Music Video Analysis - Jayz

Music Video Analysis - Jay Z ft Alicia Keys (Empire State Of Mind)

Textual Analysis Of Music Video

The music video i will be analysing is Jay Z ft Alicia Keys - Empire State of Mind. This video has many view on you tube about 150 Million. The video was directed by by Hype Williams. The video was filmed in New York. The Genre of this music video belongs to both Rap and R'n'B. The characteristics of both these genres are shown in this song/music video through Jay Z rapping to an instrumental and the vocals of Alicia Keys.

                                       Jay Z ft Alicia Keys -  Empire State of Mind

What is the relationship between the lyrics and visuals?

In most of the videos i have seen there has been a relationship between the lyrics and the visuals. A few of these relationships can be found in Jay Z's Music video. For example at 0:41, when Jay Z says "Me, I'm up at Bed-Stuy, home of that boy Biggie Now I live on Billboard, and I brought my boys with me" we see an image of The Rap king Notourious BIG, and an image of Jay Z's name on a bill board.

As the song progresses at 0:58, the song says (Jay z and Alicia Keys) "Tell by my attitude that I am most definitely from
In New York, concrete jungle where dreams are made, oh There's nothing you can't do, now you're in New York" at this point we see a shot of Alicia Keys playing a piano while singing in the middle of New York City. During this part we see several shots of different parts of New York.

The relationship between the lyrics and the visuals continue. At 1:41, Jayz says "Welcome to the melting pot, corners where we selling rock Afrika Bambaataa shit, home of the hip hop Yellow Cab, Gypsy Cab,Dollar Cab, holla back" at this point we see a variety of pictures which is mainly dominated by Yellow cabs as stated in the lyrics by Jay Z.

At 2:35, The song goes on to say "Lights is blinding, girls need blinders So they can step out of bounds quick The sidelines is blind with casualties" these lyrics can be related to the the visuals. This can be shown when we see a long shot of Jay Z in the room in front of a window without blinds and the bright lights are shining in his face.

What is the relationship between the music and visuals?

The video is full of relationships between the visuals and the music. The beat throughout the song is constant, it doesn't change and it is constant. Unlike Eminem (Stan) music video i analyzed, which the beat is based on the mood of the rapper. 

Are there close-ups of the artist and star image motifs?

Location and Costume

Try our slideshow creator at Animoto.

Music Video Analysis - Chris Brown (Don't Wake Me Up)

Textual Analysis of Music Video

The music video i will be analysising is Chris Brown - Dont Wake Me Up. This video was performed by Chris Brown in 2012 and was directed by by Collin Tilley in the desert. The genre of the music in the music video is R and B, which is a very popular genre of music all around the world. The characteristic of R and B that this music video has is an Artist (Chris Brown) who is singing to a an instrumental which in this case is full with bass. This is the music video of the song:

     Chris Brown - Don't Wake Me Up

 What is the relationship between the lyrics and visuals?

Here are the lyrics for Chris Brown Don

Filming - Practice (TEST FOOTAGE)

  

Before the actual filming was done, we needed to practice filming some of the shots that we were going to be using during our actual filming. Sath and I filmed several shots, using a friend as the artist because we thought by having a person in the video would give us a real feel of what we will be up against and someone to use as a subject for filming.

Below is a short clip of the shots we filmed:

During the practice filming we came across several problems which made us think about how we could prevent it. For example, we did not know how to use the tripod with wheels properly as it kept making the camera shake. We found a way to overcome this by using two people to hold the camera, it was very weird and awkward but it worked.

Even though we only had four shots on our list, from seeing the number of clips you can see how many retakes we had to do. Having to repeatedly shoot one shot gave us a real sense of how it is trying to film anything in a professional manner.

Animatic - The Making of Our Animatic (Miguel Adorn)

The making of our animatic was a long process, we didn't complain as wee knew the making of the real video was going to be 10 times harder. Me and sath first had to watch the official music video and then wrote down all the shots and camera angles that were involved in the video

It was a long process but at the end of it seemed worth it. We ended up with several sheet of paper with each type of shot included and what time it was shown

After we had all of the shots, we started analysing them to show which shots were most used and how effectively they was used.

After we had analysed the different shots involved me and sath started writing down possible shots for our music video.

Once the shots were written down, we drew them out so we can put them onto our animatic.

Once we finished the drawing, we had uploaded them onto the computer and cropped them out into smaller pictures of each individual shots.

Once all of that was done, we opened up 'Final Cut Pro' and inserted all of the pictures and the song.

Once we had all we needed onto finalcut, we started putting pictures onto the timeline according to the song.

Music Video Shot Analysis - Miguel (Adorn)

Me and sath decided to take out some time to analyse every single camera shot and angle that was in the music video. This helped us as we were able to see what shots were you the most and why they were used the most. This would be helpful especially as a team as it makes it easier for us.