Analysis of ’s music video Analysis of music video

Eminem (Stan) The song tells the story of a person named Stanley (Stan) who thinks he is Eminem’s biggest fan. In the song, he writes letters to Eminem, with each paragraph he becomes more obsessed with him, and when there is no reply he becomes even more angry. The entire music video is based around a linear story. There is no performance to the video and therefore does not focus on Eminem, the artist, instead it focuses character ‘Stan’. Eminem is represented firstly as an ignorant celebrity who does not really find time to write back to his fans. But in today’s generation, the artist doesn’t write back its usually the team that he works with. However, He creates a voice recording of himself driving his car into a lake, with his pregnant girlfriend in the trunk. Near the end of the video you see that he replays back to his fact but obviously he was too late to write back to Stan, however, despite the whole narrative of the video is based around an obsessive fan, this makes the audience want to know more about the artist and why it is that this fan is so obsessive. The star image reasons are clearly displayed when we see Stan trying to imitate Eminem by wearing similar clothing and dying his hair. The video starts from a black fade, this represents the mood and atmosphere of Stan’s mind, because all we see is sad moments and disappointment in this video, and when Stan is happy it gets brighter or the background has a bit of light, for example when he cut his hair to Eminem’s style he was happy to the scene had light. The video does not entirely focus on the artist but it has a lot to do about the artist. Stan being the protagonist of the music video, his obsession with the artist makes the audience think a lot about Eminem.

Genre The genre for the music video comes under , however the music video doesn’t show the conventions of this as it is set in a dark and dull place. Normally hip hop videos show big houses girls, fancy cars and nice clothes, but in Stan’s video is more of a sad video. Still. The genre is appropriate due to the rapping song. Over the shoulder shot In the opening scene shows that Stan is dying his hair blonde like his favourite artist slim because he wants to attempt to look like him, the lighting and rain outside can reflect the emotion of the video example sadness and trouble. In the picture he is happy so that’s why there is lighting around him.

We can see here the whole room is wrapped in Slim’s posters, this shows that he is obsessed with slim, spends time writing to him more than he spends with his wife (dido) who is pregnant, however we can see the room has light which shows that is the only place that he is happy at.

Here we can see that Stan is writing to him for the third time, he says that ‘it probably was a problem in the post office or something’ because he did not get a reply from the other 2 letters as he was busy, as he’s rapping he writes to him everything about he’s life and the problem’s he’s got. Because as Eminem is his favourite he wants to writes to him if he was like a brother, he tells him that he will his daughter ‘bonnie ‘because bonnie and Clyde are Slim’s favourite actors. (mid angle shot) Stan imagines himself being slim, it got to a point that he started hallucinating slim as he looks into the mirror, however they are both wearing white which symbolises goodness, innocence and purity. (mid angle shot) Here we can see tan’s wife arguing with him because she’s feeling unloved by him, she jealous because he speaks about slim “24/7”they don’t really spend that much time together due to Stan’s obsession towards his big star Eminem (mid angle shot)

The poster man dropped his letter in the floor which means that he’s letter won’t get sent to slim also this means that he is going to get really mad at it, but he doesn’t know it’s a misunderstanding.( Low angle )

Stan’s little brother loves slim as well, he followed he older brother’s footsteps which was loving a liking Eminem’s songs, Stan says ‘he wants to be just like you, he likes you more than I do’ this means that one day his going to be as obsessed as his older brother. (mid shot )

Stan’s wife found out that he replaced Slim’s picture by her one which symbolises that she is losing Stan slowly and she is not going to be important in his head anymore. (we can see that the scene is an over the shoulder angle.

Before stan took her and put her in the back of the car, shw was wearing green which represents “life” however her life and hert baby’s life was going to be taken away from stan due to his obsession fromslim (eminem ).

In this scene shows that Stan is really angry and his recording his self while driving in the slippery road going crazy with his wife in the trunk, he says “ so this is my cassette that I’m sending you I hope you hear it I’m doing 90 on a freeway” he does this because he gets no replies from slim and he believes that Eminem has received the letters successfully but he is ignoring the in purpose, however while he is recording his voice Stan says “we could have been together, think about it you’ve ruined it now, I hope you can sleep and dream about it” then his wife screams and he says “ shut up b***h” so he lets him know that he not alone and 2 other people are going to die with him, his wife and the baby. All this is to makes Slim guilty and makes him realise what he has done and he can’t do anything about it now because it’s too late for him to write back. (close up) Stan was still voice recording and going in a quick speed, before he threw himself and his wife from the bride he said” Well I got to go, I’m nearly into the bridge now” so he’s records his last words before his dies and then the we can see how the car going into the deep water

