Sunday, 10 October 2010

Textual Analysis of Music Videos By the Group

Bruno Mars- Just the way you are.
Group Analysis

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjhCEhWiKXk

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The genre of music that Bruno Mars belongs to is acoustic pop as his music is upbeat yet soulful. He has broad characteristics of belonging in this genre as he has the typical look such as a warm and inviting voice and image. He is wearing a trilby hat which is very well known for artist like him to wear. The video has sun light in the background and the environment he is in is a lay back open space apartment. The relationship between lyrics and visuals is very capturing. The special effects that has been used such as using the cassette tape to create images connects with the lyrics as Bruno Mars is trying to demonstrate how perfect his girlfriend is and express his feelings for her. Such when he sings ‘when I see you face, there’s not a thing I would change, coz your amazing, just the way you are’. Bruno Mars can make you feel as if you believe his as he is either singing it towards the camera towards you to from a two shot of him and his girlfriend when he says it to her with complete eye contact. Another time when lyrics connects to visuals is when he makes the cassette tape into a pair of dreamy eyes at this point he is singing ‘her eyes, her eyes make the stars look like there not shining’ this is effective way to express the lyrics and make them memorable.

The relationship between music and visuals is portrayed in many different ways in this music video. Such as at the very beginning the girl sitting on the sofa is listening to the song that is about to be sang to her. The visual side to this is you can hear the song before its even started. When Bruno Mars pulls the tape out of the cassette and creates pictures out of it the moment after he has written his name he makes a drum to connect to the drum you can hear in the music, he then starts to flick it to give the visual effect that he is making the sound himself. Other times when the music links with the visual side of the video is with other musical instruments made into pictures out of the cassette tape such as Bruno Mars making a bell and pretending to ding it, also the tape is made into him playing the piano then gradually the tape fades out and the camera moves up and Bruno Mars is actually playing a real piano. Its very attention-grabbing and different. The pace of the actual beat of the song doesn’t change much, its upbeat and calm through most of the video.

The record company are looking to sell this record to a audience in the age of older teenagers such as 14 to an older audience. As the song is upbeat, fun and relaxing it can reach a much broader audience. The image of the artist is being portrayed as a relaxing, charming and romantic guy. This video is completely different to any of Bruno Mars other videos as in the other videos he has been in he has only be a feature. Now he has done his first own video he can set on how he wants to be portrayed. However when Bruno Mars was a feature in ‘B.o.B’ -‘Nothing on you’ he sings about how beautiful a certain girl is. This can link back to ‘Just the way you are’ as he talks about how beautiful his girlfriend is and how perfect she is.

The only small amount of sexual display that is in this video is how the female actor is naturally beautiful and how Bruno Mars expresses it and notifies it. She does in a way become a sex symbol. This is noticeable due to lots of close ups of her face and the length of time the camera is on her for. Overall I can conclude that Bruno Mars has been able to set up an acoustic image for himself by his type of song, image and video features.

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