The Vamps are a British Pop band – who consists of band members Brad Simpson, whom is the lead vocals and guitar. James McVey who is the lead guitarist and vocalist, and Connor Ball is lead bassist, backup guitarist and vocalist and Tristan Evans who is the lead drummer and backup vocalist.

The group formed in early 2012, and were signed to Mercury Records in November that year. The Vamps supported Mcfly on their Memory Lane Tour in early 2013, they performed at several festival-style-events around the UK as support acts for bands such as The Wanted, JLS, Little Mix, Lawson and Demi Lovato.

In September 2013, The Vamps released their debut single “Can We Dance”, which debuted at number 2 on the UK Singles Chart. Their second single “Wild Heart "was released in January 2014. They then released their debut album “Meet the Vamps” which was released in April 2014. In February 2014, The Vamps released “Wild Heart” as their debut single in the United States and Canada.

The music video I will be looking at from The Vamps is ‘Somebody To You’.

Conventions of a Music Video – The Vamps video “Somebody To You” would be classed as a performance video due to the aspects involved. The group use different camera angles, shots and movements to fulfil this. The band uses typical aspects throughout to show that they are a performance group. The pastel colour scheme throughout the video suggests and reflects on The Vamps being a performance video, as in most performance videos the colour schemes are very much similar. Somebody To You is a performances based video, but at the same time involves characteristics of narrative based. When the band are playing on a stage with their instruments it reflects on the idea of it being performance based video.

Camera Shots, Angles, Movements – how they represent social groups and narrative – Establishing shot – beach, waves suggest and represents the group as being chilled and laid back about things, and makes the narrative of the boy falling in love with the girl seem more realistic.

Long shots, close up, medium shots, over the shoulder shots all have been used to show the different people in the band, portraying their different personalities, and suggesting that they are not the average group of teenage boys you would know.

Eye level angles, low angles, isolation, blurred edges on demi, change of shots long medium close, high angle shots, have been used throughout the music video to suggest the fact that the band are no better than the rest of the characters in the video, or the viewers watching it. Because the blurred edges have only been used on Demi Lovato, could be suggesting the fact that she has a higher archy over the band, because she has been around for much longer and has had a lot more experience than they have. The majority of angles are either medium or lower angles suggesting equality of everyone

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Hand held movements, zooms in and out, have also been used to suggest that the viewers and the band are on the same level of higher and lower archy, which makes the band look down to earth and don’t want to make themselves too famous that they associate themsself with fans. The hand held movements suggests that the budget of filming was not too expensive, meaning that they want to be like normal teenage boys and not become too famous, too fast.

This print screen is slightly blurry suggesting the use of the hand held shots.

How does the use of sound influence your ideas about the band, settings, representations of social groups and narrative?

The music shown throughout the music video seems to be up tempo, bouncy, enjoyable, laid back but also seem like they are enjoying themselves. The band seem like they are living the average teenage life style. They do not come across as being big headed and fame hasn’t got to their heads yet, we cans see this because of the sound, and it doesn’t sound auto tuned, therefore suggesting that they want fans and viewers to see them as being themselves and not auto tuned.

The sound fits in well with the setting and location due to the calm, but enjoyable beat. The beach is a good place for this video to be filmed because when we think of happy things we would picture nice relaxing places like the beach.

How has editing been used to create effect and emphasis on your understanding of the band as performers and the representations of social groups and narrative?Short cuts and jump shots and fade cuts are commonly used in pop performance music videos, and they are also used throughout the music video to keep up the pace of the video, so the music cuts in time with the editing. By doing this we as viewers are able to see the real personalities of the group through different camera edits. Also because they use these editing skills like the fade in and out, we can identify this video as being a performance pop group due to the common use in other performance pop music videos.

The editing could be suggesting that the group are people someone would want to be around, also reflects on the narrative – making it to be something more enjoyable for viewers.

How does Mise-en-Scene influence your understanding of characters settings, representations of social groups and narrative?Lighting – Sunny, bright lighting suggests and reflects on the fact that the personalities of the group could be happy most of the time, and open to new things. This also represents their social groups as being the opposite to gangs, in which they come across as being friendly and easy to approach.

Location/setting – set on a beach, nice, calm, and relaxing areas suggest some more about the band in which they would rather be somewhere tranquil rather than where there is a lot of chaos. Also because there are only a few people around it reflects on the idea that they would rather be with small groups of people than big noisy groups.

Décor – Average beach hut, sand, band set up – stage, reflecting on them as a band, showing that they are still the average band you would come across, but at the same time they still have the rock band look about them.

Props – beach balls, sunglasses, guitars, drums, microphones, footballs are props used in the music video. Most of these props like the beach balls, sunglasses and footballs show the boys playful side, suggesting that they do lead normal lives like any other teenage boy, and don’t just base their lives around music, suggesting them as being down to earth and very friend and family orientated.

Costume – normal everyday clothing, showing laid back, and not bothered about what they look like – suggesting that they want to be portrayed the way they are, and not to be something they aren’t.

Applying Functions of a Music Video