In here we can see that slim is finally writing to Stan after the suicide slim says “I was meant to write you sooner but I’ve just been busy, you said you girl is pregnant now how far along is she, I was really flattered you called you daughter that, and here’s and autograph for you brother, I’m sorry I didn’t see you in the show” so Slim is now apologizing because he couldn’t write to him, give his brother an autograph and didn’t see him in the show after “waiting outside in the blistering cold for 4 hours in a row”

Slim mention to him “I think you need to counselling to help you’re a** from bouncing off the walls when you get down son” Slim is telling him to go and stop doing stupid things with his family and himself so that he doesn’t end up hurting them or himself.

5 different camera angles

1. Long shot 2. Mid shot 3. Close up 4. Low angle shot 5. High angle shot Long shot

In Eminem (Stan) different camera angles an example is long shot and the meaning of a long shot is when the character’s body is shown in the video or music video however this means that you can fit things or stuff in a whole scene without cutting or adding anything out, and shows other happenings. e.g. Mid shot

This is an example in Eminem’s music video of a mid-shot which focuses on his upper body, amid shot means when the camera focuses mainly above the waist and the character with a little bit of zoom in usually the background is a little but blurry because as I said the camera is mainly focusing in the characters.

Close up

A close up in Eminem’s video is this example, however a close up is mainly focused in the face or an object, and the background is usually always blurry to make a clearer focus on the objects or face in the camera. This is usually to add like a kind of emphasis to the scene. Low angle shot

Low angle shot is always filmed at a ground level and used commonly when for example filming action scenes. An example of low angle shot is Eminem’s music video is when High angle shot

A high angle shot is kind of similar to bird’s eye view, but instead of using like a helicopter or something to get like a kind of overview of the scene, a crane or machine to elevate the camera upwards to focus on the on the character in the ground level. Goodwin’s theory Goodwin’s theory is trying to say how the audience has to figure out the message of this video on our own 1. The relationship between the lyrics and the visual are present because Eminem is talking about obsessed fans who is mentally unstable and abuses his girlfriend because he wants the attention that Eminem has as an artist and the video represents this. 2. This video is hip hop because there’s consistent beat and slow cuts from scene to scene and in the video the director cuts each scene at every beat drop 3. The genre related style that Eminem uses to always be recognised is his buggy oversized T-shorts, buggy trousers and his thick heavy chains. In this video Stan is coping Eminem’s style by wearing these items as Eminem is known for always wearing them. 4. There is multiple close up shots of each vocalist at each part of their verse, when Dido is singing the chorus there are close ups of her sitting in the corridor, Stan has close up shots of him throughout the video as the song is based on his character, and Eminem has close ups at his part and trough the video to remind the audience he the artist 5. Voyeurism isn’t really present in this video so much that the fan (Stan) is obsessed sexually toward Eminem but he does follow him when he’s at concerts and stalk him at home as he has a room dedicated to him with videos of Eminem everywhere but he only wants to be Eminem not be with him in a relationship. 6. The intertextual references are present because Eminem is basing the story line of this video on all the crazy messages he gets from fans from over the years and is trying to send the message of how serious people take things when it comes to Eminem and his music and how these types of fans need help as its not healthy for them or their families.

Katy Perry- Friday night Genre: The whole music video is based on a geeky unpopular girl who throws a party and during the party her friend transforms her into a looking good and popular and she gets noticed by popular boys. Then she gets really drunk and there’s a geeky boy that liked her the way she was and tried to protects her from being taken advantage of. The message of this is to show in society girls are pressured to look nice in order to fit in and be noticed. The use of showing her parents not caring is a way of her being spoiled and that the parents are trying to be young again too. We know it’s a pop song because the beat is fast and upbeat and the use of bright colours represents the mood and matches the theme-80’s

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Codes

For codes we first can look at the type of clothing there wearing. This will be at first Katy Perry is wearing light coloured clothes to show innocence and she has glasses and braces showing she’s a nerd and unpopular

The popular boy is wearing a red jacket showing he is in the football team which means he is a popular and everyone wants to know him and to be him. He is stuck up and does not want to associate himself around “ugly “people which is why he does not give a second glance at Katy Perry when she’s a geek.

How we see the unpopular outcast who spots the geeky girl and falls the way she is he has dreams of them together which means he thinks he’s found his match. We can see he is a geek also he is wearing glasses and wears braces and is wearing smart clothes to an 80’s disco themed party.

This “tilt shot “angle gives the audience a view as if they are looking at her coming down the stairs, the way she was walking is awkward and this represents how she does not feel comfortable in what she was wearing, she is doing it to fit in.

