Katy Perry – how her Pop Videos appeal to her target audience and reflect her private life.

 

Katheryn Elizabeth "Katy" Hudson (born October 25, 1984), better known by her stage name Katy Perry, is an American singer, songwriter, and actress. After singing in church during her childhood, she pursued a career in gospel music as a teenager. Perry signed with Red Hill Records and released her debut studio album Katy Hudson in 2001, which was commercially unsuccessful. She moved to Los Angeles the following year to venture into secular music after Red Hill ceased operations. After being dropped by The Island Def Jam Music Group and Columbia Records, Perry signed a recording contract with Capitol Records in April 2007.

Target Audience (Ages 11 - 16)

       

 

There are several ways Katy Perry must portray herself in order maintain her current fanbase:

• Take the role of an older sister and release music that connects.
• Reflect some of the anxieties young girls have.
• Be someone young girls can admire and want to be (appear sexy in a non-threatening way)

Brief recap of Goodwin's theory:

1) Music videos demonstrate genre characteristics, e.g. stage performance in metal video, dance routine for boy/girl bands.

2) There is a relationship between lyrics and visuals

• either illustrative (the video assists in understanding the meaning of the song)
• amplifying (the video repeats or exaggerates an effect, moment/phrase from the song)
• contradicting (the video completely ignores the true meaning of the song)

3) The demands of the record label will include the need for lots of close ups of the artist and the artist may develop motifs which recur across their work.

• i.e. a visual style: Michael Jackson's glittered glove.
• Lady Gaga's colourful stories.
• certain poses, dance moves etc

4) There is frequently reference too notion of looking and particularly voyeuristic treatment of the female body,

• screens within screens, telescopes, looking into the camera etc
• the male gaze by Laura Mulvey

5) There is often intertextual reference

• to films, TV programmes, other music videos etc

Hot N Cold (2008)

There are elements of Goodwin's theory that can be applied to this video. 'Hot N Cold' is a narrative music video with dance routines and bright, colourful, trendy costumes which reflect the genre characteristics of pop music. The narrative of the music video was about a young male who leaves Katy at the altar of their wedding, which is a universal fear among women. The notion of the man being "hot and cold" reflects the issues in every day relationships and provides an example for many young girls who may be experiencing similar issues. Katy rises against this with her gang of "bridesmaids" which is an example of female empowerment. However, the video still keeps its comic feel by returning to the original scene and seeing the man actually say "I do".It is almost as if Katy has enough dominance in the relationship to make him stay which sets a positive example to young girls who may feel passive and weak in a patriarchal society. Moreover, her clothing still remains rather humble compared to "California Gurls" in which we see a change in image due to certain changes in her personal life, which proves that a voyeuristic approach to filming isn't necessary. Thus, retaining her target audience of 14-17.

Firework (2010)
Two years later, it is evident that Katy's image as a role model is maintained and that she has grown up along with her target audience. Although Katy Perry wears white which represents purity and innocence, their is another underlying message to the song. Throughout the video she tackles serious social issues such as obesity and homosexuality, and that in order to get through the issues they must be faced. For example, the girl who is obese doesn't enjoy herself at a swimming pool party eventually joins in once she gets the encouragement from Katy who sings to her "you're a firework" . Also, a boy gets attacked for his homosexuality realises that he doesn't need to hide after two white doves explode within him. Katy's message here is to state that no matter what are interests are they are all natural and should not be hidden in the shadows. When she sings "come on let your colours burst" signifies this. After all their issues have been resolved they start to emit fireworks from their chests like Katy spreading joy and optimism. In terms of Goodwin, this music video is amplifying because it returns to the main characters on several occasions, tracking their quest to find themselves as individuals. Also, the motif of fireworks suggests light, freedom and confidence which adds to this amplifying effect. Among the various storylines in this music video, there are multiple close-ups of Katy Perry as she sings the song from a rooftop, reminding us that she is the one sending the message out.

California Gurls (2010)
California Gurls was made while she was dating Russell Brand which encourages her to take on a more sexy image with nude scenes and a change of lyrics.The lyrics are no longer about issues directed towards a young teenage audience but to a much older male audience. Unlike in her previous music videos, she goes for the male gaze to showcase her body and image in a different light than before. She used to wear less revealing clothing in order to symbolise youth and innocence to act as a role model for young girls.



Wide Awake (2012)
In this video Katy is finishing on the set of California Gurls and is returning to her dressing room to take off her wig. This action displays she's finally getting rid of this artificial image she's been showing for the past few years and is ready to return to her normal self. Also in the video she mentions how she's not "blind anymore" supporting the idea that she was blinded into the wrong path for her career. Also "wide awake" reinforces she's not dreaming anymore and has duties to fill as a role model and is no longer in the nightmare phase of her career. There is also a Prince Charming like character that she punches away to outline her female strength and break away from the relationship stereotype that every girl needs her "Prince Charming".


