AH Music Video Deconstruction 2

 

This video for "Ready for the Weekend" by Calvin Harris is very typical for its genre electropop, with bright colours, camera movement and is quite a mainstream video being used to promote a star image.

Institution and Audience

The main consumption of this video would definitely be ambient viewing because it is a mainstream electropop song which means many of the main television music channels would show it in order to fulfill the needs of their mainstream audiences. However, now that the song is a few years old, the consumption will now be moving onto more focused viewing with people having to search for it specifically online via YouTube since music channels will want to be up to date and have current songs. This is shown by the 12 million views that the video has now reached, showing a change in the type of consumption.

Calvin Harris's record label is Columbia, an American record label who would probably have a significant amount of participation in the making of his music videos and star image. Since there is no narrative in this particular promotional tool of a music video, it is clear that the label would have had a major say in what appears in the video. For example, the audience for this genre would have a large proportion of young males, the label would have recognised this and suggested the sexualisation of women throughout in order to facilitate for this particular audience. 

Genre and Narrative

There are certainly elements of this video which can be applied to Goodwin's theory of the construction of music videos. First of all, Goodwin says that music videos need to have repeatability built into them in order for them to be successful promotional tools and for their role in advertising. This is true for this video because once again, the sexualisation and objectifying of women in the video will make the young male audience return to the video to watch again. In addition, there are also technical aspects which are conventional to music videos. This includes the use of camera movement in the video which is often motivated by movement. Furthermore, there are a significant amount of meat shots which reinforces this as a promotional tool. 

Media Language 

This video is definitely one for constructing a star image rather than conveying a social message. This is anchored by the number of meat shots throughout as well as the mise-en-scene. Costume in particular creates an image of Calvin Harris because he is shown wearing smart-casual clothing which is then juxtaposed to the women in the video who are wearing swimsuits. This has connotations of Calvin Harris being more dominant than the women in the video which is reinforced also by the bright colours throughout, suggesting that Calvin Harris has a bright and fun personality. As shown already, the techniques used to convey the video as a promotional tool are the cuts to close ups of Calvin Harris, used as meat shots in order for the audience to see who he is and create a star image of him.

Representation

Calvin Harris's star persona is definitely constructed in this video which also develops his meta-narrative as an artist which eventually leads to helping to sell his product. The star image which is constructed is one of power and success. AS mentioned already, the clothing is clearly different between men and women in the video showing the dominance of men. However, there is also a specific shot which reinforces this where Calvin Harris is sitting with two sexualised and objectified women standing next to him. This gives connotations of power and importance and certainly develops his meta-narrative because the audience will see that now that Calvin Harris is a successful music artist, he is now very powerful and is surrounded by women. This would then help sell his product because the young male audience watching the video will basically aspire to be like him and so to try and complete his star image, they will buy his record and consume it further.

It is obvious that the ideological discourse in this video is one where women are simply sexualised objects for male consumption. This is a very regressive representation which is only being reinforced by the music video and the artist is doing this in order to "please" his audience, add a repeatability factor to the video and to essentially show off his power and importance now that he is a successful pop artist.