Analysis of Vato Gonzalez ft. Foreign Beggars 'Badman Riddim (Jump) Music Video
1. 10 Shot Analysis To progress in my research for this project, I tried to find a music video that incorporated the use of costume in a creative way. I chose to focus on ‘Badman Riddim (Jump) as it is an upbeat, dance song that I feel I can learn from and the style in which this video is done, is something I can aspire to. The actual concept as well as the camerawork are quite simple and the editing is what I would like to achieve personally. The main part of the video which would be challenging to reproduce for the music video I intend to create is the post-production work of adding special effects.
2. The video is made up of a narrative crossed with performance footage which is typical of this genre (Dance/Hiphop). The narrative is juxtaposed with the lyrics but the concept of the video fits with the genre conventions of being upbeat, fast paced with stylistic editing. It is unique in its nature and the album artwork reflects the comic book style that the video is portraying.
4. The opening of the music video shows the location through the camerawork by using a crane shot whilst combining it with a fast paced circular motion. The snapshot above is typical in the sense that it is setting the scene through showing the location in which a large portion of the video will take place. This shot reminds me of a camera lens known as a fish eye lens which may have been used to produce this distorted image.
5. The second shot begins to show the narrative that will make up the majority of the video and as you can see, the location shot prior to this adds continuity to the video. The man in the green dinosaur suit is seen to be destroying a cardboard version of a city and the editing of these shot fits with the beat of the music. The narrative concept reflects the 1950’s B Movies that used to be watched in drive in cinemas and so intertextuality is plays a large part within the video.
6. It is a convention of a music video to show the title of the track as well as the artist/s and so this music video incorporates it into the video rather than just having it at the bottom of the screen, or appearing using a fade to black. The use of capital letters and flashing between vibrant, almost neon colours reflects the genre as well as the creative and quite child-like yet stylised nature of the video. The use of the blue makes it stand out in front of the man dressed as the dinosaur.
7. This music video appears to follow at least one narrative theory, and in particular is following Vladamir Propp’s theory that every story must feature certain characters: a hero, a villain, a princess etc. and so a music video is in itself quintessentially a story and the lyrics are the words for the story. The characters appear in the video and so the shot above shows a girl who could be the villain or the princess. Her costume is juxtaposed with the theme of the video and this could be to produce disjuncture, a theory put forward by Andrew Goodwin.
8. A typical aspect to a dance/hiphop music video is the artist or artists singing into the camera and this not only promotes who they are but produces a connection between themselves and the audience, as if no one else exists and this song is purely for you. The background shows the comic style of the narrative which creates a continuity between the cross cutting. The music video is done by Vato Gonzalezand features Foreign Beggars and so all artists are shown. The backdrop switches by inverting the black and white to keep it similar but also keep it interesting for the viewer. The song title is featured in the background but is not the predominant feature, but merely reminds the viewer of the title, possibly in a subliminal message style.
9. This shot follows another narrative theory, this one put forward by Tzvetan Todorov in which a story has five key parts to it consisting of an equilibrium ( a state of perfection), a disequilibrium (where the perfect state is disrupted), a recognition (a recognition of the disequilibrium), a reparation (the disequilibrium is attempted to be fixed) and finally, a new equilibrium is produced. This shot shows another monster battling the dinosaur and the continuity between this and the prior shot of live performance footage is that the two monsters are the artists of the song. The theory is seen by this shot showing the sequences of a disequilibrium, recognition and reparation.
10. The use of post-production special effects in the editing process adds to the cartoon style of the music video and follows the conventions of the genre. The use of records in the costume of the monster on the left adds to the intertextual aspects through combining the old (way of listing to music) with the modern style of a music video. The use of the speech bubble consisting of the lyrics which also are part of the song title adds to the experience of the music video. The bright pink links to the genre and is almost a sickly candy colour which one may stereotypically associate with females maybe linking into Propp’s theory.
11. In this shot, it is clear to see that the artist seen in the alternative location singing into the camera is him in the dinosaur costume. At this point, the two separate styles, the live performance and the narrative haven’t collided and combined and here the artist in the dinosaur costume begins to sing into the camera. This follows the conventions of a music video of this genre, however juxtaposes the nature of a narrative section of a video. The body language and para-linguistic features are common in hiphop and dance video and so follows the conventions.
12. This shot shows another disequilibrium within the story that is the music video and the use of a variety of camera shots ranging from close-ups to a two shot which this shot is keeps the music video interesting. The props used of the cardboard city to produce a skyline featured in the background follows conventions of a hiphop video being set in an urban location, but with a twist as it continues with the cartoon style.
13. The final shot of the music video shows a new equilibrium being produced through the use of post-production in the love heart cut out fade to black which once again reinforces the cartoon style the music video that has been portrayed throughout. The princess, or damsel in distress is saved by the creature we associated with good and these two main theories show how the narrative music video has been successful.
