We decided that we wanted to do a wretch 32 song as he is mainstream and current, therefore we looked at another one of his popular songs of the same genre ‘traktor’ the song has a strong sense of disjuncture as there is no narrative to convey the meaning of the lyrics.
Performance plays a heavy part in this music video, as the star performs and lip-syncs.
This artist is often the main performer, this is a running theme throughout the artists other videos. The mise en scene of the music video is simple with not many costume changes or location changes. The location consists of a basement car park.
Further in the field of disjuncture the on going theme of owls and women dressed as birds, as this is a nocturnal animal create a presence of darkness and nighttime.
Overall the video is a simple but effective way of trying to promote the star by a range of camera angles including a lot of close ups to keep the attention on the star.
Analysed as a team .
A lot of music videos tend to have a main focus on the star, to help promote this band or artist. In this video Christina Aguilera has been clearly showcased throughout the video, by use of extreme close ups and longs shots.
This video involves disjuncture, meaning to ignore the original story of the song and lyrics and creating a new set of meanings to the song. In this case the video shows dystopian theme, showing a different world that is very abnormal. The video creates a very dark and angry atmosphere this however does link to the lyrics and narrative of the song so in the sense of atmosphere the song and video are related.
There is a wide range of locations and dramatic outstanding costume changes again creating focus on the star and promote her image as well as enforcing the dystopian image.
A variety of simple factors add to a music video to make it an entertaining good quality piece of media. In this video the use of montage editing in time with beat of the music and the on time lip synching are what is also important to the conventions of the music video.
Extreme close ups are used to intensify the atmosphere and emotion of the music video, for example the close ups of the butterflies and ballerinas feet. mid shots used to show the performance elements of the video and close ups of the star.
The lighting in the video is low key and helps sets the over all tone of the piece. The flashes of red colour connotes the anger and pain that is being conveyed through out.
Overall we feel the music video has clearly put across the key emotions of the song through the use of disjuncture the use of this technique allows the meaning of the song to be put across more than the narrative.
Analysed as a team .
Jessie J – “who’s laughing now”
Jessie J specializes in the music genre of pop, including “whose laughing now” which as a group we decided to analyze.
The opening scene of the video has a strong use of deep depth of field making the viewer know Jessie j is the main character, this is broken by showing the younger Jessie j with people laughing and pointing at her.
The video has a performance and a strong narrative aspects as it has a very appealing storyline linking with the lyric making illustrative. The narrative of the video outlines Jessie J’s childhood and the issues she came across such as bullying, as the video progresses we see many examples of montage editing as there numerous scenes cross cutting throughout the video; the video is set in a school which is a good location as it fits with the storyline and starts off in the main classroom we see a younger Jessie j mirroring what happened when she was younger as her classmates teased her for how she looks and who she is using quick camera movements from the bully to Jessie J; linking their actions with the lyrics showing a convention of a typical music video. As the video goes on we see many close ups of the bullies and extreme close ups of the young Jessie J and her facial expressions. The last scene in the video shows younger and older Jessie J together in the classroom with everyone surrounding them, cheering; showing they have dominant power and effect on the people around them.
Analysed as a team.
Love the way you lie
I looked at the Emimem and Rihanna video; love the way you lie. The video had a similar idea to ours when it came to the narrative/performance. The video is in the amplification, category; Craig Davis’ theory of music videos. As the visual has a direct link to the lyrics and the narrative is connotive to the meaning of the song and song title.
The director uses a naturalistic lighting of the performance to give it a socially realistic look. Whereas the performance element where Eminem stands in a field has high key lighting representing the freedom he feels when he is performing. When Eminem and Rihanna perform together in the video it is more fitting and representative of the video. It has low key lighting in keeping with the dark and morbid storyline, however the use of live flames in the backgrounds highlights their face connoting the passion of the song.
Close ups of the stars face when they are lip syncing helps signify their importance in the video as they may be overshadowed as well known actors are used as it helps bring more attention to the music video fitting its purpose of trying to promote the song.
As the video is based on narrative, as well as performance ,the narrative appears like a short film therefore no outrageous costume or make up is used like in the ‘Fighter’ Christina Aguilera video which is based around performance. So day to day costume is worn by the actors and non-elaborate clothing is worn by the actors.
In the editing the narrative and performance play side by side in parallel editing the two scenes flash between each other however not breaking the continuity editing
Analysed as a team.
Analysed as a team.
