Deconstruction of Lady Gaga's Telephone video.

 This is the video to Telephone by Lady Gaga featuring Beyonce. The video was released in 2010 and was direct by Jonas Akerlund. The video starts where Lady Gaga's video to 'Paparazzi' finished (a video also directed by Akerland), with Gaga being put into prison for poisoning her boyfriend. The video runs like a film, with credits at the start telling us who directs it, stars in, who produced it and who wrote, lasting 9:30 minutes, it is unusually for a music video however Lady Gaga has built up an image around doing things to her videos, music and image that make her stand out from other stars. This is what Goodwin calls 'star-image' and this is something built upon in this video. Close up shots of her are used to show the quirky clothing that she wears, something synonymous with Lady Gaga. Appearances of her in the press of her at performances and in everyday life, have all helped build this image of her being a star who wears odd clothes, which in turn generates press attention and therefore more interest in the star. The outfits have become an iconography for Lady Gaga, often using close ups in her video like the one seen below for her video to 'Poker Face', as she is now expected to wear clothes both in videos and in general that will shock us.





Close up establishing 'star-image' in Poker Face



Close up establishing 'star-image in Paparazzi'





The relationship between the lyrics and images in this video is the reoccurring telephones throughout the video. This reinforces the importance of telephones to the lyrics and emphasises what the lyrics mean. The idea of a reoccurring image is something that we also want to use in our video, but we want to have shots of shoes running through the video, as this is something that is more appropriate for our song. The shot of shoes is inspired by a similar shot used in this video. The relationship between music and lyrics also occurs when she is dancing in jail like shes in a club whilst she sings "left my heart on the dancefloor". She see's this space as her dance floor.

There is also a use of voyeurism in this video, something which Goodwin suggests is a convention of music videos. Throughout there a CCTV shots of inside the women's jail, not only emphasising where these women are but also that they are being watched without knowing in a sexual way as they dance around in their underwear.

There is a lot of intertextuality in this video. Firstly with the use of different brands used throughout such as Diet Coke, Poloaroid and Virgin.

There is also a lot of intertextuality in terms of references to American culture, such as the American diner, fast food, cookery shows and the desert setting, referring to country and western films. In the video there is also reference to Quentin Tarantino's, Kill Bill, with the car that the two girl drive being similar to the one in the film and Michael Jackson with a dance move done by Lady Gaga as she leaves prison. Theses references bring humour to the video as they are done in a sort of tongue-in-cheek way and also it helps create this feeling that you are watching a movie rather then a music video as all these things help to move the narrative along.



Car used in 'Telephone'



Car used in Kill Bill



We have also taken some inspiration from this videos opening as we wanted the video to begin before the music and we also like the use of a number of static shots used at the start of the video used to focus in on certain objects like the CCTV camera.


By Chloe Barnham