Case study one

Case Study One
Gabrielle Aplin - Please don't say you love me

In this case study I will be analyzing Gabrielle Aplin’s music video “please don’t say you love me”. In my personal opinion I believe Gabrielle’s Video is fantastic because I personally prefer when a music video has a big narrative based video. But others would critic and say that the director and singer are just trying to turn it into a short film rather than a music video. Although I do like the story which plays along to the song, I believe that it is too copied. I understand that music video genres must stick by conventions but I think this video has been influenced by her other videos. In similar ways her music video “Panic cord” was filled with the performance side.

At the beginning of this music video they use a massive narrative base by having a boy and a girl driving through a field on a summer’s day. During this scene they director uses close up shots of their reaction to show the chemistry between these two. When the audience is watching this music video after watching the first 25 seconds they will realise it a strongly narrative based. When the audience watch the music video they tend to see what sort of genre it is and does it fulfill its conventions. I believe in this music the director and Gabrielle do fulfill the indie/folk genre conventions.

In this shot we can see that the couple have broken down and we can see the man has come to rescue the girl. This creates an image which makes us feel it is a prince and the princess narrative. When first looking at this music video I could tell it is a love story aimed narrative. As this shot is occurring the soft indie music beginnings. This shot is where the backup story bit ends and performance bit starts to occur.  In this second shot we can see the narrative coming into play, with the girl being all worried as the man is doing the manual labor. I believe this video shows how emotional females are and how masculine men are. Throughout this video they stick by the female being weak and emotional and the man being strong and masculine. As the audience can see it is heavily narrative based still, although why this is happening they still doing cuts to Gabrielle singing in different scenes.

When watching the video I realised that in indie/ folk music videos the artist tends to appear all the way in them. After the music has begun we see two different settings both with Gabrielle Aplin in them. The first one, she is standing in the middle of the field with a red/ orange sun set in the background. In the second one we have Gabrielle Aplin sitting on the blue car. Unlike other genre, in indie/ folk music video’s they have soft cuttings between scenes.

Another thing I noticed when watching this music video to other genres was that it took about 40 seconds to actually get into the singing into the camera. In relation to Goodwin’s theory he says that there should be an equal split between performance and narrative. In his theory he says that some songs fail to show the whole narrative which leaves the audience trying to decide what happens. I believe that this music video has too much performance. As Goodwin says he believes that they do include narrative but tend to turn the music video into a short film with music.

According to Goodwin he says “The star image is another key aspect of the music video”. He believes when the audience watch the music video they look at what the artist is wearing, their personality and their overall appearance.  In this video she plays her role in the performance side but the thing which initially confused me was the girl playing in the narrative side looks a lot like Gabrielle. I believe they have done this to promote Gabrielle and say how pretty she is, this suggests that in indie/ folk videos it is significant to have the artist in the video. In pop it isn't as key to have the artist in both narrative and performance. An example of not using the artist in the video is Ed Sheeran’s “you need me but I don’t need you”.  Although Ed sheeran’s video is different to other pop I believe it is quite hard to find a pop video where the artist plays parts in both selections. Although there isn't a lot of close ups of Gabrielle’s he still appears in the music video is basically every clip. In every clip she is in a different setting and different clothes.

In the relation to lyrics, at the first 45 – 50 seconds the lyrics start with “let’s not give the game away”. After looking at the title of the song I gathered that she is trying to hide that she doesn't know if she loves him. So when it says “let’s not give the game away” the actress playing the person grabs her boyfriend and starts flirting with him so it doesn't look like she is trying to hide the truth. I believe Gabrielle’s videos are very much linked to the lyrics quite closely.

I believe in this music video on the narrative side they are stuck to the story a happy couple, have an argument then by the end they are back together and happy. Throughout the narrative side they stick to all the conventions of Indie/folk. On the first shot shown below, while they are kissing in the sunlight she sings “everything falls into place” This suggests there love is happy and good, there are no troubles.  Later on there is a short bit of music where the tone lowers and they have their argument while this is happening the lyrics say “And fools rush in, And I've been the fool before, This time I'm gonna slow down, 'Cause I think this could be more, The thing I'm looking for “. This suggests the way the lyrics are describing it suggests that she can’t handle the cover and she is being silly she actually loves him and she is sorry for what she has done. In the second screen shot it shows one of the shots when the lyrics are playing.  Finally at the end of the music video she drives him away and they make us and drive away it the sun shines on them as he is kissing her hand, the use of the sun on the hands shows how significant the romance is in this video and how they have saved their love and they are actually in love.