Music Video Analysis: Circus, Britney Spears

Music Video Analysis

Artist: Britney Spears

Title: Circus

Director: Francis Lawrence

The pop promotion for Britney Spears' 'Circus', following my previous post of the meticulously themed advertising campaign furthers the style and presentation extremely accurately.
As the video opens, we're immediately hit by a perfect example cross marketing; as very traditional non-diegetic circus music plays in the background, Britney picks up her new (Britney Spears brand) perfect and spritzes strategically so we get a good view of the bottle. Next, intertextuality in the form of product placement can be seen as Britney puts on Bvulgari jewelry. The cinematography and editing ensures that the audience can see the brand and product, lingering on the close up of the jewelry and logo.
The video itsself is entirely concept based, which is unsurprising seeing as the album promotion in it's entirety is hugely conceptualised as being circus themed. Mise-en-scene is key to this pop promotions from costumes, lighting, props, location and dancing. Britney is seen wearing a few different outfits throughout this video such as a sheer dress with diamond embellishment and classic 50's hair and a high-waisted shorts, blazer and top hat outfit which is also very reminiscent of classic circuses. The latter outfit has connotations of power as Britney is the the ring-leader as she sings 'all eyes on me in the centre of the ring/just like a circus'. This in itself represents Britney Spears as a powerful artist in control of her career.
Branching out from outfits, the props and location as just as important in this video. Circus animals such as lions, elephants and tigers make cameos in the video to further the imagery and make the video slightly more risqué. Location-wise, the set is a huge, dimly lit circus tent where Britney and her ensemble of circus performers exist. Rings of fire, whips and bright lights all compliment the theme of the circus which is trying to be expressed in this video, coinciding with the marketing theme of the album also entitled; Circus.
There's some really interesting things going on in the video where editing is concerned. Something that really spoke to me, especially as I'm starting to build ideas for my own pop promotion, was the way that in some shots in the opening, the edges of the shot were blurred and almost soft-focused (it was clear these were done in post-production) and it really drew focus to the action that was happening in these particular shots. Also evident is a large range of shots/angles being edited down to a single sequence using continuity editing which works really well as it's cut to the pace of the song.
The way Britney is represented in this song definitely rebuilds her star image by the way the cinematography lingers on her longer than you'd expect in some shots - not in a bad way though. The conceptual performance nature of the video ensures that the artist gets a lot of screen time during the video and she's she absolute main focus of the production, allowing viewers to get a really good picture of the image her and her marketing team are trying to portray. There's a lot of close ups of Britney, strengthening this image that she's trying to build - the fact that she's back in the music industry, she's out there for the male gaze!
The video is clearly aimed at her target audience, which is fans from her previous era as a star but also new fans. I'd suggest that her main demographic is both young teenaged girls to young adult women though, of course, with the male gaze as an important factor, these are not her only audience.
The characteristics of the music video such as the dance scene definitely fit in well with the genre of the music but also add a different quality to it. The music it's-self is definitely a hybrid between pop and almost show music as the circus theme is incredibly strong and I think the way the music video represents that is really powerful. It strengthens the album campaign, which i have written about prior to this post, but also maintains a very 'Britney Spears' quality with the quirky dancing and 'bubble-gum-pop' image that's being portrayed here with the direct links between the music, lyrics and visuals.
Overall - this is an extremely powerful and well executed pop promotion for 'Circus' as an album as the star (re)construction fits perfectly with the thematic approach to the marketing campaign and the intertextuality at the start. This is the definition of a successful pop promo and I've gained a lot from analysing this - the entire marketing campaign just has such a strongly held together theme that, for an audience, it would be incredibly hard not to link all the promotional material together and pin it down to one product; the 'Circus' album.