voice.

'Young and Beautiful'- Lana Del Rey

 Lana Del Rey's 'Young & Beautiful' music video is solely performance based. This means that it is all filmed in a theater/studio. I do not think that this would be the best solution, location wise, for us when it comes to our own video as it doesn't show a storyline and that is what we wanted in order to give the song a deeper meaning. Saying this, one thing I did like about this video is the direct eye contact that the artist shows throughout, this can really draw and audience in as well as giving it more of a personal feel which I believe to be very important.
I noticed the use of other people in this music video. This included the location where the orchestra were performing on stage. I think that it suited this type of song as it has a lot of instrumental whereas this wouldn't be a relevant to ours as our song 'Without You' is not. Saying this, the use of other people as well as our artist is something I think that we should at least consider, although we plan to use other peoples arms to show the point of view of the artist's lover.

In conclusion, we have found this research very helpful as it has given us an insight into what type of locations we should use in our own video. We plan to use a mixture of both indoor and outdoor locations, but predominantly outdoor as this can include more exciting locations which would be best suited to our target audience of 16-22 year olds.

In this Prezi below, you will be able to see a variety of locations we have brainstormed of which I will explain our reasoning for on our filming day blog posts at a later date.

Target Audience Questionnaire

We decided to conduct a questionnaire which asked around 20 people from our target audience what they'd expect from a indie/alternative music video and also what they would expect from our artist, Nova. Below are a handful of questionnaires which allowed us to look at everyone's opinions of the creation of our music video.





When asking; 'Do you think this song is appropriate for our music video?' we got a few mixed responses. Roughly 25% disagreed with the song choice and around 75%  agreed with it. In the questionnaire (left) you can see that someone from our target audience described it as 'boring' however we wanted to stick with our song 'Without You' by Lana Del Rey as the majority agreed with our choice and although a minority didn't- we just wanted to ensure that enough people supported the song otherwise our video wouldn't have enough appeal to the target audience.









Next, we asked 'Do you think fast or slow paced editing should be used'? The vast majority of people said 'slow paced editing' should be used with only a small percentage saying 'fast paced'. We are going to take these responses into consideration by mainly doing slow editing however with areas of more complicated fast editing to show off the skills that we have. There are also parts of the song that have quite a prominent, heavy beat in which we are planning to use synchronous editing which will differentiate some parts of the video's editing to others for more variety.






We then asked our target audience whether we should include any sort of theme running throughout our video. The idea of love on many questionnaires was very evident, with some suggesting to represent this idea through loss, heartbreak or a breakup- these are all very useful ideas we will consider.













Style and fashion is a very important factor in developing the image of our artist as it makes up who they are as a person (their brand) and contributes to what an audience remembers of them. We asked for ideas on what type of style they should have of which the words 'edgy', 'bohemian' and 'unique' frequently appeared from different individuals. Denim, monochrome and 'flowy' kinds of clothing are the type of clothing we had already imagined and fittingly match the description of our artists style proposed by the questionnaires.











During our research, it became apparent to us that the choices of location are very important in a music video as it is all part of what makes a video enticing to the viewer. We asked whether we should use multiple locations or just one main location and what types of places we should film in. Responses received mainly showed that multiple locations were most preferred (which I agree as I believe it makes the video more interesting and shows more variety). Places such as towns and fields have been noted as recommended places to film as they fit in well with our genre as well as looking aesthetically pleasing.









When initially discussing our target audience, we decided upon the ages 16-18 years old. At first we thought it was a good age range as the themes in the video would be quite relatable however on the return of the questionnaires many people disagreed and felt that it was too narrow. After further discussion, we decided to change it to a niche audience and extend it to 16-22 as discussed in a previous blog post. This means that our video/song will appeal to a larger number and variety of people.








Finally, we asked about which parts of the song should be lip synced. The majority of people reported back by saying that the chorus should be mainly lip synced however some other people said that some of the verses should be lip synced also. I agree with what everyone is saying, therefore we plan to combine everyone's opinion and lip sync part of each verse- not only would this appeal to more of our target audience, but it means that the video remains interesting, balanced and consistent throughout which is very important in order for it to remain professional.

Lyric Analysis

One of the aims of our music video is to have a variety of different scenes and camera shots throughout in order to show the progression of time during our artist's life. This is one of the reasons why we took the time to plan where these scenes/different locations would be shown according to the lyrics. This way, not only would we be able to see whether it matches the words of the song, but we would also be able to see a chronological order of events and therefore evaluate whether it works or not. For example, on the second verse we have annotated 'relationship at its strongest' and then on the final verse 'breakup'. This planning is useful because it allows us to have an idea on the type of footage we would include for these areas- a happy mood would not be portrayed in the final verses and a sad mood could not be shown in the initial verses as it does not coincide with the lyrics.

We went through and highlighted particular lines that we plan our artist to lip sync. This included some of the most repeated and key phrases in the chorus eg. 'hello, hello, c-can you hear me?' as this line is one of the most memorable to the audience which we feel could have quite a successful effect. We have planned the lip syncing so that there is an even distribution throughout the song- for it would appear very strange to have only lip syncing in just one verse of the song, we plan for it to be equally spread out like the artist's videos we analysed in our previous research because it seemed most professional and consistent this way. We avoided too much lip syncing in the bridge of the song as this is where the pace builds up to the chorus therefore we plan to show more fast pace editing skills in this area such as a flashback of the artist's life using montage.

