MVid EG1: Astrid S - Such A Boy

POSSIBLE INFLUENCES:
1. The excessive use of colour correction and colour gels (for lighting - colourful lighting). 
3. The locations e.g. indoor in a bathroom, in a bowling alley, in a bedroom, at a party full of people.

Act: Astrid S
Track: Such A Boy
Year: 2017
Director: 
Genre: Electropop
Main Audience: Females (15-24)

There are 18 shots in the first 30 seconds. That estimates that each shot lasts 1.6 seconds. 
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There is frequent use of colour correction and colourful lighting (created with colour gels) in this music video. I am really inspired to use this for my music video, I really like it. 

Andrew Goodwin's '6 conventions of music videos' can apply to this music video. There are frequent close up shots used of the singer, Astrid S lip syncing. There are also frequent electro pop genre signifiers used such as the excessive colour correction/colourful lighting (created with colour gels). 

Laura Mulvey's 'male gaze' can be somewhat exploited in this video because of how the artist is glamourised throughout with either pink lipstick or lipgloss, lilac nail varnish, black mascara, either silver earrings studs or bangles, foundation, blusher and black eyeshadow. You can denote that her eyebrows are plucked and shaped nicely also. The pink lighting on her for example at the start as you can see in the image on the left, helps to further glamorise her and make her appear very feminine. The shot on the left is of a boy about to kiss the artist's neck which is not something which would attract a young tween audience but instead, an older teen audience aged 16-25.

There are also many shots of the artist showing her shoulders in thin strapped tops/dresses. She is also a white caucasian blonde female so this is a normative representation of females. She also has mid-length long hair which further enforces this normative representation. Later on in the video you see a close up two shot high angled shallow field of focus shot of Astrid S looking in direct audience address with the boy in the background out of focus. In this shot she is wearing a thin strapped pink ribbed tight dress which shows her cleavage - this is clear evidence of the 'male gaze' theory being exploited. 

She is also eating candy floss at the same time - the fact that she is looking in direct address while biting into something has sexual connotations, therefore glamourising and sexualising Astrid S which can attract a male audience. It also signifies that her audience are not young (e.g. tweens aged 10-13) but instead they are young adults aged 16-25. However, the candyfloss element could be considered as an attempt to create a playful vibe to the music video which could therefore attract a younger audience (aged 13-15).

You could say the 'female gaze' is also being exploited in this video due to the high key colourful lighting clearly glamorising the male character as you can see in this image below.

The boy is sucking on something or has something slightly in his mouth in the lower image, the female gaze being exploited because this is a sexualised pose that you see male models do for modelling images - as you can see here in this example on the right for this 'Spicebomb' perfume. There is lighting coming from many different angles in this image on the lower right, to create a glamourised effect on the facial features and skin. For example you can see some sections of the face are dark blue and some are pink. The jaw/neck, which is a glamorised feature of the male face, has clearly been purposely lighted a different colour to the rest of the face. 
This boy character is being glamorised and sexualised by being in this pose which connotes that the Astrid S's (the artist) audience is not young but instead is older teens (aged 16-25). 




There is also use of direct personal address in the video from the singer, Astrid S. This creates a personal connection between the artist and audience/fans. This is a common convention of music videos of any genre. While she is with her lover character in the video she is looking at the audience while the lover character is looking at her or doing something to her like kiss her neck. 

I also noticed this technique/effect was used in Astrid S's music video for 'bloodstream'. This makes the audience really empathise with her and relate to what is going on in the video, this can be tied nicely with Dennis McQuail's 'Uses and Gratifications theory' - the personal identity gratification is relevant here - the female audience members at a similar age to Astrid S (aged 20) or younger (aged 16-18) can relate and identify with Astrid S.