RESEARCH: Group costume, setting and prop activity

The three videos that we chose to analyse in class were: Natasha Bedingfield's 'Soulmate', Rachel Kerr's 'Hold my Hand' and Alicia Keys' 'No-one'.

In Natasha Bedingfield's video of 'Soulmate', she uses one dress throughout the video. The dress links with the song as the dress is quite light and song is slow and mellow. However, I do not think that it links in with the locations, I actually think it contrasts with the locations as they are quite dark and the dress is very light and quite childish.
There are both internal and external locations. There are various locations throughout the video and most of them are quite dark places. There are random shots of the city and of certain objects. There are also shots of her in a house and in front of a white wall. The locations link to the song in a way because she is talking about finding your soulmate and by showing many different locations, it is a way to show that she is looking. With the props, there is a constant repetition of objects shaped like a heart. We found this interesting because the song is about love and the heart is the international symbol for love. We thought it was a very clever and made the video different. 

We then looked at Rachel Kerr's song 'Hold My Hand'. In the video, she is mainly in a yellow dress. She then goes onto wearing a black dress and those are the only two outfits she has throughout the video. She goes back and forth between these outfits in the video. They both suit the song in a way. The yellow dress represents the message of the song which is positive, and the black may represent the melody of the song which is quite slow and low. The dresses also link in with the locations as when she is wearing the yellow, more informal dress, she is sitting on a sofa, then when she is wearing the black dress she is singing into a microphone on a microphone stand. 

There is one main location for the video. She is in a room and at times it is lighted up and at others it has very low lighting. It suits the song because it is quite calm and relaxed, which is the vibes that these room send off.

There are two main props used in this Rachel Kerr video. The first prop is the blue sofa that she is constantly sitting on. It is very bright and contrasts the black and white backgrounds. She also has a microphone and a stand that she sings into. 

The third song we looked into was 'no-one' by Alicia Keys. There are four different costumes changes in the video. The costume changes change according to the locations.For instance, the first scene where she is sat on a chair , the room is very neutral and she is also wearing neutral colours. In the other locations, she changes clothes according to the locations. 

There are also four different locations that do not necessarily link in with the song, however they do link in extremely well with the costumes. They also link in with the props. The main prop used is the piano and we know that is Alicia Keys's signature instrument. The use of the piano does not necessarily link to the genre, but we know that in most of her videos; if not all, there is a piano.