Textual analysis of a music video

Textual analysis of a music video

‘Yung Lean – Eye Contact’

mise en scene

In the beginning, relating to mise en scene, we can see that the music video begins with what it seems like a person from a marching band playing the trumpet. This could have connotations of feeling pressured into following everyone in society due to the fact that members of a marching band usually have to follow specific orders and all have to move synchronised to the point where they are all the same and they all look the same. This is telling us that the artist feels that in this day and age, a lot of people feel as if they have to follow societies orders and have to follow everyone and what they do rather than being different and expressing themselves in a different way from the rest of the world. The fact that some of the characters are dressed up in quite old/rustic clothing suggests that the thought of following societies rules is just an old myth and that nowadays its easier for people to express themselves and that its time for people to be different and feel more confident to express themselves in the future and present. Then after this we see lots of shots of pomegranates on a table broken open, in ancient Egypt the Egyptians used to leave pomegranates for the dead once they had died so that they would be better off in the afterlife and had things to take with them on their journey. This could suggest that the artist is ready to die or is in his own tomb in the music video. Another reason for these fruits is suggesting that he may be killing his old self and his old ways and is transforming into a new person and is happier with the way he is living his life now compared to the type of person he used to be. Then further on we see shots of the artist in the video performing but we rarely get any shots of his face and we get more of his upper body, this could suggest that he doesn’t know who he is anymore and that he is preparing to become someone new as the camera isn’t showing us his face which could suggest that he is building up for a reveal of the new person that he is and is becoming during the music video. Then we begin to see his shirt which is a dark red and black shirt, this could suggest how his personality is and what kind of person he either is now or used to be and is trying to break away from that old mentality. The red has connotations of energy and danger, which could suggest that he is a very energetic person but the danger connotations can suggest that he used to be a dangerous person and the energetic personality is overthrowing his old, dangerous personality. 

camera angles

For camera angles, we see that there are a lot of close up shots of all the different images within the music video such as the marching band members and the fruits along with various creatures. The close up shots suggest that there is a bigger meaning behind all the objects being shown because if they weren’t being closed up on, we wouldn’t know to take note of how important they are. I think the close ups on the faces are trying to signify their emotions throughout the music video. Further on in the music video, we get more and more close ups of the artists face and therefore its suggesting that he is opening up more and becoming more confident with himself to show his face and it also signifies that he is more comfortable with other people being around him. This could be suggesting that during the transition of his different personalities, he broke out and became a much more confident person. A lot of the time the camera is very shaky as well which can be used to signify how real and definite the situation is. It could be the artist trying to tell us that what he went through was very real and that he isn’t lying about his experience and wants his fans to know what he went through to get to the place in his life that he is at now. 

Sound (lyrics) 

For the narrative, we can see that throughout most of the music video, the artist is isolated from people and perhaps he has chosen to do this maybe because he needs time to find himself or he may have been in a relationship that he is trying to overcome after losing it. This can be shown through the lyrics ‘I don’t do no eye contact’ which connotes that he doesn’t want to be around other people and wants to keep to himself whilst he figures out himself and sorts his life. The evidence which suggests he is having relationship problems is through the lyrics ‘I don’t wanna hurt her’ which suggests that he is choosing to end the relationship he is in and is moving himself away because he knows he may hurt that person more and more to the point where it’s too late. Another thing to suggest is that he is emotionless and that is why he ended his relationship, he no longer has any emotions which drove to leave because he doesn’t want to hurt his girlfriend anymore and he then starts using drugs to cope with his pain which is evident through the lyrics ‘I just popped a pill, I can’t control myself’. Another thing to suggest about the narrative is that he is somewhat killing his old self and then being reborn into a different person and this is evident when he is dressing in different clothing and is being dragged by people that you cannot really see that well. So therefore, it could be his emotions dragging his old self away and letting him become the person he has always wanted to be. The reason for it being blurry could suggest that it is much harder for him to see himself like that anymore and the old self is slowly fading away. 

Editing

For editing, the fact that the person who has the most screen prevalence in the video is actually the artist themselves shows that the main focus of the video is the artist. It goes well with the imagery because it shows that the images and representations apply to the artist to show that they have been through those types of situations and that it really did happen. There are also a lot of fast paced cuts which could be suggesting that all of his troubles happened over such a short amount of time and went so fast that he didn't really have enough time to sort them out and couldn't process what was going with his life in that particular time. We can also see a lot of different transitions such as fading and simple cutting, they may have added the fading to create more of a variety of different things to make it less boring the viewer and to keep them interested in the music video so that they keep on watching it. Another thing that makes it more professional is the fact that it cuts to the beat really well which is something that adds to the professionalism of the music video and keeps people interested in the music video.

From this music video i have learnt that different things can have deeper meanings and that things you see don't always have a simple meaning. They mean something deeper to someone and you have to take different things into consideration when looking at music videos before judging on what all the imagery is about.