This song tells the story of Kendrick Lamar reminiscing about his childhood witnessing excessive alcohol consumption in his community. The music video begins with opening credits and builds tension without sound. It shows Lamar falling in slow motion. The video cuts between scenes of Lamar rapping in run-down locations from his past and montages that visualize the lyrics. It depicts the negative influence of an intoxicated lifestyle but also Lamar's resistance to fully indulge. The video uses symbolic imagery and scene changes to represent the themes of temptation and escaping the cycle seen in his childhood.

1. Swimming Pools (Drank)
Kendrick Lamar

2. Context
• This is a rap song in which Kendrick Lamar is telling a story about a focal
point of his childhood as he comments that “this song is about me
reminiscing about my years a kid witnessing a housing that indulged adults
in alcohol. So much alcohol that it could fill a swimming pool. Eventually
that me reminiscing became a reality when I became an adult.” Kendrick
Lamar.This has become a common trend as musicians are expecting people
to read between the lines of music to attain the deeper meaning behind the
words.

3. The song starts off with silence with a fade animation of text of ‘Kendrick Lamar’
who is the lead artist then the title of the song being ‘Swimming Pools’ then the
video director ‘Jerome D.’This is shown to be the opening credits scene of the
song.This works as it builds up tension for when the song begins as this moment
is executed without sound and the screen cuts to black for a few seconds
showing that this isn’t going to be an upbeat rap song and more of a slow paced
song. During this their is no background music causing a build up of tension
before you get to the song.The tension is built further when we get a slow
motion fixed camera of Kendrick Lamar falling in slow motion from a BCU and
then transitioning to a side shot showing a long shot of Kendrick Lamar falling
this is then alternated into an extreme long shot and a long shot. In this we see
his attire to be casual because of the red blazer, white t-shirt and red jeans
however it also displays that he is wealthy as he is wearing a bunch of gold chains
showing the stereotype of rappers to be indiscrete about their wealth.This
segment ends on a pause before a jump cut to the bridge.

4. As oppose to the generic format of songs this stars at the bridge as opposed to
the first verse or the chorus, this is used to work as an introduction before the
actual song. In this we see the pacing of the verse with the punch line ‘drink’ as
we can se a transition between a woman dancing and a bottle shattering.This is
separated by a two word gap. In this we can also see a change in location as this
looks like it was done in front of a green screen as opposed to the first which
looks like it was done in a warehouse. In addition we can see the scene is lighter
due to the change in background being a gray gradient than a solid black
background. Moreover in this scene we see a vast amount of editing techniques
including blur that makes the woman at the front harder to see and we see the
starts, we see the use of flipping the shot 180° giving the impression that the
bottle is falling and smashing upwards and we see the use of rewind as we see
the bottle build itself back-up from the broken pieces.
Another thing to note is that the shot when placed in a 3x3 grid shows that all of
the actions are not directly aligned in the middle but, are placed towards the left
or right of the camera. In this scene we also see a fixed camera but we see that
she is consistently changing the distance in which is dancing as we see the use of
low angles when she was crouching, medium shots when standing upright and
low angle when bending down to give signs of her movement to show that her
movement wasn’t static and shows the scale of the environment.

5. The next shot begins with a jump cut to Kendrick Lamar sitting in a location that
is presumably his old house which from the looks seems to be run down.
Listening to the lyrics we can interpret that this is has something to do with his
childhood as in the first bar he states “Now I done grew up ‘round some people
livin’ their lives in bottles.”This connects to this scene as we can see that in the
beginning we can see references to alcohol throughout the first verse of the
song.We can also derive that this is a back-story as we have consecutive
cutaways to family photos as well as bottles of alcohol. As Kendrick Lamar
approaches we hear him say “I was in a dark room, loud tunes, looking to make a
vow soon...” as soon as he said this the camera cut to a dark room s to
synchronise with the picking up of the song.Through this we se a range of
camera effects as we see the camera man using zoom out, panning and tilt in a
way to enforce the power of Kendrick Lamar’s movement. Moreover we see an
attire change of Kendrick Lamar as he is wearing white which has the
connotation of purity.This when linked with the environment of which this is shot
as we see a contrast between the light and dark rooms and because the colour
white can either become brighter or darker by its surroundings and in reference
to his house this could be hinting on how their was bright and darker times.This
is shown in the last room as we see it is a dark room with boarded windows with
light piercing through it.

