Textual Analysis 3

The last music video that I will be analysing is Pink’s – Just Like A Pill

           

This music video unlike the first two music videos is a narrative/performance music video, Pink is the main singer and the narrative revolves solely around her. During the performance the band is hardly recognised even though they playing the instruments, the camera is focused on pink whilst the band are blurred.

The music video begins with a close up of keyboard magically playing itself along with the beat, the camera pans to the left as the notes played is lowered. We then see Pink laying on the floor wearing a long sleeved black dress clearly showing her chest and stomach region, black nail vanish and has black hair, the colour black symbolises darkness/emptiness/and sadness which are all themes which run through the music video.

The song ‘Just Like A Pill’ is about Pink trying to escape a painful relationship by taking pills and morphine, instead of the pills making her better its making her worse.

The video is dark and gloomy which creates a sinister feeling; it felt as though I was travelling though a dark tunnel with no escape route trapped all alone 1000 meters below the surface, however as the song progressed I found hope and made it out the tunnel just as pink climbed a staircase to a blinding light and got over her relationship.  Just by using the correct light the producer was able to create such a massive effect as to what the viewers were feeling.

The music video is shot in an abandoned building the size of a church, the reason that location has been chosen is because the mood and atmosphere of the song is depressing therefore choosing an abandoned building really fits the mood well. The mise-en-scene of the music video is really important because it’s what the viewers will be seeing, if you want to get your point across to the viewers you must do it though: props, costumes, lighting, characters etc.

Again as in all pop songs with female singers, the main emphasis of the music video was her body, in every scene she was barely dressed and she would perform sexual dance routines rubbing her hands slowly across her whole body. Her target audience would absorb the material she produces into their sub-conscious mind which in turn will lead them to believe this type of behaviour is acceptable.

The music video did not cut from scene to scene during the whole music video but instead used a quick sliding transition (either to the left, right, upwards or downwards) I found that unique as the majority of music videos out there does not incorporate this technique.

The video starts of slow paced with clips ranging from 5 seconds to 10 seconds, however as the song progresses the music tempo speeds up and the editing becomes rapid.

There was this one scene at the end where she was running from all her problems, a computer effect was used to make it seem as though she was running though a dark portal which seemed pretty cool, this type of effect can be easily manipulated by using a white board and a video from YouTube.

The target audience of Pink would be teenage girls who are experience relationship problems as they will be able to relate well with the song she creates. The song ‘Just Like A Pill’ may also help young females find their identity as Pink dressed as an Emo/Goth with purple highlights in her hair and with many piercings, this type of behaviour is seen rebellious and defiant.

Overall, Pink’s – Just Like A pill contains too much sexual images therefore trying to replicate any scene into my music video would be inappropriate for an A-level project.