Detailed analysis of a music video

Lonely Island – Jack Sparrow

The category

The music video would be categorized as a narrative video. The video is a narrative video because throughout the video the Hip-hop group Lonely Island and Michael Bolton give a narrative storyline, which clearly follow the lyrics of the song. For example Michael Bolton acts out the lyrics by dressing up as captain Jack Sparrow and other known celebrities.

The genre of the song

The genre of this music video is a rare genre, which is a mixture of Hip-Hop and Comedy. You can tell from the lyrics and visuals of the song as the video is all about intertextuality as they parody all known iconic celebrities. The video makes the audience laugh as they make the lyrics comedic so this shows the genre aswel.

The artist, song title and genre

Artist- The lonely island (ft. Michael Bolton)

Song Title- Jack Sparrow

Genre- Hip-hop/Comedy

Use of props and costumes

Throughout the video there is a mixture of costumes and props. Lonely Island wear suits throughout the video, which shows the rich and hip-hop side of the genre of the music video. They use props such as money as they throw it around in the picture below, and this shows the wealth of the genre the group is in that they are able to throw money about without a care. Michael Bolton changes his costume to follow the lyrics of the song. He makes the genre of comedy stand out and clearly shows intertextuality, For example the lyrics “My name is forest Gump”, he was wearing a white suit and make up that is similar to the iconic film character played by Tom Hanks. When Michael Bolton is imitating Scarface, he uses a huge iconic prop of the Tommy gun; this shows the comedy side and makes the props of the video to make a clear intertextuality.

Special effects

The video does not have many special effects, until the middle of the video. When Michael Bolton is dressed as Jack Sparrow on top of a pirate ship there is green screen in the background of a perfect blue sky with nice white clouds. This emphasizes the role of Jack Sparrow being a parody to the video making it follow the genre of comedy as he is suppose to be sailing the seas with a perfect blue sky. The only other effect in the video is at the end when Scarface played by Michael Bolton, uses his Tommy gun the bullets and fire that comes out of the gun is used by effects to give it a more dramatic scene when he uses the gun and follows the intertetuaility of the film character, Scarface.

Goodwin’s Theory

The video follows key genre characteristics, which are stylish, and smart looking costumes showing their wealth as a pop star. For example when they are throwing money around like they are pennies to them. There is a clear relationship between the lyrics of the song to the visuals of the video, as they sing about Scarface taking cocaine and the iconic dress code is seen in the music video on Michael Bolton sniffing the cocaine. The music and beat of the song go with the visuals as the rapping sequences are all shot in the club and are edited to the beat. The chorus is cut to a single shot of Michael Bolton on the beach and again the editing cuts from long shots, medium shots to close ups cut to the beat of the chorus. There is a close up shot of Michael Bolton when he first enters the room at the beginning of the music video saying ‘I’m sorry I’m late I got caught up watching the pirates of the Caribbean marathon’. The song is based on pirates of the Caribbean when its not supposed to be so that shows you where he got the idea and throughout the music video there were many close up shots of The Lonely Island and Michael Bolton. There is reference to the treatment of women’s bodies in the costume they are wearing, as they are more revealing than normal clothes and this is also referenced in the lyrics “ I want to take you home and F*** you twice”. The music video does follow mainly overall the theory behind a music video by Goodwin.

Locations

The first location in the music video is the studio as they are recording the vocals for the song and shows the side of hip-hop as we see the microphones and recording equipment. Showing the hip-hop side to the video, as the band is laid back recording the music. The second and key location in the video is the club where the group lonely island are mostly in there for the whole video. This shows the hip-hop and stylish part of the music genre, as there music would be usually played in such locations as a nightclub. Other locations is by the sea and the beach where Michael Bolton is dressed and imitating the film character jack sparrow. These locations emphasis the comedy side of the song, showing the audience specifically what they are singing about. The other various locations also follow the same, to give a comedic effect, for example Scarface in his mansion with guns and drugs. All the locations shot in the music video clearly show the genre very straightforward for the audience.

Lighting

The lighting in the club is strobe lights of various different colours, which clearly shows the audience they are in a club. The use of lighting doing this will go along with the genre of hip-hop. The scenes where Michael Bolton is imitating films characters, the lighting in all those locations is from an artificial source with no natural light. As they are green screened and been made into a set where it was filmed. This is good to show the sense of comedy throughout the video by making film characters into a funny nature. The lighting in the music video differs from specific scenes to show the different elements to do with the genre of the music, of hip-hop and comedy.

Editing

The editing in the video is face paced throughout the video, as the beat and rhythm of the song is fast and the editing follows this to make the video fit into being a music video of this genre. The editing is faster compared to slower paced songs such as a ballad. The beat is mainly fast in the club and it goes much faster than other parts, with a fast cut rate to follow the beat at these parts of the video. The editing is simple and follows the fact the beat is fast and the editing follows this.

Camera work

The shots taken in this music video are mainly close ups, medium shots and long shots. The close ups used in this are to emphasis and market the group to the audience, to show how talented they are, but in terms of this video to show how they are funny and comedic in there music style. The medium shots are to show how they appear to the audience showing their clothes or costumes. For example, when they are in the club they are in suits to show their wealth and when Michael Bolton is dressed as Jack Sparrow showing the humour side of the music. The long shots are used when different locations are shown to set the scene and they establish what they are doing there. For example the long establishing shot of the beach and the sea, emphasize the use of making fun of the film characters showing the side of the genre of being comedic. Throughout the video the camerawork is done very similar to every other music video, which is in a similar genre, which shows it is good and follows the generic features of a music video.

Craig Davis analysis

Our group has decided that the video is a performance video following the idea of Craig Davis’ theory of a music video. The performance is a different performance from other videos as the performance in this video is more a comedy performance aiming to make the audience laugh. The lyrics follow the visuals of the song and the beat follows the lyrics and visuals to as they perform the music. There is links throughout the video following the lyrics to the music video and instruments following the music and pace of the editing. The video shows a clear view of the genre of hip-hop and comedy, as the visuals and lyrics follow each other and make the audience laugh and enjoy the music.