Existing Characters

In a music video (MV), the characters and the cast are extremely important. The actor must be of a similar physical description of the character they are playing, for example an old man cant play a 20 year old in a MV. Without the characters, there would be no video, therefore the job of the cast is to perform the role to high standards in order to portray the message/narrative of the film through their body language, dialogue and persona etc.

When we think of a music video, we should (if the video is good) remember the characters in them. There are some characters from MV's I think are very memorable and iconic, making the MV better than it would have been without them. The actor playing the character therefore has great importance.

Character personalities should be suitable for the audience they're performing to, for example if the target audience of the product is children, then the main character should be happy, fun, enticing and perhaps colourful, as this will entice the target audience further.

I don't think the audience get too engaged with characters in music videos as MV's are often only a few minutes long, it isn't enough time to get to know the character and sympathise/engage with them, I believe it would be easier for the audience to engage with a character in a short film as there is more time to get to know them and understand their story and personality. This however doesn't mean people cant enjoy the characters or like them, they can still engage with MV characters however only to an extent, unless of course they relate to the lyrics or situation.

Below are three existing characters from some music videos with why I think they're suitable for the narrative/video, what makes them iconic/memorable and whether they appeal to the narrative ... or not.

You can see character profiles for these characters in another blog post

Katy Perry in 'Last Friday Night'

Katy starts in the music video as a nerd at a party, the costume is very full on with braces, a brace around the face, glasses and a plait with bright clips in. The narrative is about this nerd becoming popular at a party and undergoing a transformation to be 'cooler' which means the character does appeal to the narrative as there is room for a transformation and it adds an element of comedy. The narrative isn't as good as any of the other music videos I will talk about in this post, however Katy's character is memorable due to how quirky she is.

Taylor Swift in 'Blank Space'

Taylor Swift plays an excellent character in 'Blank Space', she starts off (as you can see above) as a dark, mysterious, yet elegant and classy character. One of the first things we notice about her is her wealth as we see her mansion with 'Cinderella'-like stairs as she appears to lure the male in. Whilst it appears she's looking for love, there's an eery side to her character and the lyrics. Her face appears stone cold as she looks in the camera saying shes dying to see how "this one ends", this is the point we begin to see the obsessive and very weird/abnormal side to this character coming out.

She throws pots at the male when she finds he may be talking to someone else and turns into a psycho obsessive girlfriend, putting knives in, and tearing up her 'lovers' photo.

We then see a more calmed down version of Taylors character, she is warning that "boys only want love if its torture, don't say I didn't warn you", this again is a very extreme view that all boys are going to hurt their girl, she says this whilst holding an apple - here her character looks very similar to 'snow white', which suggests to us she is holding a poisonous apple.

Taylor Swifts character in this music video is incredibly memorable and iconic, Taylor herself explained this video was about mocking the comments she gets in the media about her having a different boyfriend every 5 minutes and the fact she only dates to write breakup songs. This video exaggerates that media view, its different and almost comedic, and the characters personality definitely fits with the lyrics they are singing. Taylor Swift is also an incredibly successful solo artist, anything she creates has popular demand, for example this music video has over 1 billion views, so I think this added to the popularity and memorability of the video. The fact Taylor is the main character adds a huge appeal to the narrative, purely because of the story behind it that the audience know, making it comedic. The male character will also add appeal due to his good looks and the fact he looks like the male Taylor is describing at the start e.g. "new, money, suit and tie".

This is one of my favourite music videos and I'm not the biggest Taylor Swift fan, therefore I think the casting choices and performance in this music video as well as the narrative are the reasons why it's so successful.

One Direction in 'Best Song Ever'

'Best Song Ever' was one of the most anticipated music videos of 2013, the idea behind it was that one direction would play themselves, and then another character in the music industry. So they were all playing 2 characters. Below is an image of each one of the boys and the character they played.

Louis Tomlinson and Niall Horan played middle aged music managers, Liam Payne played a camp dance choreographer, Harry Styles played a geeky costume designer and Zayn Malik played a female assistant. 

The characters are so memorable and iconic because of how funny they are both in looks and how they act/what they do, it is also comedic as the 5 boys all dress up as different people, yet look so realistic. 

The song/narrative of the music video is about the 5 boys rebelling against Hollywood and its management of music, and it includes each one of the boys and the characters they play dancing together and breaking rules. The characters are the main attraction in this music video therefore they add huge appeal to the narrative. It was suitable for the One Direction boys to play two parts because it is them in the band after all, they could have chose regular managers and costume designers to play the other roles however it wouldn't have been as funny and therefore would have taken away one of the main appeals of the video, perhaps making it less memorable.