Music Video Analysis 2 // Wilkinson- Afterglow

At the beginning of the music video we are introduced to the 'actors' in the music video 'Paul & Dana' standing against a white background. Subtitles in white read 'they've been dating for 5 years... which means' and therefore prepares the viewer to understand the music video better.

The following shot is titled '1 flat' which is an establishing shot of their terraced home which looks to be fairly modern connoting that they're a middle class couple with strong, good income jobs especially to live in London as the average price for a 1 bedroom flat in the area is around £500,000 to buy or £1,300 pcm to rent.
The following clip is a map of all the places they have travelled entitled '16 trips' and include: Bangkok; Dubai; Moscow and New Delhi which would be fairly expensive to travel to as they are big tourist attractions, further supporting their middle class status.
The goldfish and the cat shows that they started to develop their family by introducing pets.
The next few shots are of their mutual interest and music and being the biggest two as they have been to 58 gigs together and have 353 records that they share. They have also seen 128 movies together and a large pile of popcorn is in view.

Another common interest may be their love for drinking or partying as the statistics in the video shows 299 bottles of wine, 416 morning after (alcaseltser being dropped into a cup), 708 parties, 47 after-parties, 658 hours dancing and 857 pints of beer were shared between them. This shows that they are an outgoing, fun couple and are enjoying life.
There is a shot of their corresponding tattoos of 'X' and 'O' which is the symbol for hugs and kisses and is a way to show affection to the other person. The fact that they have tattoos shows true commitment to the relationship.

Overall the purpose of this music video is to document the countable moments that the couple have shared and allow the viewer to see the journey they've been on.

Music Video Analysis 1 // Me You- Russ

Me You- Russ

At the beginning of the music video we see Russ wearing fluffy white clothing like faux sheep fur. It could relate to the fact that he's a wolf in sheep's clothing as in the lyrics he's dissing other rappers saying that he's better and compared to him they're bad at what they do. His album is called 'There's Really A Wolf' which further supports the idea of the wolf disguised as a sheep as he may come across almost angelic and innocent due to wearing the white clothing when he's not what he seems.

 Before the music begins, he approaches his MacBook which has a music application open and as he presses the keys the intro starts. Russ creates all backing tracks for his music by himself only using his MacBook and wants to perform alone to show that compared to the other rappers, he is capable of producing a hit song just by using his laptop. There are later on close ups of his platinum singles therefore bragging about his success. The following shot is a backward tracking shot showing that his career is moving forward and people watching him (whether they're viewers or other rappers) , are moving backwards. A transition of a clone of the artist is used to introduce the character at 0:44.

 This clone is wearing a red outfit opposing to the original perception of Russ which was wearing white, perhaps symbolising the angel and the devil that work together in his brain during the process  of recording a song. This also reflects the lyrics as the angelic side is mentioning the success during the 'Me' part of the chorus' and the devil symbolising how he's talking down to others during the 'You' part presenting the different mind sets he has as an artist. There's a shot of his plaque from his single 'Losin' Control' followed by a shot of the clone in red connoting that part of him is losing control.
This clone is now walking forward just like in the first backward tracking shot to emphasise that he' still moving forward no matter how people perceive him.

 There is then a shot of a Russ and his friends laughing and drinking. The significance of these shots are to show that although he takes his writing serious, he still relaxes with his friends before getting back to writing which we see in the next shot when yet another clone is performing. The transition shot is made by a piece of paper being thrown at Russ by the clone before the camera quickly pans round to him. He is surrounded by screwed up pieces of paper with doodles and words on suggesting that he has writers and was keeping himself pre occupied. He is smiling throughout this scene as he sings "lately I've been trying to minimise my stresses" to show that he's not letting his writing struggles get to him.

The final clone of Russ that we see is at 2:11 when he and another clone are counting money with a machine. At this point the line "I do my business, I keep my income diversified" is sung meaning that his income is different all the time.  We see that the size of the money stacks going into the counting mechanism are varied, reflecting the line he sings. This clone could be showing the business side of producing a song.

At 2:26 all the clones are sitting round a table performing the song together perhaps indicating that all the clones represent a part of producing a song and they all come together in the end to show the that it is finalising. The music video is following him through the process of his sing production: writing; recording; relaxing and business.

Codes And Conventions Of The Music Video

The codes and conventions of a music video are split into four
different styles of music videos: Performance; Narrative; Mixture; Cameo.

 The aspects of a performance of a music video include the artist to be mainly performing
to the camera or to a crowd where they are miming/ lip syncing. It isn’t as common for an
artist to have a whole video purely dedicated to performance as the audience aren’t as able
to engage and relate to the video as much as there isn’t a narrative or any other scenes in
the video. Due to the audience not being able to properly engage the costume and lighting
are more creative in order to boost interest.

 Narrative in a video follows a storyline through either narrative linear or fragmented.
A linear storyline starts at the beginning, through the middle and finishes at the end where
as a fragmented narrative doesn’t necessarily go in chronological order but maybe backwards
going from the end to beginning. Narrative is also for the audience to connect with artist and
follow through the story that they create for the entertainment of their viewers.

 Artists most commonly use a mixture of both narrative and performance because it is more
enjoyable and interesting to watch because there are a combination of many different shots

so that the audience are kept engaged when cutaways of the performance to the narrative
and vice versa occur changing what the viewers are seeing.

 Cameo is the final style in which the artist features in the music video as part as the narrative
but doesn’t perform as the artist as they would in a performance based video.

 The general conventions of a music video consists of the artist lip syncing as part of some
sort of performance level and the performance must be believable and realistic. If it was an
artist performing in the music video then there is commonly a choreographed dance element
to go with the lip syncing. The colour schemes used can reflect the genre of the music, video
and artist/ band as well as props relating to lyrics or referencing the artist name. In the editing
stage, special effects,
colour corrections and CGI are put over the top of the video are also common.