Stan Music Video

The music video that I am going to analyse is EMINEM's video Stan featuring Dido. The story of the song is a fictional story about a man named Stanley Mitchell who claims to be Eminem's biggest fan and throughout the song Stan becomes obsessed with Eminem. The first three verses are delivered by Eminem as Stan while the fourth verse is Eminem attempting to reply to Stan's letters, only to realise that he had already heard about Stan's death on the news. As already stated, the song features Dido who sings the chorus of the song, and she also appears in the video as Stan's pregnant girlfriend of which he abuses and later kills her. The song is from the genre of hip hop music. The rapping within the song performed by Eminem places it within this category. Rapping is a typical characteristic in hip hop music. The chorus of the song, or the main part that Dido is heard singing in the song is actually taken from one of Dido's own tracks called 'Thank You". A link to this video can be found here.

Below is the short version of Stan.



There have been two versions of the video for this song. A long version which is around 8 minutes long, and the version above which is just over 6. The video is more of a small film which has been remembered by many people. The lyrics are somewhat powerful as the character Stan explains his obsession for Eminem and also how he is going to kill his girlfriend. To see the lyrics to this song, click here. (Below is the analysis for the shorter version)

There are many ways within the video where the visuals and lyrics collaborate and 'make sense' when shown/heard together. This is apparent in the first couple of lines in the song when Dido is heard singing 'the morning raindrops on my window' and 'even if I could it would all be grey'. To coincide with these lyrics, there are indeed raindrops heard and seen through a window due to there being a storm outside the house in which Stan and Dido are in. The storm is evident through the thunder and lightning heard and seen as the room lights up with a flash. This use of pathetic fallacy has been done to show how dark and dingy the house is and also reflects the mood and persona of the lead character, Stan. The next line stated was 'even if I could it would all be grey'. Although the colour grey isn't specifically seen on the screen at this time, there are other dark neutral colours that present the audience with a creepy and dark house with little atmosphere. The movement of the camera at the beginning of the song shows the camera possible being on a crane as it goes from a low angle shot to eye line level with a window. This gives the audience a notion of looking into the lives of the people within the house. There is a lot of camera movement throughout the video that will be analysed later on.

The next most obvious visual that coincides with the lyrics is when Stan is writing a letter to Eminem. The sound of a pencil is heard against paper and Stan is in fact seen writing a letter with a pencil and paper. Another obvious link between the lyrics and the visuals is again, in the chorus when Dido sings 'but your picture on the wall'. This line is is usually always accompanied with either and establishing shot of the room in which Stan resides and writes his letters, revealing the hundreds of posters that he has up of Eminem, or the shot is a close up of the posters and the camera pans across the room's wall showing all of the posters at a closer view, as shown with the screen grab on the left hand side. These are just a few of the matching visuals and lyrics in the video. Generally because the video is a narrative, it is more than likely that what you hear within the music is what you are going to see should you watch the video.

In regards to the editing of the video, it does not appear that the cuts match the beat of the song as in the case of many other music videos. This may not be the case because the video could be seen as a mini film and cutting every few seconds to the beat would mean that the story line in would become dysfunctional and confusing with too many cuts and shots appearing. Because this video is more of a small film, the shots and cuts are more consistent and the editing is at a steady pace allowing the audience to take in what is happening. There are a variety of shots and editing techniques throughout the video that work well to establish the story line. One of the opening scenes sees Dido walking to the bathroom. When she is sitting on the toilet, the camera moves down by use of a crane (possible special effects) to show Stan underneath her in a different room. The movement into the dark room below reiterates to the audience that thought of something being wrong with the house or the people in side. The lack of colour throughout the video shows how dull the lead characters life is within the video.

The video finds numerous ways to try and promote the track. The constant referral to the artist by use of images and lyrics gives the audience a strong visualization of the artist. In this instance, Eminem, or Slim, is referred to a lot throughout the video as the story behind it explores the main characters obsession with the artist. It should also be noted that the characters name in the video is Stan, one of many nicknames that has been given to Eminem over his performing years, further relating this song to the artist. The use of images has also been used effectively in order to sell the track.The image above is of Stan looking into a mirror in his room only to be greeted by the reflection of who he wants to be like, Eminem. The constant appearance of Eminem throughout the video shows how the deranged character is constantly thinking about his idol and how he has mentally replaced his girlfriend. Other visuals such as when Stan places the photograph of Eminem over his own girlfriend also helps sell the record as it shows to the audience who the artist is and possibly to show how popular they would like the song to become.
The video for Stan is similar to some of Eminem's other videos in regards to the colours and language used. For instance, his video 'When I'm Gone', found here is another famous track by the artist with an iconic video. The reason this video is so similar to Stan is due to the colour scheme used. The consistency of the colour green is a colour that appears throughout a few of Eminem's videos. The colour was also a recurring one in the film 8 Mile in which he starred. A snapshot from the 8 Mile film can be seen on the left hand side of the screen. As you can see, the picture has the same sort of colours in as the Stan video, further supporting that the colours used are popular ones that are iconic with the artist.

