Happy? Case Study

AIM: Understand the impact of a well known music video and plan a thirty second re-creation

You may be sick of it…if not you will be!

TASK: Watch the video and make notes about how many different locations and characters are used.

Happy facts• Cross media convergence: the website ‘

24 Hours of Happy’ was launched at the same time.

• Billed as the world’s first 24hr music video – users logged on to a different clip worldwide related to the time they visited. They could then share that clip on social media. Exchange was actively encouraged. (11.5m views)

• It featured various people dancing around LA including some celebrity cameos

• The 24 hour version was aired at Buenos Aires Film Festival. Good example of a mass product appealing to a niche market.

• The music video edit of the 24 hours of footage was released on YouTube a few weeks later (668m views)

Even happier facts

• Was a song from the soundtrack for Despicable Me 2 – characters from which appeared in the video but otherwise unconnected. • Directed by French production team ‘We are from LA’, shot using a steadicam• Won many awards at the Grammys • Active embrace of digital technology, exchange and changes in copyright.

Massive global impact. Thousands of cities and countries did their own version under the tagline of ‘We are Happy from…’ A lot of them were extremely professional and got over 3m views in themselves• Parodies, tributes, versions…all using copyrighted material (the titling, the

song) were all actively encouraged and not contested by the record label.

Why?

https://youtu.be/uSeaC6IDDtw

Not so happy…

• Iranian laws forbids women being unveiled in public and dancing with members of the opposite sex.

• 35 years of conflict with the USA means their government do not take kindly to Western cultural influence in Iranian society. The video had 1.5million views – mainly in Iran which worried the Iranian government

• Iran has a very young population who are very liberal – it was seen as a clash of values and generations.

How could we link ‘Happy’ to David Gauntlett’s Media 2.0 theory?

How could we link ‘Happy’ to Stuart Hall’s Reception Theory?

DOMINANT

NEGOTIATED

OPPOSITIONAL

Producer of media text encodes meaning

Hall argued that audiences decode the producer’s meaning depending on their cultural viewpoints and experiences. What can we read into the reaction to ‘Happy’? Why do you think this might be?

TASK: Recreate 30 seconds of the Happy video. Deadline_______________

You can create a parody, a different version or whatever BUT you must use a similar format, shots and editing techniques.