6. As we reach the chorus we see a shot of the opening scene of Kendrick Lamar
falling however, this time they re-winded the clip to give the impression that he
was falling upwards giving the impression of resistance as the song is talking
about a battle in indulging in alcohol like others in his past or to resist the path in
which others have taken. However the concept of him flying is him doing the
impossible to deny the inevitable.The next scene shows a black background with
Kendrick Lamar wearing a black shirt and a gold chain has the connotation of
wealth with the gold chain being the only piece of material standing out. In this
the chorus continues however the clips from the beginning and the first verse are
reused and put into this montage of these clips including another of a woman
being propelled into the air wearing black clothes but, wearing a white cape and
another of a woman dressed in full black in contrast with the background and
slowly walking forward. In this scene the camera angles used were long shot to
give the appearance of the location with the shot like when Kendrick Lamar is
falling, extreme close-up when Kendrick Lamar talks to the camera in black shirt,

7. The next slide starts off with a change in location into a crowed club location with
a red visual hue that has the connotation of evil. In this this represents the
negative representation of people that are intoxicated in the life of people who
embrace the alcoholic lifestyle in which is showing the type of crowd that he
would be involved in. In addition to the red hue presents the impression of
danger as red is often used to connote that as we can also hear that Kendrick
Lamar’s voice is processed and trying to display another side of him in this case
his subconscious. In addition the purpose of this scene is to display the type of
people that indulge in the alcoholic lifestyle and to show that if he does go down
the path of temptation he would just be another member in the crowd of other
people. In the next scene we see a complete change in location as we see
Kendrick Lamar in the middle of a circle of triangle lights, the location has also
been changed to what could be a studio or a run down house which would link
with the run down house in the first verse location, we also see that the camera is
using a dolly to circle Kendrick Lamar and the woman later seen in this shot as
that would explain the camera circling them at a consistent pace. Finally we can
see that the shot looks more saturated because of the lighting used and how
they work in contrast with the grey jacket and red shirt Kendrick Lamar is
wearing and black clothing that the woman is wearing.

8. In the chorus it starts with a fade in and out transition of Kendrick Lamar at the
right and left in which he is constantly changing clothes to the base of the song in
which he had either the left come forward and the right behind fading into the
black background.This is also broken up by the cuts to other scenes that
happened throughout the previous verses. In this montage we also get a new clip
of a woman diving into a swimming pool which is a reference to the title
however, it is also used as a symbolism in indulging in alcohol and the swimming
pool is used to symbolise how deep the people tempting him want him to indulge
in alcohol. Moreover the chorus shows the same montage of clips changing at
the pace of the baseline in the song. In this montage we see the woman with the
cape, the club location, Kendrick Lamar in a black shirt with a black background,
Kendrick Falling like in the intro and Kendrick dancing in the run down house.
The conclusion of the chorus ends with a fade to black which is different from the
previous time the chorus was played as that built into the club location in the
second verse. Henceforth, the use of the black screen is to build up tension as this
was done at the beginning of the video.

9. Just like at the beginning the fade to black lead to the bridge of the song that was
featured at the beginning of the video.The video that was used is the same that
was used at the beginning with the tracking out of Kendrick Lamar falling and the
side shot using a long shot and extreme long shot.This then builds into the break
of the song as we see Kendrick Lamar fall into a swimming pool the significance
this has to the song is the lyrics Kendrick Lamar used as it went I ride, you ride,
bang “One chopper, one hundred shots, bang Hop out, do you bang?Two
chopper, two hundred shots, bang.”This is signifying a hive mind mentality as
well as talking about the lifestyle he grew up in in which things can escalate
quickly. In the next scene we see a greyscale filter applied to the shot as we see
Kendrick Lamar walking next to a low-rider while walking down a road.This could
be said to be showing him fitting into the crowd as it is an American stereotype
for a black person to have a low-rider with hydraulics so this could be signifying
Kendrick Lamar just fitting in with the crowd. In the shot with the low rider we
see Kendrick Lamar in street clothes due to specific items of clothing as he is
wearing converse shoes, t-shirt, jeans and a blazer which depicts him in casual
attire which is often synonymous with stereotypical rappers clothing.

10. The song ends with a repeat of the chorus and the hook in which the chorus is the
same montage style editing between the red filtered club location, the woman
dancing to the hook at the beginning of the song, a new scene which shows a
bottle of liquor dropped into a pool of liquor using a monochrome filter.This shot
is meant to show that in comparison to the pool in which it is diving in is meant to
show that the one bottle is just like a drop in the ocean. Showing that the
pressure is that influencing someone to go over the limit, and a scene of a
woman kicking her legs in the pool before diving in showing her giving into the
peer pressure. Besides that the hook just displayed the montage with different
clips and camera shot ranging from long shots to medium shots and tilt to convey
angles tailored to the peoples positions as tilt is often used in active scenarios in
this case the club in which we can also make out that Kendrick Lamar is one of
the people their moving to a woman which supports the theory of being one with
the crowd.
The conclusion starts by showing Kendrick Lamar falling into the swimming pool
and being taken out of the pool by someone which creates the impression that
the only way out of the problem he faces is with the support of someone else and
this then cuts to a record label shot and then fades to black.

11. Concepts for my video
Through the research conducted into this music video some of the key concepts used in this video that I would
use for mine is;
•The studio location of the black and white backgrounds in commune with the lighting to pull out the contrast
of the actors.
•The fade in and out transition of overlaying clips onto one solid surface to show the artist is duplicating in the
same shot.
•Use of varying location that suit the concept of the video as this could provide a narrative to the videos
storyline.
•Use of a music video with a narrative as this would give the video a specific concept in which the music video
can run and allows us as a group to figure out the appropriate shots to use.