Documentary Music Video Textual Analysis

Little Mix's Cannonball is a documentary style music video, the narrative being their journey from the beginning of the x factor, to winning it. You can find this video below.

The video starts with photos capturing the moment Little Mix won the famous singing  competition, with reactions from the judges, their family/friends, and themselves. In the second part of the first verse we then see a live performance begin, and this is the backbone for the rest of the video as the narrative always comes back to this.

Flashbacks then begin, we see the beginning of little mix where the four girls walk out onto the stage at boot-camp and are put together, the shot is constantly switching between flashbacks and the live performance. The flashbacks are really relevant and significant, there are a lot of reaction close-up shots making the narrative emotional and more heart-felt. We see the four girls friendship grow and the pride their families have for them.

At the bridge, the background music is turned down and we can only hear Jade Thirlwall's vocals, this is perfect for building tension and so the shot of the girls standing with their opponent waiting to see who has won, is perfect. As the winner is announced the loud backing music and chorus is played with all of the girls singing. The music fits with the video perfectly.

We then see the aftermath of Little Mix winning the X Factor, with their family and friends jumping up and down, their mentor crying etc, it is a very emotional and uplifting video.

The final shot is a 'Zoom-Out' from the X Factor stage into the audience fading to black, which I really like as it signifies the end - the end of the competition.

The only part that is lip-synced is the live performance, the key characters are Little Mix and there are no credits but the rights to SimCo. There is no dialogue we can hear, however we see people talking and can guess what they're saying, for example Tulisa letting little mix know they've made it to the next round. I really like this effect as it means the audience have to think a little bit.

Overall I really like the style of this music video as it reveals a true story as the music emphasises the emotion. I want to mirror this in my own video and be able to successfully tell an inspiring story or deliver an inspiring message.