Directed By: Jake Nava
"Single Ladies (Put a Ring
on It)" is a song by American recording artist Beyonce Knowles. It was
released by Colombia Records with "If I Were A Boy" as a double
A side lead single from her third solo studio album, I am ... Sasha Fierce, on
October 12, 2008. The target audience for this is teenage/young adult
females, as the song lyrics are directly aimed at females. Also, due to her fan
base predominately being of this age range. The persona she portrays in this
video, creates a female icon for many women by showing dominance, however the
provocative dance she performs throughout the music video caters for her male
audience viewers through entertainment. The genre of this song is: R&B/pop.
The music video is one of the performance form; the video is a complete
performance, demonstrating dance throughout it and singing of the lyrics. It is
very artistic looking due to it being filmed completely in black and white.r.
The video shoot took approximately twelve hours to shoot, many performances of the song were filmed without
interruption, and edited together to give the impression that the final video
was filmed in a single take. It was shot in a studio in
New York.
The
video received a good reception. Beyonce herself said: “Out of all my
videos, it was the least expensive and took the least amount of time. And it
ended up being the most iconic”. The video spawned a dance craze and
inspired thousands of imitations from all over the world, which were posted on
YouTube. "Single
Ladies" was nominated for nine awards at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards,
ultimately winning three including Video of the Year.The viewing figures for it on YouTube
currently stand at: 171, 692, 662.
Knowles wanted a simple
music video; it was therefore filmed without alternative camera shots and cuts,
or changes to hairstyles, costumes, sets and lighting. The director Nava
deliberately used lengthy shots so that viewers "would connect with the
human endeavour of Beyoncé's awe-inspiring dance" with all the
changes in looks, angles, and lighting executed live
on-camera because he wanted to keep the feel "very organic and
un-gimmicky". The camera constantly follows Beyonce around using mainly
long shots to show the full dance, zooming in and out throughout to show focus
on Beyonce to show the importance of the alto ego she is portraying and the robotic
glove with the ring on, in relation to the song “if you like it then you should
of out a ring on it.”
The editing is done to make
the video seem seamless and give the impression it was done in one take as
mentioned before. However, near the end of the video there is extremely quick
editing when there are quick shots overlapped on each other, to go with the
sudden increase in tempo with the song.
The lighting used of flashes of intense light, yet again reinforces the
dominance of her in the video. In the
video for "Single Ladies", emphasis is laid on Knowles' more
aggressive and sensual side, her alter ego Sasha Fierce. It shows her in an
asymmetrical leotard and high-heels,
with two look-alike backup dancers.
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