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Writer's pictureBasil Faisal Qureshi

Music Video Analysis #1 = It Ain't Me - Kygo, Selena Gomez

Having discussed several music video theories and elements of musics videos along with its types, styles etc. I believe that now is the time to put that knowledge to test and am therefore going to attempt analyzing a music video.

I will be doing multiple analysis and for my first one I have chosen the video of the song

'It Ain't Me" - Kygo, Selena Gomez.

The music video is attached below


Before going into a deep analysis, let's talk about the song itself. I have already mentioned it's title and Artists (It Ain't Me by Selena Gomez and Kygo) so, moving forward, it is from the album "Stargazing" and was released on the 17th of February 2017. The genre of the song is Dance and Electronic and the Music Video falls in the Narrative and Performance categories. The record labels behind the song are Sony and Ultra and it was produced by Kygo, Andrew Watt, Ben Rice and Louis Bell. The Music video was directed by Phillip R. Lopez, whereas the song writers are Kygo, Selena Gomez, Adrew Wotmam, Brian Lee and Ali Tamposi. Also, the two main stars are Nathan Mitchell and Georgia Fowler.


One more thing that we need to discuss before coming to the technical analysis, is to discuss or rather summarize the narrative of the music video. The narrative shows a couple riding a motorbike which crashes and the guy is left in comatose state, fighting for his life in a hospital bed. The woman is shown watching over the man in the hospital and the man enters a dream-like state in his coma and enters a forest, only to find his girlfriend who can be seen holding butterflies in multiple scenes. The couple is united through the barrier of consciousness and they dance, and at one point, both of them end up exploring a magical forest in the guy's coma dream. Finally when the guy wakes up, he finds that the room is empty and there is a butterfly sitting on his cheek. This summarizes the music video and now we can move onto the analysis.


I would like to start the analysis by applying the multiple theories that are portrayed in the video, starting with Strauss's theory of binary opposition. The binary opposites are quite clear in this video for examples, red vs. blue in the fast cuts at one point, life vs. death and fantasy vs. reality, which goes on almost throughout the entirety of the video. This is also a proof of the presence of Sven E Carlson's Binary Opposites theory.


The next theory that I would like to apply to this video is Todorov's equilibrium theory. In the start there is equilibrium and the crash leads to disequilibrium, with the fantasy due to the comatose state in the forest bringing a resolution and then finally the new equilibrium arriving.


Moving on, we can also apply Freud's Visual Pleasure theory and Laura Mulvey's male gaze theory to this video. The male gaze theory is most prominent at the scene where the girl is dancing and a view from behind her is shown.

Extra-digetic Gaze, Intra-digetic Gaze and Spectator's Gaze

Male Gaze

The next theory that I would like to apply is John Stewart's inspiration theory. In the case of this video, inspiration has been taken from all three sources i.e. film, fashion and art. The inspiration in terms of art is evident from the girl's makeup and the butterfly, the outfits are proof of inspiration from the fashion sector and the location as well as the style of the narrative is inspired from films and TV shows.


Moving on, let's apply Steve Archer's theory that there is a strong relation between the narrative and the performance. This is mainly applicable to the video as the cuts from performance to narrative and vice versa aid to develop the pace and to set a certain mood. To provide a proof of this theory in the video, the best example would be of the scene where the girlfriend puts headphones on the guy's ears and he begins to break dance in his dream-like comatose state and at this point, the song also picks its pace/speed, showing that narrative, song and performance are all going side by side.


Before moving on from theories, I would like to apply Michael Shore's recycled and cliched imagery theory to this video as well. This theory is quite clear in the video as most images can be classified as cliched, starting from the guy's bad boy image which includes the typical leather jacket, tattoos, motorbike and chains to the hospital imagery which can be found in almost every movie and TV show, especially nowadays.


Now, I would like to explain the classification of the video as Narrative/Performance. I have already explained its narrative plot and hence, justified calling it a narrative video, but how does it become a performance based one? Its quite simple, the main part making it a performance based video is the one where the girl and boy are dancing and hence, while lip syncing or band playing is not present, some sort of performance is there, classifying it as a part performance part narrative video.


Let's move to the themes of the video, which appear to be love, death, life, crushed dreams, heart break, fantasy, reality, hope and dream.


I guess it's time to move onto the technical codes, starting with camera work. The most prominent and most used technique is the handheld camera which gives the desired effects of disaster, chaos, drama and also helps in increasing the tension in the scenes. It maintains the audience's attention, while keeping them on the edge of their seats. in addition to the handheld camera, techniques such as pan, zoom in and out, dolly, tilt and crane are also used.


The editing is very important, especially in such EDM videos as it matches the beats of the song to the visuals, which is also an application of one of Andrew Goodwin's theories. TO keep the audience's attention, digital effects and bright colors are also used. The video starts with fast edits and then slows down to focus on the guy's states and the girl's expression, soon picking up pace again. To show the two different scenes happening at the same time later in the video, cross-cutting is used. Jump cuts are also used in the video, especially to show the passage of time spent by the girl to wait for her lover to heal and wake up.


Moving on to the sound of the music video, both diegetic and non-diegetic sounds have been used to create the desired effects. Examples of the diegetic sounds used include the sound of wearing gloves, the engine starting, putting on the helmet, screeching tires and the crash etc. Whereas examples of non-diegetic sounds include acoustic guitar, song, piano and electronic pop-rock elements.


I think this sums up the main analysis of the music video, especially since my main focus was on applying the theories to the music videos and learning their practical use.


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