The story line of the song shows Sean talking to one of his pears ( who appear to be friends ) talking about his crush on a girl. The video then features him in a American fast-food store where many characters around his age appear to come in order to socialise and to interact with one another. The song starts outside the shop; the song continues it portray him singing inside the shop. The song continues to show him on a table clapping with many other teenagers as he sings about his experience where he 'moves down south' in another store as he song ends with him singing with a quire.
The song starts with a medium shot of Sean Kingston using his natural voice ( with no sound editing for the first 17 seconds ). This natural diegetic sound flows and calmly introduces the viewer into the video. The camera movement is pretty basic and standard, as continues medium shots and wide angle shots have been used to naturally to show the setting of this music video. The setting such as the dinner in the beginning of the scene has been easily established by the audience, and such cinematography is very useful. The mise en scene is expressed through the prop usage such as the clothing worn by what appears to be the fashion for young Americans between the ages of 15-20 years old. The facial expressions seem to be distinctively optimistic and the usage of characters within the age group of 15-20 is very empowering in representing youth as a image of this music video. This strongly links in with the representation of character function and age representation as young adults' lifestyles are generally summed up within this music video.
Social and political ideologies can be linked in towards not just the narrative, but also through Sean Kingston's representation of love and relationships. Social inequality and national issues within this age group that all confine the natural issues of teenagers/young adults by showing relationships with girls/boys to be filled with frustration, cheating and disinformation. Political aspects of the law and government come in this representation when Sean said '' it was back in 99, watching movies all the time and ohh I went away for doing my first crime''' ( 2:01-2:04). This form of verbal intertextuality illustrates the political side of this music video.
The genre of this music video is Hip-Hop consisting of rhythmical expressions together with a sense of 'rap', a more creative style of music. This ambient soundtrack together with a multiple usage of beats dropping in after every few scenes in this music video emphasises that this music video is hip-Hop based. Intertextuality communicates in a form of an emotional faze (common through teenagers) who experience difficulties within finding partners and other loved ones. This links in with audience perception as the Stuart Hall's theory allows the viewers of today's society to accept the representation of the music video when targeting a more niche audience, normally between the ages of 15-24.
Andrew Goodwin's theory can strongly be applied here as a strong relationship between the visual imagery and the music itself; this is shown through the cinematography and the intertextuality I mentioned beforehand. Also this video emphasises the importance of commitment within relationships and creates a form of emotional aspiration for the younger viewers who watch this. Lastly, Laura Mulvey's theory also very powerful in this video as females continuously have been show in this video as an 'object' of love and a form of a heterosexual man's desire. No binary opposites are shown apart from gender separation through the theme of love.
No comments:
Post a Comment