Analysis of a Pop Music Video

bleeding love

Laura | MySpace Videos



Song: Bleeding Love
Artist: Leona Lewis
Year: 2007
Director: Melina Matsoukas

Target Audience - The main audience for this music video would be those who watched and supported her on the X-Factor ( the T.V show which she won the recording contract through). The fans of the show would have a wide age range from very young children watching it with their parents and t he older generation.

Narrative Structure - The structure of the video is featuring the storylines of couples in different stages of relationships. We are shown first love, unbridled passion, heartbreak. loss and anger. Meanwhile we shown Leona Lewis singing directly to the camera . This links in with theorist Propp, his theory is a form of structuralism which is a view that all media is inevitably in the form of certain fixed structures. These structures are often culturally derived and form expectations n the mind of an audience. This video relates to the audience as they would of experienced at least one of stages of love and the ones they would not of experienced they would recognise or relate to through different forms of media.
As we witness the dramatic points within each of the different stages of love, the sprinklers in the apartments turn on. Melina explained her meaning of this is because the water in the video is a metaphor for the tenants love problems as the apartments are bleeding love.

Setting - The set of the video is in a apartment block, each window of the apartment tell the story of each person. We are shown the set up of this in the first establishing shot of the music video. In this first shot we are shown the different windows of the apartment turning on and seeing that people inside them. The same shot is used at the end of the video. However this time the lights are all being turned off and we no longer see those inside the windows. By having different stages of love in the story line, this allows the audience to relate and put themselves in those situations. As the target audience would many a vast age range the is something in the plot for everyone to understand.

Characters - The main character in this music video is the artist herself, Leona Lewis. Other characters in the video are those who are portraying the different stages of love and telling the story. As this was Leonas frist debut single on her album it was important that she was a key feature of the video as her target audience would want to see her in it.

The costumes (Mise- en Scene) - Leona Lewis is dressed in a £100,000 Dolce and Gabbana crystal encrusted dress. For the woman playing the part of loss, she is wearing he are humerous as they are typical key features of fashion in the 70's and 80's. This is a form of intertextuality because Spike Jones is recreating scenes that are typical of a particular genre (copp films/programmes). Also a combination of whats expected and whats unexpected. The bands costumes consist of fake moustaches, sideburns and Ray Ban sunglasses (which were popular at this period of time). There is also a distinctive difference between different characters when they are "goodies and badies".

Lyrics - Jesse McCartney wrote the song about his long-term girlfriend, and said "I kept thinking about being in love so much that it hurts. I was away from my girlfriend for four months at the time and I really wanted to quit and fly home. I was so in love that it was painful. It was like bleeding, it cut me open." The song refers to someone in a relationship who is extremely blinded by love. Regardless of being warned by friends and family and being emotionally hurt by the person she is in love with but she continues to love him and accepts the pain. Metaphorically, this is represented in him "cutting her open". However, all she can do is "bleed love" for him. There is no distinctive link from the lyrics to the video because the lyrics do not tell the story shot by shot. Although there can be a link between the two because the title fits in with the theme also some lyrics would fit in with the actions now and then. For example at 2.01 the lyric is "risk that comes with your embrace" and the shot shows a woman who is taking a risk as she is with another man who is not her boyfriend/husband The way the lyrics are sung and the feel match the video and the song together well.

Special Effects - Special effects are used in post production to create the establishing and closing shots. When filming the video, each room would be filmed separately then brought together in the apartment block. However tyhwere is limited special effects in this video.

Camera Angles & Editing - The editing is smooth but also matches the tempo of the song. Many cuts are on strong beats in the song. There is a variety of camera shots in this video. The shots help to tell the story behind the video as the shots smoothly show that's the situations are happening in different rooms of one combined apartment. The establishing shot of the music video shows the layout of the apartment and the different rooms.