textual analysis of 3 videos - week 2

 Textual Analysis of 3 videos

 

Good 4 U – Olivia Rodrigo

·      Narrative is: Presumably has had a breakup. She becomes rude to everyone (bumping into people, throwing things on floor). She then buys bleach and sets his house on fire. By the end she has become fully crazy. 

·      Shot duration: much longer, usually lasts at least one line and is on average around 5 seconds long but some last up to 20 seconds. In the intro she has a continuous shot of about 15 seconds with 1 second flickers of other shots every 5 seconds. Shot duration gets shorter in the bridge with consecutive 1, 2 and 3 second shots.

·      Balance of narrative and performative elements: Tons of references to Jennifer’s body and The Princess Diaries. At the start of the video she is presumably acting like Lana in The Princess Diaries, a bitter mean girl but relatively innocent. As the video goes on there is less of these references and more Jennifer’s body references showing she’s becoming more like Jennifer, a far less innocent girl who literally feeds on men.

·      Colour scheme: lots of blue and white throughout – all outfits are white and blue and most locations have white or blue as their main colour. Very cool toned the whole way through.

·      Mise-en-scene: 3 different costumes, all relatively similar and mostly exclusive to the locations eg. Cheerleading outfit only worn in the gymnasium and locker room. Use of props are there to add to the narrative and her character development. The filter on some shots are retro-y . Grainy, low quality filter on the whole video adds to the 2000s-movie feel.

·      Locations: school classroom, school gymnasium, school locker room, bedroom, shop, woods, lake

 

Smile – Lily Allen

·      Narrative is: in love with a boy who cheated on her so when he came running back to her she got revenge

·      Shot duration: varied, mostly short shots of about 1 second grouped together with 1 or 2 longer shots of about 6 seconds in between. On average the shot duration is about 2 or 3 seconds.

·      Balance of narrative and performative elements:

·      Colour scheme: there’s a colour scheme for each location. Bedroom is dark orange and red. Street is brown, neutral tones. Café is yellow-brown, light warm tones. Boys house is grey and white, very cool toned. Street at night is black and white tones. Nightclub is red and black

·      Mise-en-scene: shows British culture: drinking tea in café, fights on streets etc. Seems like a low budget video: filmed in regular settings that reflect London and rather than doing a big flashy revenge she puts laxatives in his tea, something that anyone can do. Just a very standard video reflecting her acknowledgement of her working class roots.

·      Locations: in bedroom, on street, in café, in boys’ house, in nightclub

BOYSHIT – Madison Beer

·      Narrative is: She gets lied to by a boy and knows it so leads him on and then cheats on him? and then breaks up with them. leader of some sort of club for girls where she teaches them how to do the same.

·      Shot duration:  not particularly varied shot lengths, mostly around 4 or 5 seconds

·      Balance of narrative and performative elements: uses classic movie like text to help describe the characters and narrative. 

·      Colour scheme: mainly white, some gold and pink

·      Mise-en-scene: meant to be like a classic movie: labels ‘characters’ and uses video pauses, classic movie font and uses ‘blah!’ which is similar to how it would say ‘bang!’ in old movies. Uses an old white telephone and has tapestries and floral sofas, all relatively old fashioned. Contrasts with the great quality of the video and the ‘provocative’ dance moves and poses from the women. 

·      Locations: in car, on balcony, in bedroom, in classroom?, in meeting room, in living room, in garden, in front of white wall