When she comes down the stairs and she is wearing tight clothes which is very colourful with big fluffy curly hair and no glasses etc. The bright colour represents lust and the bright green colour is getting her noticed because it’s an appealing colour. She is wearing short tight clothing because the male’s gaze theory is used to gain viewers and she has a bug curly hair as this was a popular 80’s hairstyle and matches the theme of the party she’s at.

In this section we can see that the popular boy started making moves to Katy Perry because he found attractive, the popular boy makes the moves when her friend transforms her into a good-looking girl, this shows that this popular boy only hangs around with girls that are attractive.

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However, this geeky boy liked the way she looked and he appreciated her even though she was a “nerd” because they both matched and he thinks they are both going to be together, she is trying to show that there’s someone for every type of person so in society girls shouldn’t always have to change who they are just to fit in.

For this we see how the geeky boy is protecting the girl (Katy Perry) by standing up to the popular boy, they show him daydreaming about him being her knight in shining armour and they’ve used this to represent he’s a geek as stereotypically nerds play video games like this.

They used key 80’s stars to match the 80’s themed disco. as the father, who starred in the famous 80’s movie ‘The Goonies’ and as the mother who was a famous during the 80’s

Conventional This is conventional to because the video includes music, people dancing, party, a big house and a massive garden, a thing where you can see in every pop video, however the way Katy Perry gets dressed includes bright colours, green short skirt and a pink bright top, she shows a lot of skin which attracts males (male’s gaze theory) there are fast cuts mostly when at the beat drops there is a story a type f storyline, there is a happy consistent mood and there are a lot of close ups shots of the main artist/vocalists

Unconventional However, this video is unconventional for a pop video because it’s a nonlinear meaning it’s not chronological order (events not in order) because the video starts with Katy Perry the morning after the party and throughout the video goes back to the usual scene of the party, we can see it’s not shown as flashbacks of this night because these scenes aren’t in black and white. This video is directed as a short movie which pop video are not known for and this is to want the viewer to be interested in watching and it’s more entertaining for them.

Goodwin’s theory Goodwin is trying to say how the audience has to figure out the message of a video on our own 1. The relationship between the lyrics and the visuals is present because in Katy Perry’s video she talks about a house party the visuals of the video match the lyrics. The use of bright colours matches the mood and the genre of the song which is pop 2. The music and the visuals match because there are fast cuts at each beat drop and the chorus has a lot of cuts, the same as the visuals in the video, so they work together to make an image of what’s going on and by showing the same cuts after every verse represents the chorus and this is easy for viewers to recognise. 3. The genre related style, Katy Perry uses is a theme of bright colours in many of her videos including this one to represent she’s a pop artist and that her songs are upbeat and suitable for all ages. 4. There are multiple close ups of Katy Perry throughout the video to remind the viewers/ audience that she’s the main star because in this video she plays lots of different characters. 5. Voyeurism is present in this video when Katy Perry first enters into the party as a geek and the nerd boy spots her and daydreams about them being together while starring at her, he follows her around the party and we know this because he is present in the bedroom when Katy Perry is being groped by the popular boy. Also the way the popular boy grabs Katy Perry’s bum, shows how boys don’t have respect for girls if they are dressed a certain way. 6. Intertextual references in this video are that Katy Perry has made a sequel to the song by “FRIDAY” and features her in the song as the friend, she also uses the dance game “just dance” to promote herself as her song is on there.

5 different camera angles  Long shot  Mid shot  Close up  Low angle shot  Over the shoulder shot

Long shot

In Katy’s Perry music video different camera angles an example is long shot and the meaning of a long shot is when the character’s body is shown in the video or music video however this means that you can fit things or stuff in a whole scene without cutting or adding anything out, and shows other happenings. e.g. Mid shot

This is an example in Katy’s Perry music video of a mid-shot which focuses on his upper body, amid shot means when the camera focuses mainly above the waist and the character with a little bit of zoom in usually the background is a little but blurry because as I said the camera is mainly focusing in the characters. Close up

A close up in Katy’s Perry video is this example, however a close up is mainly focused in the face or an object, and the background is usually always blurry to make a clearer focus on the objects or face in the camera. This is usually to add like a kind of emphasis to the scene.

Low angle shot

Low angle shot is always filmed at a ground level and used commonly when for example filming action scenes. An example of low angle shot is Eminem’s music video is when

Over the shoulder shot

A shot where the camera is behind the parson’s shoulder, and this is an example when Katy Perry is Talking to her friend usually so it’s during a conversation. It implies a connection between the speakers.