Happy – Leona Lewis

Genre

•         Pop – focuses on the simple theme of love.
•         R&B – has the typical groove combined with piano and heavy use of drums towards the middle of the song.

Relationship between lyrics and visuals

•        Throughout the video Leona Lewis is shown as laughing, smiling and generally being ‘happy’ around the people she knows.
•        I’m just trying to be happy – shows Leona happy with a guy she likes.

Relationship between music and visuals

•        Towards the end half of the video, the music dictates when the shot jumps to another one. The piano cuts from Leona to visions of the wedding, to flashbacks and then to the guy.
•        In the same half, every other drum beat leads to another cut. For example, 2:54 is a shot of a ring being placed on a finger, then 2:55 is a close-up of Leona Lewis’ face, then towards an over the shoulder shot of Leona and this guy and so on.
•        The video only chances pace with the music towards the end when the heavy drum beat kicks in. For the first half, the tempo is relatively slow, and the shots are more lingering in comparison to the second half.

Close-ups of the artist and star image motifs

•         Leona’s record label, RCA Records has signed other acts such as Kelly Clarkson and Avril Lavigne in the past. They’re known for being women who created themselves and made a living out of their meaningful lyrics.
•        Leona is being offered to be a single, independent woman that despite her difficulties, is trying to be happy with herself and the world around her.
•        This video relates to her other, Better In Time, which represents Leona to be a strong woman who knows that despite the present, everything will get better with time. In that song’s case, it’s referring to a break-up, but if relating to all her songs, she could be referring to life in general – that despite hardships, life will get better.

Reference to the notion of looking

•         During the video, starting at 1:35, there’s a montage between Leona Lewis going out with her friends, and her changing into a white dress and matching shoes. This is an implied sexualised display.
•         Towards the end, there’s a reference to a wedding as it shows the image of two people getting married, and then off towards the reception as if the audience is watching Leona and this man’s wedding. Even though it’s revealed that he in fact married someone else.

Intertextual references

•         There aren’t any.

Performance-based, narrative-based or concept-based?

•         The video is mostly narrative based as it attempts to tell the story of Leona Lewis falling in love with this man, and eventually seeing how their relationship blossoms and where it goes.
•        A large part of it is also performance-based as the whole video is a montage of clips, flicking between the telling of the story where it’s purely acting and shots of Leona singing in different situations, like leaning against the wall, or with the back drop behind her being the ocean at night