Media language is conveyed through camera work, editing, sound, and mise-en-scene to send messages to audiences. The document discusses how editing was used to portray smoking cannabis negatively by adding a dark, grimy filter and slowing down shots. Camera work placed a singer on a tall bridge overlooking a financial district to emphasize his dreams of worldwide success. Costumes, props, and locations were chosen deliberately, such as dressing a woman in non-revealing clothes to challenge stereotypes and showing a man wearing an obvious brand name logo to represent the importance of wealth and material possessions. Sound was also used meaningfully, like adding the sound of a clapperboard to symbolize the end of the singer's old life and the

1. Media Language

2. Media language is
basically the way a
producer conveys
messages to the
audience through the
use of camera work,
editing, sound and
mise-en-scene

3. Editing..
• When the line ‘licking shots’ which refers to smoking cannabis
was on we cut to a close up shot of a person smoking
‘cannabis’. When this shot appeared we purposefully added a
filter which made the shot seem a lot darker and grimy. We
did this to show smoking drugs as negative through the use of
colour. If we wanted to show it in a positive way we would
have chosen a brighter filter.
• We also used editing to change the pace of the shot, we
slowed down the shot. The reason behind this was to show
the effects of drugs. Smoking drugs can slow down your
reactions (if smoked over a long period of time)
• Another reason we used an almost distorted looking filter is to
represent how cannabis can cause a distortion of reality, so
when our audience are watching they can almost get a small
sense of the effects of cannabis
• Cannabis is known to make some people more animated, this
is represented through the shot. We changed the contrast on
the shot to make the shot seem animated/cartoonised

4. Camera work/Location…
• During this shot the lyric was ‘I wanna make the big tunes to
spread over the world’. We wanted to emphasize the word
‘world’ in the video as he is dreaming on a large scale
• To do this we had him spread his arms wide whilst standing
on a tall bridge over looking Canary Wharf
• We purposefully used Canary Wharf as it’s the hub of the
global economy and one of the tallest buildings in London.
Canary wharf is also a money making
mechanism, Demolisher repeatedly refers to the importance
of money throughout the song so that’s how we made a link
• We used a long/medium shot here to establish the location
he is in and to show the scale of the location so it represents
the scale of what he wants to achieve
• Using a long shot we could have the artist and location
clearly shown in the shot

5. Mise en scene
• Costume is part of mise-en-scene. Costume was very
purposefully done.
• For the female, we deliberately did not sexualise her
by not dressing her in revealing clothes, in doing this
we challenged Mulvey’s theory of ‘male gaze’
• The use of heels was used to symbolize height, the
height of Demolishers dreams, showing how much he
wants to achieve
• We make constant reference to height throughout
the video eg Tall bridges, heights, shots from below,
Stairs etc
• For the male, we dressed him in Ralph Lauren, Ralph
Lauren is a well known brand. The fact he wears is so
obviously (label clearly shown) showing again how
wealth and material possessions is important to him.
Another meaning behind is that he likes to show off
what he has and wants people to know what he has
and has acheived

6. Drake-HYFR
Without stating it in his
lyrics, he uses mise-en-
scene to represent his
Jewish faith

7. Sound…

8. • Diegetic sound : Sound whose source is visible
on the screen or whose source is implied to be
present by the action of the film:
voices of characters
sounds made by objects in the story
music represented as coming from instruments
in the story space ( = source music)

9. • Non-diegetic sound : Sound whose source is
neither visible on the screen nor has been
implied to be present in the action:
narrator's commentary
sound effects which is added for the dramatic
effect
mood music

10. • At the end of the music video we used diegetic sound
of a director clipper board being shut together. We
used this to signify the end of the music video.
However there was a deeper meaning behind this, we
used this to represent the end of his old life, so he can
begin to aim towards his new, desired lifestyle of
gaining money and success, which is part of his
ideology
• As well as sound, the use of the prop was significant.
The director clapper is associated with directors and
films, who are associated with fame and money. Both
of which Demolisher wants

11. Stuart Hall ‘encoding-decoding’ theory
• Stuart Halls theory states that a producer
encodes a meaning in a media text, and then
it is up to the audience to decode the
message, which they may decode differently
• Jay Z is a well known rap artist who includes
messages in his songs that can be decoded in
different ways. You may think he means
something, but he may actually mean
something else

12. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0U
jsXo9l6I8
When listening to the lyrics of this
song, the way we decode meaning may be
different to how the producers encoded it

13. • "8th Street":
• It's known to be where St. Mark's Place is (which of course is in NY), which is where urban teenagers hang out, according
to Wikipedia.
• "BK from Texas":
• Beyonce Knowles is from Texas. It might be one of the few songs where he acknowledges her, I think.
• "Bed-Stuy":
• Short for Bedford-Stuyvesant, it's a predominantly black neighbourhood found in the center of NY.
• "Home of that boy Biggie":
• Biggie Smalls. Also from Brooklyn.
• "Say what up to Ta-ta“
• It's Ty Ty, who is Jay-Z's nickname to Tyron Smith, who is his "BFF".
• "Catch me at the X with OG at a Yankee game":
• OG referes to Juan Perez, President of Roc-La-Familia, and co-owner of the 40/40 club.
• "Yellow cab, gypsy cab, dollar cab, holla back":
• He names all types of the most common transportation in NY (yellow cab - taxi, gypsy cab - illegal taxi, dollar cab - one
dollar taxi).

14. •
"3 Dice Ceelo/3 Dice Marley“
• - It's 3 Card Molly. Both refers to the stereotypical "alley" games.
•
"Lights is blinding/ Girls need blinders"
• - Just referring to the chorus about the "big lights" being everywhere in NY. Lights go on during the night
time, where girls would be on the streets for A. prostitution or B. nightime clubbing.
•
"Or they can step out of bounds / Quick, the side lines is blind with casualities"
• - They could get caught up with the lights (which also refers to fame, the in-crowd as he points out a
little later).
•
"Who sip the light casually, then gradually become worse"
• - The fame can become an addiction.
•
"Hail Mary to the city, you're a virgin / And Jesus can’t save you / Life starts when the church ends"
• - Still referring to girls chasing fame in the city, where "virgin" means the innocence they have before
they get into the real world.
•
"MDMA got you feeling like a champion"
• - MDMA is better known as ecstasy. But it means that the girls, who have lost their innocence when
chasing fame, are officially in the "in-crowd" by doing drugs and such making them feel like their
champions/made it
•
"The city never sleeps, better slip you a Ambien"
• - Ambien is a drug for people who can't sleep. Since they're doing drugs already, why not slip another
one?

15. Semiotics- Signs and signifiers
Saussure's 'theory of the sign' defined a sign as being made up of the matched
pair of signifier and signified
Roland Barthes then developed this
• We seem as a species to be driven by a desire to
make meanings
• Semiotics, or semiology, is the study of signs,
symbols, and signification. It is the study of how
meaning is created, not what it is
• Signifier: any material thing that signifies, e.g.,
words on a page, a facial expression, an image.
• Signified: the concept, the meaning, the thing
indicated by the signifier