Editing Investigation: You're Nobody Till' Somebody Loves You - James Arthur

I decided to observe James Arthur's new song, "You're Nobody Until Somebody Loves You". I counted the cuts in this, which came to 182.

There is a large proportion of the music video which involves shrinking cinematic time, for example, the party/performance starts earlier in the day which is visible through the natural lighting and also by usual everyday happenings, however this fades into nightime where everything is a little looser and 'wild'. In realtime, this would probably take at least 6 hours, however in the music video it took 3 minutes!

There are also points in the movie where cinematic time has been expanded, for example when he first enters the music video towards the stage, alongside some shots of the people dancing at night.

The cuts generally occur when we have taken in enough information to build a picture/understanding of the culture. For example, there are several quick close ups of individuals who contribute to the urban community which are embedded within the video. The cuts are very snappy and allow us to take in the concept without becoming bored. Once we have taken this in, the editor has made it so it cuts to a different representation.

I compared this to the amount of cuts in the first 3 minutes of the film, "stick it" which resulted in 44 cuts.

This shows that music videos often operate at a far faster pace than films, and more cuts are needed. This is something we need to refine and establish to move away from the conventions of film which we studied for AS and more towards that of music videos.

Genre Investigation: Pop

Pop music was originally an abbrieviation of 'popular music' and originated from rock and roll in the 1950's. In terms of it's genre, it is extremely varied and pulls many of it's characteristics from the combination of other genres such as urban, dance, rock. latin and country. 

Despite this, it still holds characteristics which are completely faithful to it's own genre:

• Short to medium length songs: two - four mins long
• Written in simple, traditional & basic style - verse-chorus form
• Repeated choruses
• Melodic tunes
• Catchy hooks
• Usually an uptempo or moderate beat
• Consistent and noticeable rhythmic element
• Mainstream style
• Chorus that contrasts melodically, rhythmically and harmonically with the verse
• Limited harmonic accompaniment 
• Often focus of simple themes such s love and relationships, although there are notable exceptions.

Pop music is generally thought of as a genre which is commercially recorded and desires to have a mass audience appeal, however this aim is usually contained to the interest of young children, teenagers and adults. 

Although pop music is often seen as oriented towards the singles charts, it is not the sum of all chart music which has always contained songs from a variety of sources, including classical, jazz, rock, and novelty songs, while pop music as a genre is usually seen as existing and developing separately. Thus "pop music" may be used to describe a distinct genre, often characterized as a softer alternative to rock and roll.

Examples of typical pop songs are below: