Analysis of a Music Promo Video.

The video i am going to analyse in Britney Spears' video - Circus. It's directed by Francis Lawrence who also directed a previous music video of hers: I'm a slave 4 u. The genre Britney Spears exceeds in is the Pop genre, in which she has created music for ever since her career took off in 1997. As i explained the characteristics of the pop genre in an earlier post, this video just from the beginning has some very broad characteristics in which you'd expect in a pop video, however this video seems to include them all. Strongly including: Very image driven, Commerically friendly, Very performance based and Marketable.

The video has strong links with the lyrics, one strong factor of this is the idea of the video being set in a stereotypical 1940s circus. We can draw this conclusion out from the mise-en-scene, mostly if we analyse the hairstyles and costumes of the dancers and artist.
The lyrics state 'I'm like the ringleader' this is reflected in the costume in which Spears is dressed in, is indeed a stereotypical Ringmasters costume. This includes a whip, a long jacket, a top hat and big boots.
Another example of the lyrics having strong relationship with the visuals is included within her dancing. There's a certain lyric which states: 'I feel the adrenaline moving through my veins' when she mickey mimes it, the choreography reflects a wave of energy running through her body, as well as the other dancers reflecting this lyric also.
The lyric 'We can make a dance floor, just like a circus,' This lyric is also reflected in the visuals with her and the dancers actually dancing on the stage which is made of sand which is stereotypically what a circus looks like.

The relationship between the music and the video is also a strong, with editing such as 'cuts' which are to the beat of the song, especially in the chorus, which is where it conventionally needs to be as the verse and the pre-chorus are to build suspension for the chorus, and with the fast editing to the fast beats, it creates strong excitement.
The choreography is also created to the music beat as well as the lyrics, with big choreography being done on big beats within the verse and chorus. During the chorus of the music video, there's a large number of dancers with Britney Spears being central focus to the audience in which is a convention as she's the artist and she's trying to promote her music. When the last chorus is performed the editing is a lot quicker and faster with a cut happening on average about ever 4 seconds. This creates excitement and hype towards the song which is reflected in the video by at the same time showing strong choreographic work with a lot of dancers. An example of creating the choreography to the beat of the music is, in the last chorus she's dancing with her whip and stomping it on the ground to the beat of the chorus.

The record company seem to be trying to sell this track through the idea of making it a pop dance track which is fun to dance and sing to. They are also relating it to how the media perceive and seem to treat Britney Spears. If we look into the social and historical context with this song, it was at the time in her career when she basically broke down. The lyrics seemed to reflect how the media was treating her and how they saw her 'All eyes on me in the centre of the ring, just like a circus.' I feel this also allowed Britney to become closer to her audience and make it seem more of a personal song as well as a great dance, club song.
She's presenting a sexy and slightly controversial image. Her costume represents her as sexy for example her ringmaster costume consists of a corset, a long jacket, fishnet tights, big boots and a whip. This is a convention of pop music, it's a more image driven genre which i explained in the conventions and characteristics of pop music. The top hat is a strong reoccurring motif within the music video, in which she is either wearing or dancing with in the different scenes. This is a strong resemblance of the image she wishes to play within the circus which is also backed up with the lyric 'I'm like the ringleader.' Another reoccurring prop motif is the idea of the whip, a couple of her dancers are also dancing with the prop as well as her, however link this with her costume and her image is reinstated, as the ringmaster of the circus. The video is also dominated by shots of the star mickey miming in close up, this gives the audience the feeling she is performing to them personally and reinstating the idea of music promo videos are to let the audience watch the star in a performance you wouldn't normally be able to, even if you want to see her in concert. The direct mode of address when she is mickey miming in close up is singling out the spectator, thus making the audience feel special and one in a million. She's seen flirting with the camera at some points of the mickey miming in the video, this is flattering for the audience and for the spectator personally, for this world class star to be seen in close up 'winking' and 'smiling' at the audience is something you would only be able to receive within a music video thus making music promo music videos a lot more special then seeing a live performance.
This video can be strongly interlinked with a lot of Britney Spears' previous videos, one strong point being the idea of choreography within her video, throughout her career she's always been a strong dancer and is always seen dancing in the up-tempo, fast songs. I feel this always captivates the audience into the song, and for children and teenagers they wish to learn the routines, and to learn the routines they have to download the song and study the music video therefore the artists and their music become more very well known. There is also strong directorial comparisons with her other music video for 'I'm A Slave 4 U' which was obviously directed by the same director, the comparisons include the intense, sweaty sexual choreography and closeness of the dancers to Britney Spears. Also the idea of being in a private area which the audience should never really be, in 'I'm a Slave 4 U' she's in a ladies bathroom and in Circus she's in a Ladies dressing room.

There is strong notion of looking within this video one key example is the way the male dancers are placing the main focus on Britney Spears with the choreography during the middle of the music video. There is also about seven male dancers surrounded Britney spears which seems to be demonstrating the idea of sex with a group, the lighting also helps develop this idea due to the main lighting from fire in the background which creates a intense, sexual atmosphere.

The costume with props including whips cracking the floor and the choreography of the female dancers tying the whip around their necks creates an atmosphere of sadomasochism within the video. This gives the idea a sense of eroticism which i feel would only be identified by the male 18+ audience. Adding factors like this i feel widens the target audience of who the companies are targeting the music at, it also creates an edge to the artists image and controversially to the media product. The costume also creates a sexy image for this artist, especially when she's dressed in a bikini top and a short skirt, also there's an idea surround fetishism within the video especially with costume and the idea of dressing up as a ringleader the audience could find this exceptionally appealing.
The interesting cinematography i feel also creates strong voyeuristic pleasure for the audience, especially in the introduction of the song, the camera is positioned all surrounding Britney in her dressing room which could seem rather violating for anyone, however the idea of her not noticing the audience are viewing her creates this idea of voyeuristic pleasure in which the audience receive from this.

As noted before, this song was written at a very important stage in Britney Spears' life as she had just suffered a very public breakdown, the media were always surrounding her, she would be on magazine from covers week after week without a fail, be headlines on tabloid newspapers daily, she was really getting the wrong media attention. The opening line to the chorus 'All eyes on me, in the centre of a ring, just like a circus.' This hints at how she sees the press attention, like she's the main performer in a circus, it's that element of really wishing to see someone perform or act in the flesh however, there's always that craving, that wish for them to fall with no safety net in front of your eyes, people viewed her as entertainment, not a person and i feel this song really describes how she was feeling that moment in time.

The video is very much performance based, it has no narrative involved or no story. However, it is a pop song and another convention for this genre is the idea of there performances being image and choreographed dominated.

In conclusion i feel this was a very strong and worthwhile media text to analyse. I feel is fully uses the conventions of the pop genre however it also creates it's own subtle elements which make it original and more of a special and exciting promo video. I feel the video itself creates a lot of excitement surrounding the song and also around the artist creating some narcissistic feeling towards her being a ringmaster, dominant and female in charge.