Roar (2013)
Roar was released in 2013 and had high production values due to large range of special effects used. At the beginning there is some essence of intertexuality as it reflects the look of older films. The message in this video is similar to that of firework which is female empowerment and not relying on a man to survive. At the same time there are moments during the video where she is slightly mocking males by dressing sexy solely for herself and not for male pleasure. This video outlines that Katy is back after a few years of losing herself a bit.

Finished Music Video

Digipak

Creating the Digipak

Today we started creating the digipak for our band's album. We were first given a lesson on digipak's and learned what their purpose was along with what's included in one, I did a blog post on this earlier. Also we took a look at some artists' digipak to help us generate the creativity to produce our own. I noticed that Rihanna's digipak focused much on her face and body. The whole of Rihanna's digipak has a strong red input such as her lipstick and roses, which connotation love and lust to create a sexy but sweet image at the same time. In order to create this digipak we had to take photos of those who were in the band which were myself, Jordan and Dafe. However, during the time of the photoshoot Dafe (the drummer), was absent and had to use someone else who was of similar build in the photos. Our group agreed that we wanted to have really clear and crisp photos for the digipak and our teacher had a Canon Digital SLR camera she was willing to let us use. Following this, we took the images the next day outside in a mellow atmosphere that truly connected with nature and the image of our band. Also I brought into school my acoustic guitar for the shoot so Jordan could take some photos with it as he's the guitarist of the band. Here are some of the raw images from the shoot.

  

As you can see the raw images have come out as expected, nice and clear and straight after this we went straight back up to the classroom and began editing to make the digipak. The editing process for the digipak was a long one as we had to be taught how to use the software Adobe Photoshop, thus at the start the editing was quite slow, As we started to consistently use the software we found that our skills improved as editors and were able to edit to a good level. Firstly, whenever an image was uploaded to photoshop we noticed that the dimensions of the image were not that of a digipak so inorder to get started we needed to change the dimensions of the photo. Also during editing we had to ensure that when decreased or increase the size of the photos we had to hold the 'Shift' key so the proportion of the image doesn't change. If the proportion of the image changed then it would look distorted and irregular. We were taught that in order to add any edits to the image we would first have to create a new layer and label it with the intended edit. This was to make sure that if we wanted to remove that particular edit later, we would be able to do so with no fuss. This meant that in order to add a 'Black and White' effect I had to create a new layer and label it that. Below are some of the images I took during the editing process of the images.

Digipak Research

What is a digipak?

The design:

They typically consist of a gatefold (book-style) paperboard or card stock outer binding, with one or more plastic trays capable of holding a CD or DVD attached to the inside. This is basically a cardboard flip-out case instead of the plastic hinged case.

Digipak

Standard hinged case

The purpose:

Often used for CD singles or special editions of CD albums and the tall DVD Digipak (DVDigipak) is used as a premium package for DVDs and DVD sets.

What's included in the digipak?

1) Photographs of the artist(s) with lead singer's picture appearing first in the digipak if it's a band's album.

2) List of all the tracks on the album CD.

3) A disc compartment which will usually be in the middle and have a faded disc shape over an image.

4) A section displaying band/artist information including names, instruments, additional musicians, copyright and year of release.

5) Barcode and QR and a logo for the record company.

There may also be reference to other albums by the same artist(s) and may sometimes include membership postcard/flyer and or a free image/poster.

It may also contain details of other albums by the same artist(s) and extras such as free posters and images.

Constructing the Advert

In order to construct the Magazine Advert we had different images to chose from in order to form the main image of our music video. In our mind, we thought that the image that we would use would be in a portrait image.
Here are some of the image we were deciding on:

We decided that we would use this image, because it has all of the band members in the image, and it would also be a great image to manipulate. So this includes changing the image size, by cropping it or making it smaller or larger. It would also be a good image to change the effect, so we could change it to Sepia or Black and White. In our case we decided to change the image to a mixture of Black and White and Sepia. 

We felt that this type of image would suit best when it comes to it relating to the title of the single, "Wondering Souls".

Next it came to inputing the title of the band, the title of the album, and all the other relevant information. So when it came to deciding this, in mind we had to think of the type of font that we were going to use and the font size of the text. And we came to the decision that we was going to use the Font Edwardian Script ITC, this was for the Title of the band which was 'Forgotten Kings'. 

And for the title for the album single we decided to use a different font, because we felt that if we used the same font twice then it would make the advert look a bit repetitive. So we decided to use the font Century Gothic, which was used for our album single 'Wondering Souls' 

Then we decided to add other things, just to catch the audiences attention, such as the fact that we got 5 stars from companies such as Kerrang, Daily Mail and NME, and this was the same font as the album single. 

And lastly we put out the relevant information as to how and where the single can be downloaded, and we also included our website on the advert so that the can check out our web page. 

And this was the constructing of the Magazine Advert. 

Sexism in Pop Videos