Friday 7 November 2014

ASSIGNMENT TASK B 1 : Artist Presentation

Beyonce's videos all have different aspects and meanings in them. Having a different variety of genres and meanings is important so that her success carries on. Beyonce started off in the band Destiny's Child with her friends Kelly and Michelle. They had countless amounts of success winning many awards and performing all around the world. They then went solo and started to produce their own songs. Beyonce has been the most successful but the others have been successful as well.





Video 1: Party



















The styles that Beyonce uses in her videos are all creative. Beyonce uses a lot of interpretative lyrics directly interpreting the song in a visual way. One song that is an interpretative song is 'Party' featuring J. Cole. In the video for this song, Beyonce is seen with many people having a party which relates with them name of the song.  Solange Knowles, Knowles' younger sister, and Kelly Rowland, former Destiny's Child member, both made cameos.  


In the video, the lyrics are mainly interpreted in the chorus where she repeatedly says 'Cause we like to party'. This is a good interpretation of the song title as it is called 'Party'. When Beyonce is repeating these lyrics , the video mainly focus' on her and her closest friends having a good time at the party. This is effective because when the chorus comes in, this is the bit that is the most catchy when it comes to the whole song and this is the bit that everyone is going to be singing in their heads when they think about this song.

I think with this song it has a different meaning to what the actual lyrics are saying. The lyrics in the song are Extending the meaning of the song. In actual fact I think that this song has a sexual meaning to it and when she is saying 'we like to party', I think what she actually means is 'party' in a sexual way. Even though the video is of them having a party, the real meaning is not of a party.

Video 2: Pretty Hurts




Beyonce loves to tell stories in her songs. One song that narrates a story is her song 'Pretty Hurts'. In the video, she is explaining how hard it is for girls to be perfect and the struggles they have to go through to be the perfect person. This song is also interpretive because the lyrics and the video go together in explaining the story.


This video is about a woman who is a battling the struggle of being perfect. In this video the focus is mainly on Beyonce because she is representing a woman who is aiming to be perfect and win the beauty pageant. During the video, there are plenty of close ups of Beyonce due to her being the main actor. Some scenes show her in the process of the beauty pageant and how the women prepare for it and what they have to go through to get to the winners place. One close up shows her without any make up on and looking like she has been defeated and that she's given up. 


Another convention in this video is lyric interpretation. In the video Beyonce is talking about the struggles of the girl world and what they have to do to fit in to society. In the lyrics it says "It's the soul that needs surgery" this basically means that people shouldn't judge what others look like on the outside and they should judge what's on the inside, so instead of people telling women the need surgery on their faces to look better, they should get surgery on their souls because they shouldn't judge women. When she is singing this line in the video, it shows her in a doctors office getting Botox injected into her face. Also, in the lyrics she says "Brush your hair, fix your hair, what you wear is all that matters" and as it goes along with these lyrics, Beyonce does the action of the lyrics by brushing her hair, putting Vaseline on her teeth, and putting on an outfit that she has to wear in the pageant.


In the video, there are some special effects of her in a swimming pool holding her hair and it looks like she's drowning to symbolise her drowning emotionally but in a few shows later it shows her going back up with symbolises her being saved from all the emotion and pain of trying to be the perfect person in society. These effects are all in slow motion. Using slow motion special effects gives the video a dramatic look.


Video 3: End of Time
















'End of Time' is a good example of when Beyonce uses in concert footage for her video. In this video, Beyonce uses three different concerts for this one video. In the video as it goes on, the video will switch to another concert as the beat changes. 


In this Beyonce video, the focus is mainly on her due to the video being a mixture of concerts that she has performed this song at. There are many dicferent camera techniques that focus on her when she is performing such as close up, mid shot and long shot. The different camera shots give the video a more fun feeling because if it was all one camera angle the video wouldn't be as fun as it comes across. 


A technique in this video is cutting to the beat. As the song goes on, the are many different beats, the video will switch from concert to concert, which then will be in sync with the song and all the dancing she is doing is the same in every concert so it flows as the beats changes. Another techniques is special effects with then the video uses strobe lights. Now although these weren't added in when the video was being made, they still count as use special effects. This gives this the video a better more fun atmosphere which also makes Beyonce's concert look more fun. 






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