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Textual analysis of previous A-level work - Henry Nathan (A Grade)

Lyrics - The video illustrate the lyrics in this music video. The song is about regretting making mistakes and the video shows a character showing remorse for the bad things he has done, such as arguing with a girl, and beating someone else up very brutally.

Music/sound - The tempo in the song is reflected well in the pace of things like camerawork and editing. A video is seen as more effective if the timing of the music matches that of the camerawork and editing which can explain why this person got high marks.

Genre - The genre appears to be an indie/pop song, which is reflected in the video. For example, indie songs tend to be set out in some narrative that relate to the lyrics which can be followed.The music video itself tends to be fairly low budget, so there are often a small amount of actors and it is usually filmed at locations rather than sets. Costume also tends to be quite basic and modern as the tight budget may not allow them to buy certain apparel.

Cinematography - A wide range of camera shots were used in this video. Indie songs tend to have a lot of close ups of the star image while he sings the song, there are some shots of this which can convey the emotion of the singer while singing the song. In this case we can see his guilt and remorse as he sings. He also uses some extreme long shot time lapses at the start of the video to establish setting and at the same time do it in an artistic, simple and effective way. During the video there were some tracking shots that were done very well, as it fitted in with the tempo of the song and also fitted nicely with the narrative (a chase scene).

Editing - The editing was used effectively in that it reflected the tempo of the music. This made the video seem much more smooth and it transitioned nicely there were no parts that brought attention to the editing which means that it was done effectively. Sometimes the music video goes to very dull colours and sometimes even black and white. This can reflect the tone of the video which makes it more effective and reinforces the link between lyrics and video.

Narrative/performance - The video is a narrative, however it has small parts of performance when the video just shows him singing and not doing anything else. The narrative is easy to understand and has been presented effectively.

Star image/brand - The star image is portrayed in a positive way, as although it is showing in the video all of the bad things he has done in the past, since he shows a lot of remorse it lets the audience know that he regrets what he did and is sorry. This makes them look like they have matured since they did all of those bad things.

Voyeurism - There is little to no objectification in the video, instead the video focuses more on the narrative than it does for appealing actors or props. With this said, people will be drawn in by the narrative as it is interesting to learn about this person's backstory and how he feels about all of the things that he did as well as how people coped with what he did. People may get a sense of empathy, if they have done something before that they regret just like in the video and this can draw people in as they feel they are going through the same process.

Representation - This video looks as if it was targeted at teenagers or young adults. This is because teenagers tend to be associated with doing some reckless things in their lives which they soon then regret therefore, lots of teenagers may relate to what is going on in the video. Also the video features things like drinking which tends to be quite common during adolescence, as they are trying to prove that they are older and can now act like adults. The indie music tends to also be quite popular with teenagers which means they are more inclined to listen to the song as well.

Audience theory - Much like every other music video, people would watch this for entertainment and to escape their temporary boredom. This video may also get a sense of a identification gratification as well, for the aforementioned reasons that teenagers may be going through a similar experience.

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