MUSIC VIDEO TECHNIQUES / MEDIA LANGUAGE ANALYSIS

BEYONCE- IF I WERE A BOY <- CLICK HERE TO WATCH

The genre of this music video is R&B. “If I were a boy” is a tragic love song which conveys feelings of sorrow and sadness. This is because by the title of the song we can tell that the artist conveys miserable feelings as she questions herself. Overall the music video portrays two sides to a story; at first we can see the woman being a policewoman and the man being a business man however in the end of the video is a completely different story is portrayed with the characters having their roles being swapped over. This is a very useful technique as by this Beyonce shows us a woman in a male surrounding which is very controversial as we mainly associate a police job with a male. The video is mainly narrative however it includes performance based areas therefore I consider it being a hybrid. Non diegetic sound has been mainly used throughout the video which as a result caused the audience to focus on the storyline presented via the video. 

As we can see in the video, both characters have their roles shown by their clothing and location. The woman (Beyonce) is wearing a police uniform whereas her video husband is wearing a rather elegant suit which depicts his high paid job. Later on in the video we can see that Beyonce is in surroundings such as the police car, police station or at a police party which shows us a rather working class environment whereas the man is seen in a nicely designed office while searching for expensive jewellery. This shows us a direct comparison of social classes, which I believe links to the conflict the characters have in the music video. By this the two characters differentiate from each other as of their surrounding and their acting.  In the video we can see a wide range of shots being used such as a medium close ups at the very start of the video, medium two shots, tracking shots, low angle shot. For example a low angle shot has been used deliberately as by this it emphasised the power which the female police character has in order to arrest a man, showing a manly job done by her. In terms of editing this video manly uses cuts which vary with the speed according to the pace of the song. Additionally they use a slow motion being used and a fade away. By the use of slow motion they have underlined the tension seen in the Policewomen job which is done by Beyonce, which as a result empowers her in the music video. On the other hand a fade away has been used in order to take the tension away which gives the audience a very soft feeling after which we can see Beyonce in a completely different character. The use of fade away contrasts with the use of cuts throughout the music video.