Music Video Conventions

Since the first music video was aired in 1981, they have continuously developed with more money being poured into their production with bigger effects and more exotic locations. As well as this, a number of key features can be identified. Music videos are commonly regarded as a promotional package that further promotes the artist. It is notable in a very high proportion of music videos how there are many close ups of the artist performing the song which is done to further present the artist and cause them to be an icon to fans. As well as this, there are many other conventions of music videos that a generally followed by all video directors:

• Lyrics: lyrics are important in every single song as they are used to establish a general feeling/mood/sense of subject rather than having an actual meaning behind them.

• Music: the tempo of the music often drives the editing of the video. More upbeat, club songs have quick editing in order to match the pace of the music, whereas a slower song, a more relaxing one, would have little cuts and transitions. An example of quick editing to a fast tempo is Scooter's The Logical Song, and an example of a slower, more relaxed song with few cuts and little editing would be a song by someone like Adele, such as her song Someone Like You. It is also apparent how the slower songs appear to have a lot of fades as a transition whereas the faster songs seem to maintain a quick cut to the different shots.

• Genre: this might be reflected in types of mise-en-scene, themes, performance, camera and editing styles. There would be no point in having a song that would play in clubs with a video that was of a man walking down the street. The video would be more of people in clubs and dancing. Before a video to a song is released, then someone should be able to identify a rough outline of a video by listening to a song and identifying its genre and relating it to other videos and songs out there.

• Editing: a common form of editing is known as a fast-cut montage. This is when many images and shots are rendered in quick succession making it near enough impossible to grasp the first time it is viewed. This would then cause someone to want to re-watch the video. Re-watching videos and re-listening to songs is a brilliant way to get people to enjoy songs even if they did not the first time round. A fantastic example of this now, is a song by X-Factor contestant Cher Lloyd. When she initially introduced her song and video Swagger Jagger, it was immediately put down, but after continuous plays on both the radio and music television channels, more and more people started to like it. The video can be found below.

The above are only rough conventions of a music video that have been identified. Andrew Goodwin also wrote about music videos in his book 'Dancing in the Distraction Factory'. Below are the conventions that he identified within music videos:

1. Music videos demonstrate genre charasteristics (e.g. stage performance in metal video, dance routine for boy/girl band)
2. There is a relationship between lyrics and visuals (either illustrative, amplifying, contradicting)
3. There is a relationship between the music and visuals (either illustrative, amplifying, contradicting)
4. The demands of the record label will include the need for lots of close ups of the artist and the artist may develop motifs which recur across their work (a visual style)
5. There is frequently a reference to notion of looking (screens within screens, telescopes, etc) and particularly voyeuristic treatment of the female body.
6. There is often intertextual reference (to films, TV programmes, other music videos etc)

IT SHOULD BE NOTED THAT A MUSIC VIDEO MAY CONTAIN ALL OF THESE CONVENTIONS OR JUST A FEW OF THEM.

Music Videos Today

Over the years, music videos have changed dramatically. As stated before, music videos used to be for promotional purposes in order to convey the particular song to a wider audience. As technology has improved and more ideas have come about, music videos have also improved. Music videos before hand use to be more performance style videos such as Gerry Rafferty's Baker Street. (shown below)



This is just one music video of thousands that are available for anyone to watch with just a quick search on the internet, however it appears that as time as progressed, the style of music videos has changed. More and more videos are that of a narrative. This means that the video is more of a mini film, usually related to the song title or a particular line within the song. An example of a narrative video is one of the best (from my view and also channel 4's greatest music videos) music video's of all time; Coldplay, The Scientist. It was named the 11th Best Music Video of all time by Channel 4 in 2010.



In this video, lead singer Chris Martin is seen singing the song, however he is moving backwards. The whole video had to be filmed with him and everyone else walking and doing everything normally, and Martin had to lip-sync the song in reverse (which took him a month to learn). The video was then rewound and it appears that Martin is in fact walking backwards but singing the song perfectly. This idea was used as one of the lines in the song is 'I'm going back to the start'. The concept of the rewound video was previously used for Spike Jonze's 1996 music video for The Pharcyde's "Drop"

Music videos today now seem to 'copy' each other as directors take ideas from other productions and use them to create their own. A simple example of this is OK Go's - Here We Go Again shown below.



This same idea was taken and used in a recent television advert for Berocca.