The music video for James Arthur's song "Impossible" primarily uses footage from his time on the X Factor competition show, where he performed the song. While the lyrics describe heartbreak, the video focuses on Arthur's victory and success. Scenes showing sadness create a juxtaposition with the extremely positive nature of his X Factor win. The black and white color scheme further enhances this contrast between emotions. The video had to be made quickly and cheaply after the song's release, so it reused performance footage from the competition show where Arthur first sang "Impossible".

1. Music Video Narrative Analysis – ‘Impossible’ by James Arthur
Throughout the course of the song ‘Impossible’ by James Arthur the
video rarely follows the narrative set by the lyrics. The video shows a
variety of screen caps and short clips of James’s progression in ‘The X
Factor’. The affect of this shows his hard work and dedication in the
face of adversity. At times we see James singing using
diegetic/synchronous techniques while at others the lyrics are not
being mouthed whilst still being sung.
While the bulk of
the video is footage
from his X Factor
victory there are
additional scenes
that adhere to the
general feel of the
video by displaying
sadness. This
would therefore cause conflicting emotions, the extremely positive
nature in which we won the competition while still having the
essence of a depressing song in which the artist has separated from
someone. This has further pushed further using the black and white
filter, a two-tone approach showing this juxtaposition.
“Tell them I was happy, and my heart is
broken, all my scars are open, tell them what
I hoped would be impossible”, this lyric gives
the basic feel of the song’s lyrics, heartbreak
and disbelief.

2. The reason for the shots to be recycled
from the show ‘The X Factor’ is because
this was the song selected to be James’s
final attempt to win the sow, it has
therefore become the soundtrack to his
victory and when the single was released
shortly after
the show
finished a
music video
had to be made both quickly and
cheaply. The original song by Shontelle
provided James with the opportunity to
create a more masculine edge when
compared to the original more feminine
appearance.
James was able to succeed where many thousands of others have
failed and others would fear to attempt, this feat that he
accomplished would therefore appear to be an unreachable point in
most people’s lives, this is added to through the use of slow motion
and freeze frame shots, making it seem fantastical and alien to the
audience.
By using shots of James both with and without his guitar we are able
to see that he has a larger input of the song than if he was just
singing. If he had only seen him with his guitar there may have been a
sense that James’s was hiding behind his instrument, however this is
not the case and he can see that he is not a one trick pony.
The song follows a relatively chronological layout to the shots in
which in the intro to the song we see James making his first stage
appearance and culminating in his final win. However there are
occasional jump cuts to James’s final performance of the song, which

3. breaks this layout. All of these flashbacks to the past are portrayed
using a black and white filter; this shows the audience that this is the
past. The pace at which the camera shots/scenes change follows the
beat of the song to an extent, some shot changes using a very
prominent beat while the next using a beat that is much less
noticeable.
The key audio that is used is the song, however additional audio is
used from the television presenter announcing James’s victory to the
crowd cheering. From the start we can hear that the two key aspects
of the audio are James’s voice and his guitar, then in the middle of the
song the beat changes dramatically to a more electronic beat. This
pace then continues until the closing stages of the song where
James’s guitar can then be heard again. This could symbolize how
James’s originally lead a humble life and despite his victory and all of
the media attention he has remained his humble self.
The single cover shares a
colour palette with the
song; both contain
majority black and white.
James’s is in the centre of
the artwork, he is the
subject, which is also
reflected within the
music video in which the
majority of video
contains screen time of
James. The completely
white background
provides the audience
with a reason to focus
their gaze on the artist.
The typography used on the cover uses black capitals in 2 tones,
‘James Arthur’ being in black and ‘Impossible’ being in grey. James is
standing in a way that could be seen as vulnerable, he is holding his
shoulder in a way that could make people believe that he is injured.
However from his tattoos and facial hair he could also be perceived
as being rough and able to take care of himself, this juxtaposition
compares his stance with his body image. He is wearing a style of
clothing that people have seen him in before, proving that he wants
to be seen as himself, nothing hiding him.

4. Due to the recent success of James Arthur a digipack has not been
produced yet. For this reason I have chosen to analyze the Katy Perry
‘Teenage Dreams’ Digipack. Straight away we can see that the discs
are styled to appear like food, specifically a doughnut and a lollypop.