Music video response - Perfect day, Hoku.

Music video essay - Perfect Day, Hoku.

This video was released to coincide with the film “legally blonde” in which the song appears throughout; thematically it links to a “dumb” blonde’s point of view about life. This video for Hoku seems to be the only main song that everyone knows about therefore it is important in their music career. The song is very catchy and girlie and once it has been listened to once it stays in your head for a long while.

Throughout the video the main type of camera shot is a mid- shot. This occurs mainly throughout because half of the video seems to be clips from the film legally blonde and then the other half showing the band playing and the lead singer singing. When there are clips of the band playing this is when mainly close ups are being used on her face to let the audience interact and understand the lyrics more as they can see them clearly. A two shot is used occasionally to show clips of the actor in the film walking along the street, next to the lead singer in Hoku walking along the street. This shows the audience of the video that the music video is very similar to the actual film and that this could possibly attract in a wider audience for the song.
There are certain moments in the music video when the singer is looking up at the camera, showing that she is trying to win over the audience by appearing friendly. A lot of wide shots have been used when clips of the film are being shown, this showing the audience of the music video an even better insight into the film and they get to try and work out the story line. Wide clips like this give the film even better publicity and hopefully attract more people to watch it.

Most common form of editing is fast cut montage, rendering many of the images impossible to grasp on first viewing ensuring multiple viewing. This does not occur much in the Perfect Day music video though. It occurs when certain scenes of legally blonde are shown, in which the audience of the music video will be wondering why certain facial features have been pulled etc. Split screens do occur to create pleasure for the audience so they get a view of both scenarios in the video. The song is generally quite a fast pace mainstream pop song therefore causing the editing to be fast moving to be equal with the song. There are certain parts in the song where the editing slows down to be in time with the music and then it suddenly goes back to being past paced when the music speeds up.

The song is a typical girlie pop song so they had to do something to attract the males, therefore they have used Voyeurism. The lead girl in legally blonde is a pretty, blonde “bimbo” which most males would be attracted too. Showing clips from the film will attract the male audience because they will want to watch the girl. The body shots shown of the female lead singer are emphasizing her petite figure, therefore agreeing with Goodwin’s theory that the female performer will frequently be shown in this fashion.

Fashion intertextuality has been used in the music video. Constantly you see the lead girl in legally blonde trying on different clothes and looking in the mirror. She is made out to be a clever girl in some of the clips shown and then sometimes shown to be a typical rich girl, by lazing around a swimming pool in pink clothing. A lot of pink is shown in the video, showing again how the song is mainly aimed at young teenage girls who are looking up to the lead girl in legally blonde. Intertextuality also is occurring when the music video is showing clips of the legally blonde film.

The narrative in the music video does follow the lyrics in some ways. Often when the lyrics “nothings standing in my way” are sung then a clip of the legally blonde girl is shown looking angry at her enemy throughout the film. The video is very upbeat and happy and there is a lot of movement and running around showing that they are carefree teenagers and doing what they want, relating to the target audience. The band are shown to be playing in a field with lots of trees around, this area seeming to be peaceful and calm therefore “perfect”, again relating to the lyrics of the song.

Eye contact and facial gestures via the close ups from the camera, role playing through the narrative and the mise-en-scene will help represent the artists to be young and “cool”, like their target audience. This would not be able to be shown in a live performance of the band; therefore the video is one of their main selling points. The video agrees with John Stewart in the fact that the video is used to emphasise an aspiration lifestyle for the target audience.