Media Case Study 1 – Mac Miller
‘Nikes on my feet’
The artist
is called Mac Miller and he is signed to Rostrum Records which is an indie
label, Mac Miller is the latest signing and they also have other artists signed
such as Wiz Khalifa and Chevy Woods. The video is featured on the social media
site YouTube, it has 29 Million views to date, and it lasts for 4 minutes and
40 seconds. The music video starts off with the artist Mac Miller in bed; it
looks like there was a party of some sort the night before because there are
empty alcohol bottles lying around. He then gets woken up and gets dressed, the
next scene then cuts to a shot of his shoes which is the brand and focus of the
music video ‘Nikes’. The next scene is a school or college where the artist is
waiting for his friends in a car to somewhere else. The music video is
performance based because it’s the artist rapping in a various locations without any
sort of story or narrative to follow, I think the produce chose this sort of
style because the name and idea behind the video was using the shoe brand
‘Nikes’. The main theme of the music video was Nike the brand but also about
the artists “Swag” or style, he raps about his past when he couldn’t afford new
clothes and shoes. I think the artist is represented as a confident male who is
enjoying the current part of his life as he describes having a lot of money to
spend and this is shown through the branded products displayed throughout the
video.At the start of the music video there are fast cuts between scenes of the bedroom, these are used to represent the different parts of his life for example the award for best hip hop video, pictures of him and his mother which could have been his inspiration for music. The bedroom gives the audience an idea of what kind of lifestyle he lives, very laidback and relaxed. The close up shot of his shoes that he puts on is directly connected to the theme of the video. There is a scene when he’s walking out of a bus, this is in slow motion and he’s looking up at the school, this could be to show someone coming back to somewhere that they used to go. There are a lot of close up shots of his self and friends, some and more serious than others, representing confidence and enjoyment. At the very start of the video there is a scene of the artist walking in the street at night, then it slowly fades out to dark, at the end of the video there is a low angle camera shot looking at the sky and at first the colour fades eventually to become white. The second location used in the music video is a college in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania where Mac Miller is from, this could be the school he went to.
Media Case Study 2 – Kid Ink ‘Hell and Back’
The music video Hell and back was written by the artist Kid Ink, he is signed to the indie label called The Alumni Music Group which is made of a small group of selected artists. The artist isn’t that well known in the UK because his songs don’t get much coverage on radio shows, he doesn’t do any tours in England either. The track Hell and Back is the most popular song on his most recent album “Up and Away”; it currently has 1.1 Million views on the social media site YouTube. The whole music video is a metaphor about the artist going to Hell which could be a reference to the “Hood” or “Underground” where he is competing against others trying to get out of the drugs and crime lifestyle, this is shown by the setting of the video which is a abandoned town in the desert. The artist is shown walking through the town and you can see the houses are completely shattered. The other part of the title could mean that he went through the hard times of trying to promote and become a better artist and he achieved his goal and now he’s making money from the job, so he’s gone into the hellhole and come out alive. The music video is entirely performance based but I think there are slight references to a narrative but that’s just my guess, I think there could be an understory which the he’s trying to tell, his past. The video is mostly performance based because he’s mainly rapping in a desert and there isn’t much else going on apart from that. I think there is a strong theme of success in this video but the artist doesn’t directly related to it, the majority of the lyrics are about the troubles and hard times he’s gone through in his life, then the idea of success comes into play because he’s overcome them.
The video
starts off with an eye level long shot of a vacant town in a desert, this could
be related to the title Hell and Back, this is done to give the audience a idea
of what the video is going to be based around, then there are fast cuts that
shown different parts of the town, for example inside a house where you can see
a poster about someone who is lost. Next there is a dolly shot which follows
the artist walking through the desert, it seems like the artist has been here
before and knows the area, therefore this could have been the “Hell” and that
would explain why everything is shattered. The next setting is in an open area
of the desert where there is a medium to close up shot at eye level of the
rapper, its giving the main focus on the rapper and this allows the audience to
see his facial expressions.
The next few
scenes are shown through long shots of a destroyed caravan, the artist seems to
know the area as he looks around the camera quickly cuts to things like a TV
and a bed, one interesting shot is a close up of something which has Jesus
printed on it, this is the complete opposite of the song title Hell. There are
also brief shots of women, the first few scenes last less than a second and are
in black and white, at the end of the video they are shown in colour, it could
mean that he’s finally reached his goal. 
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