1. Sam Smith – I’m not the only one
A video which I am really fond of is one by the artist Sam Smith, and is called ‘I’m
not the only one’. The video is set in what seems to be an ideal home in America,
and follows the lives of a husband and wife. It straight away enforces the theme of
romanticism and introduces the story line and narrative. The video has both
narrative and performance, however there is much more narrative which is what I
would prefer in my music video. The story line is one of adultery and good vs evil,
as the husband leaves the wife at home while he goes out and cheats on her with
another woman. The twist in this video is that the wife knows about the husbands
antics, highlighting the lyrics ‘when you call me baby, I know I’m not the only
one’, and yet chooses to stay with him. Throughout the video the audience can
see how hurt the wife is, as she goes to a store to buy alcohol, she burns her
husbands clothes and she is seen lying on the floor crying, which makes them
sympathise with her. Therefore, I was surprised to see at the end of the video the
wife welcoming home her husband with a smile and a hug. However, I feel that
this made the video powerful and emotional as the audience can see that she
would rather be with him, knowing about his adulterous ways, rather than leave
him and their luxurious lifestyle behind and be alone, which creates a strong tone
of sympathy and creates feelings within the audience as they want her to leave
him.
The lighting in the video is an extremely important aspect and one that I think is
done exceptionally well. Whenever the camera is showing the wife, she is always
in light open spaces, often wearing white and dressed modestly. This highlights her
innocence and purity as she is not the one in the wrong, whereas the scenes where
the husband is cheating on her are shown in a dark and dingy lighting, emphasising
his disloyalty. The use of the dark colours creates a relation to sadness and anger,
which are signals to the effects of the husbands actions while he is with his
mistress, indicating he is aware of the pain he is giving his wife.
For my video, I will think about using light and open spaces to reflect happiness
and relaxation, however will use darker settings to emphasise sadness and loss
which will display to the audience the change in mood and tone.
2. Beyoncé – Pretty Hurts
This is a great video as it is a video with a message. The message is that there is too
much pressure on women in today’s society to be pretty and the video conveys this by
presenting Beyoncé as a beauty queen that is struggling to keep up with the demands
and stresses of the pageant world.
Throughout the video the audience can see that she is not enjoying what she is doing,
and is constantly being reminded to smile or breathe in. It becomes evident through a
variety of close ups and mid shots that the pageant world is very competitive, with the
girls looking at each other in a critical way, further emphasising the pressure that
women are put under in order to please and appeal to other women without being
judged. In preparation for the pageant, Beyoncé is weighed and her waist measured,
which highlights that in today’s society there is a strain on women to be of a certain
body size, particularly slim. This is further accentuated later on in the video, when we
see a number of girls forcing themselves to throw up their food in order for them to
remain skinny.
At one point, a frustrated Beyoncé knocks down her wall of trophies, which is
supposed “to represent knocking down those beauty standards and falling into a
victim of that.” In the end, even as hard as Miss Third Ward tries to beat out her
competition, she loses. The director of the video said that “the woman who wins is an
albino woman. And we thought it was really important and interesting to break those
ideas of what the classic beauty standards would be and to do this with this beautiful
albino woman, I thought was really great. And to show ‘Yeah she’s not perfect, she
doesn’t always win and you put your best foot forward and you may still lose.”
I think that this video is extremely powerful and thought provoking, and makes the
audience aware of many problems in society today, particularly the pressure on
women to be flawless and perfect, which makes the audience sympathise with them
and perhaps encourages them to forget about the pressure and just be themselves.
