Student Video Analysis

The video i have decided to analyse is 'My Happy Ending', as we have chosen the same genre music video as well, and thought that it would help more.


The things i like about this video are:

• The actor felt the emotion of the video, as she was going through a break up and because of this the target audience for the video is able to identify with her.
• The song has a catchy tune to it, so it would keep me interested in the video and i would want to watch on.
• The shots are all steady and not shaky, so it looks better.
• There are a variety of locations used, for example the graveyard, playing the piano, on top of the roof, so the audience doesnt get bored if it was just the same location.

• The edits all match the pace of the song, so nothing is rushed.
• The final shot is of a photo, and the edit on this makes it look old, and like the romance of the actors has ended.

• The fading together shots of the female writing at the very start of the song, look good because it looks like time is passing.
• The shots of the female on the string, which are held by the male look effective because it implies that the male always has a hold over the female, and this links back to the romance genre.

• I felt the clothing choices that the actor wore throughout the video fitted the lyrics of the song for example when the lyrics were saying ''so much for my happy ending'' which is saying that after shes had her heart broken so much for everything the male promised her, her clothing was black and dark colours which signifies depressed and down.

• On the lyrics '' all of our memories so close to me, just fade away. All this time you were pretending, so much for my happy ending'', while this lyrics are being sung, the focus is on the female on the close up shot of her face to show her emotion and expression which matches the lyrics. Also the transitions used are dissolves, which match the first part of the lyrics suggesting the dissolves are like all the memories just fading away.

The things i dislike about this video are:

• Some of the shots i felt didnt match the lyrics of the song, but were used well.
• I felt that the same transitions and edits, for example 'dissolves' and 'wipes' were used too much.
• I felt that on some of the lyrics, the singer wasnt synced to the song and she was slightly behind, but it wasnt too noticeable and still looked good.

Over all i felt that this video was good, and that there were more strengths than there were weaknesses, and that the theme of the song was evident all the way through and everything used in the song including the props, clothing choices, and locations were all conventions of the romance genre, and that everything matched the lyrics of the song. This has helped influence our music video as we chose the same genre, and it helped us chose some of the shots that looked good, we could use them and also we could challenge some of the same conventions and see how it affects the video. We also looked at other music videos from the romance genre, and saw how each of them challenged and met conventions of the romance genre in their own way, and this helped us because we could take ideas from the videos we have watched and challenge, met or use the conventions we have seen.