In order to sustain the professional appearance we are aiming for, analysing the lyrics gave us a deeper understanding of them. Not only this, but it allowed us to evaluate which phrases would be most challenging to lip sync so that we could avoid these areas as it gave us more room for mistakes which is what we wanted to avoid in order for it to look as professional as possible.

Andrew Goodwin's Theory

Goodwin's theory implies that music videos have a set structure that all artists follow.

1) Music videos will often show genre stereotypes. For example rap music may often feature the main artist (e.g a male usually of high status and wealth) surrounded by women wearing revealing clothing by a pool. Whereas on the other hand, a girl band may feature a dance routine. The genre of our song 'Without You' by Lana Del Rey sways more to the alternative side of the music genre- I think our planning so far is more stereotypical of this genre as we wish to incorporate more retro effects and bohemian/edgy style which would support Goodwin's Theory.

Dizzee Rascal's 'Holiday' music video is a good example of the stereotypes of the rap genre.

2) Voyeurism- the act of looking (especially secretively) at a male or female being portrayed seductively for their own pleasure. Goodwin says that voyeurism is mainly used to sell the artist's music or gain popularity by sex appeal. It can be used through the use of props too which is seen in Miley Cyrus' 'Wrecking Ball' music video as seen below where her actions make a sledgehammer be seen in a sexual way. In terms of our own music video, we do not plan to use voyeurism as we want to brake some of the typical conventions in the music industry so that it is not like all of the other existing videos, especially as our artist is female- which voyeurism is shown from a very biased angle due to the objectification of women in society today. We have created our artist to be more sophisticated yet edgy at the same time so sex appeal is not really needed as it does not match up to their character.
One aspect of voyeurism that we are planning to use is direct eye contact with the audience as we feel that it creates a stronger relationship between the artist and the viewers which I feel is very important in the music industry as audiences in this day and age want to get even more personal with the artist in order to warm to them and feel that connection.
The '4th wall' is broken when the artist sings to the camera (direct address) which makes it seem like they are singing directly to us. We have some camera shots in our video planned when the artist seen to hold the camera and sing directly to it which, again, makes the connection between the audience appear stronger.

3) A relationship between the music and the visuals. For example, the lyrics of the song will match what is seen on the screen. We agree with Andrew Goodwin's theory on this as we would like our music video to also have a relationship between the music and the visuals. I feel that it would be more successful this way as there is more of a vivid story told and also makes the lyrics far more meaningful. Although I can see how doing the opposite would also be very successful also, as a huge contrast is created and sometimes the most strange and wacky videos have the most attention drawn to them. Saying this, our chosen song has a lot of symbolism and deep lyrics in it which would allow us to be creative with how we choose to visually project our interpretations. 

4) The demands of the record label- some record labels have particular demands for what their artist should be represented as. For example some female artists are made to appear 'sexy' in order to draw in more of a male target audience. For our music video (as stated above) we do not want our artist to appear like this, we have taken most of our inspiration from Lana Del Rey who's main focus isn't on sex appeal, more on the content and quality of the music that she creates. We think it would be more successful to focus on these qualities as it would more likely draw an audience that is most interested on the music itself rather than the artist's branding whether it be 'sexy' or not.

5) Intertextual References- These are references to existing forms of media such as television, films and other music videos. The audience like being 'in' on the reference and it generally makes the video more likable. We are not planning on using intertextual references in our video as we don't deem it to be very appropriate for our song as the lyrics do not relate to anything else because it is mainly narrative based, therefore the visuals would only reflect the lyrics themselves.
 An example of an intertextual reference is Taylor Swift's 'Love Story' where she references Shakespeare's 'Romeo and Juliet' both in the lyrics and visuals. 

Lana Del Rey uses intertextual references in her video for 'National Anthem' referencing the time Marilyn Monroe sang happy birthday to president JFK. 

6) Performance based, Narrative based or concept based? A narrative based music video is all about telling a story. A fragmented narrative would be when the story has no set order, showing both flashbacks and flash forwards meaning that the audience would piece it together themselves. We decided to go for a more linear narrative as although we wanted to tell more of a story (or present an idea of our artist's relationship) we aim to show it in chronological order. We think that this would be more successful as it shows consistency which matches the genre of music that our song is, in comparison to a fragmented narrative which could be more suited to the rock genre where the storyline may be more unsettling to the viewer. A concept based video presents a particular theme or idea which I would say we are planning our music video to be like too however ours is set to have a more vivid story so wouldn't solidly fit into this category. Performance based videos have less camerawork, normally featuring closeup and wide shots of the band/artist playing. Although I think it is a good way to showcase their talent, to me, it seems less creative and doesn't give the song as much meaning.

An example of a performance based video is Miley Cyrus' '7 Things'- a positive of the video is that there is lots of direct address so there is a strong relationship between the artist and the audience. Although I think this is important, I believe you can also achieve this through a concept or narrative based video which explains the reason why we have chosen this. 

Overall, I would say that we have been very influenced by Andrew Goodwin's theory of music videos- some of which I am confident that we are going to apply in our very own. Saying this, I don't think we are going to stick to them all as we want to break some of the typical conventions of music videos in order to stand out.