CASE STUDY 3 - MILEY CYRUS - WRECKING BALL

video begins with a close up shot of Miley's face with her eyes tearing up as the music starts. i feel they used this close up shot so that miley's facial expressions can really create an emotional connection with the audience and makes the whole video start of pulling at the audience's heart strings as the whole emotion of the video is quite sad. Then with that close up shot miley starts to lip sync along to the song. it then cuts to shots of miley holding a hammer and dragging the hammer across the floor. as the chorus kicks in theres shots of her tracing this concrete wall with the hammer then a wide shot of her walking towards the camera as a literal wrecking ball comes in and breaks the concrete wall down ass shes dressed in all white. coming into the second verse of the song there is a shot of her sitting on the wrecking ball swinging around, i feel like this is to show that like the lyrics portray that she is the wrecking ball and by sitting on it, it shows they are the same thing. the next shot is then of her on the ball swinging naked, i feel like she used this to strip down to her fans and audience to show the real her there by really connecting to her audience. then coming into the second chorus it changes between shots of her singing and breaking down the wall with the hammer and licking the hammer which the cutting rate matches perfectly with the rate of the actual song. the video then continues with these different shots at a medium cutting rate in fitting with the tempo of the somg. when it comes to the bridge of the song it really slows down and a medium close up shot of miley lip syncing along to the song really brings across that real raw emotion of the song as she starts crying as she lip syncs. then going into the last chorus of the song there are lots of shots of the wrecking ball alone breaking through the concrete wall, i feel this wall is representative of mileys relationship breaking , this shot interchanges with shots of miley laying in the ruins of the wall. the final shot of the video i feel is very effective as its of the wrecking ball coming towards the camera as it blacks out which i feel was a really creative way of putting the video to an end.

CASE STUDY 2: EMINEM FT. RIHANNA - LOVE THE WAY YOU LIE

Starts straight away with the song and a close up on Rihanna’s face as she’s lip syncing to the song. The shot almost starts going in and out of for focus for a bit. Unlike a lot of videos, the actual artists aren’t the actual ones acting out, it’s almost as if they’re narrating the story for the male and female characters. Rihanna’s bit is very calm and the shot, in relation to that, shows the couple calmly asleep, lying in bed together. Then, as her part ends and Eminem’s part is introduced the female character waked up and pushes her male partners arm off of her starting an argument between them. Strangely when Eminem says “where you going” the male character lip syncs to that part, as if he’s asking the girl. The girl then lip syncs to “I’m leaving you” as a reply to the male so, it’s very much like Eminem is narrating this story. Again when it comes to the chorus, Rihanna’s part, it shows the couple getting on and kissing again. For the second verse Eminem is taking about meeting that person and that ‘ warm, fuzzy feeling’ and it flashes back to the couple meeting at a bar and then shows them now, both alone in separate rooms, almost as if they’re thinking back to the good time, when they first met. These flashbacks of them having there good times are almost of the thoughts the male character is having and after thinking back to these times, he feels back and goes to the female to make up by handing her a teddy bear. After he hands her the teddy bear close to her and almost starts thinking, and it flashes to shots of the past that were negative; him fighting with a guy over her etc. her thoughts are the complete opposite to his. It’s almost seems that even though he’s tried to make amends, she can’t help but remember everything bad he’s done already. What Eminem is saying is basically the male’s thoughts and Rihanna’s bit is the female’s point of view. IT all turns bad again and there’s a shot of the male shaking the female as the house has been set on fire and this is all in slow motion, this really adds emotion to the shot. When Eminem and Rihanna are lip syncing to the song they’re standing in front of a house on fire and in the shot with the male and female actors the house on the inside is on fire. It’s like Rihanna and Eminem are outside of the scene and narrating it. Nearing to the end of the videos there are shots of the female and male actors both burning this is related to the lyric ‘just gonna stand there and watch me burn’ so, I found these shots of them burning very effective. It also shows the teddy bear he gave her earlier on in the video burning, this symbolises the last of them. There’s a wide shot of Rihanna and Eminem and the burning house behind them, which they turn to face, as if they watching the end of their story that they were telling. The video then ends with the shot that was shown at the beginning of the male and female calmly laying together in the bed, asleep, almost as if the whole thing didn’t happen.

CASE STUDY 1: RIHANNA - STAY

When the video starts it shows close ups of different areas of Rihanna’s body with her getting undressed, this relating to her later being in the bath tub. There’s also a shot of the water from the tap filling up the bath in slow motion, I think the slow motion shot goes along well with the song as its quite slow, not very upbeat so I feel the slow motion shot was very effective. I also feel these shots are effective in introducing the audience to the music video. Just before the singing is actually introduced the camera pans up from the bath tub to Rihanna’s face and as it gets to her face the singing is introduced however, the shot isn’t of her singing, and the singing is more of a voice over. The shot then switches to an aerial view of Rihanna in the bath tub, everything in the shot being very still and quite which fits very well with the slow melody of the song. On the second line of the first verse the shot then changes to an extreme close up of Rihanna’s face, with her lip syncing along to the song, the shot almost seems slowed down again in fitting with the slow song. Throughout the video Rihanna is ‘bare faced’ and naked, it’s almost as if she’s stripped down for her audience and she wants everyone to see her for the real her. The video is very slow and emotional, which makes me think Rihanna really wanted to connect with her audience, she isn’t putting on a front. Just before the first chorus there’s a shot of the second artist’s, Mikky Ekko’s, back. This is a way to slowly introduce the second artist into the video before his verse after the chorus. Throughout the video a lot of close ups of Rihanna’s face are shown, even when she’s not lip syncing, this really shows the emotion and sadness in her face, and is more effective when she’s not lip syncing, it makes it look like she’s lost and thinking deeply about this someone she wants to ‘stay’ as the name of the song implies. When Mikky Ekko’s introduced into the video it’s a wide angle shot of him sitting on the edge of the bath tub with very low light in comparison to Rihanna’s well lit scenes. Him sitting on the edge of the empty bath shows that he wants this person back as Rihanna in her scenes is in a bath with no one there and in Mikky’s scene he’s staring into the bath where the person, Rihanna. Should be. When Mikky says ‘something in the way you move’ there is a shot of Rihanna taken outside of the bathroom of her moving in a very dark room, this shot really relates to that particular lyric voiced over at the same time as the shot. When both artists are singing it changes from shots of her to shots of him, but voiced over rather than them lip syncing, with panning of them. This almost shows both sides of the story and how they’re both sad and lonely and feeling the same, but without showing them in the same scene. The strange thing about this video is in the same shot Rihanna’s singing will be a voice over then she’ll start lip syncing a lot then she’ll stop and it’ll be a voice over again, this almost shows her lack of energy to speak as the sadness has drained her. I think although it’s strange, it’s extremely effective. The whole video is stripped down and very simple, even Mikky Ekko is in just a white top and black bottoms, in quite an empty room, as well as Rihanna being in an empty room, with just a bath tub. The video ends with a shot of Rihanna’s face, with her taking one sigh and burying her chin under the water and it stays like that for a few seconds in silence and then turns black.

TREATMENT

http://prezi.com/nvrhxyiemj8l/present/?follow=maffg6dbjnw0&auth_key=byn3a7r

SONG AND LYRIC ANALYSIS

PRODUCTION SCHEDULE