Tuesday, 27 September 2011

Music Video Analysis - That Man By Caro Emerald



The music video contains a non-diegetic soundtrack, which when put over the video becomes diegetic when the artist starts singing along. Also at the beginning of the video there is a shot of a emerald falling and smashing, which then turns into a few white blocks. The blocks move and become piano keys and starting playing in time with the music. They then turn into stairs, which the artist then walks down to the beat of the song. This brings the audience into the video and makes them want to continue watching it.







The cinematography in this video switches continuously to the beat of the song from close ups to long shots and zooms to pans. The many close ups of the artist throughout the video are because record companies request them as to promote the artist. This is one of Andrew Goodwin's key ideas about music videos. Also this helps the audience to identify with and grow to like the artist. The final shot we see at he end of the video is of a emerald falling and eventually disappearing, this connects to the first shot of the video of a emerald falling and breaking. This is to tie up the narrative, that she finally has the man she wanted.



The way that the video has been edited is to make it cut to the beat of the song. This is one of Goodwin's ideas about music videos. Performance is a key part of this music video. The video has a upbeat dance routine, which fits with the genre of music. Although it is not a conventional routine, as they are using blacked out animation figures instead of real people dancing, this is to make the audience focus on the artist more. Also the artist is singing along to the song, which is part of the overall performance for the video. This entices the audience as the images match the beat.



Also the video has aspects of voyeurism with the screens within the screen, which is also one of Andrew Goodwin's ideas about music videos. This video has intertextual references to the Mad Men opening credits or to the film Vertigo with an animation character falling from a great height and spiralling downwards. This is a representation of the 1950's era, when Vertigo and Mad Men were made in or based on, which the artist is trying to resemble that with her music. Also this image matches the lyrics which is another of Goodwin's ideas.






Another intertextual reference in the video is to James Bond films. The coloured lights moving around the screen is very similar to the opening of the James Bond film Dr. No. And the tracking scope is similar to the James Bond gunbarrel sequences that are at the beginning of most James Bond films.



The mise-en-scene in very in keeping with the style and era that the artist is representing in the video. Everyone from the band to the animation dancers are all styled to represent the 1950's era. And this creates a degree of verisimilitude within the video, as it shows the video to be clearly defining the era that it is representing.






Joe Gow identified that there were six central genres for music videos. This video would fall into the enhanced performance genre as, the video blends elements of performance and other visual elements. The video relates to Goodwin's ideas about music videos by matching the music and lyrics with the images. And the music video is of the jazz genre; this is portrayed with the colours used, animation and instruments used in the video. The artist uses the video to develop her own iconography as a 1950's style jazz singer, this is an important part of Goodwin's theory of music videos. Diane Railton and Paul Watson offer that there are four main music video genres. The music video genre for this video is a hybrid between narrative and art music videos. The colours and animation shows us that it is partly a art video, and the animation characters and subtitles tell us a story.

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