A2 MEDIA STUDIES - Robert Atkinson

Nick Jonas is an American singer. songwriter and actor who is best known for as one of the Jonas Brothers. His song 'Jealous' was released on September 8th by Island Records as the second single from his record and has recently become a hit pop song within today's society. 

 

The song contains a typology of performance and a hint of narrative therefore displaying a form of hybridism. The first bit of performance we see is at 0.13 seconds when he is on the motorbike singing to the camera, thought at around 0.53 seconds, we see a woman character on screen, clearly in reference to the lyrics being sang of 'I still get jealous' and showing a slight narrative side. This then displays an amplification mood, where the visual imagery in shot gets reflected and amplified by the lyrics of the song, that Nick himself is jealous of how someone else has this girl as their girlfriend or that he can't attain her to be his. The typology of the song links to a stereotypical view of a male pop artist video and the conventions within, a 'boy attracted to girl' theme that we usually see in most modern and even past pop music videos. 

 

Moving on to the mise-en-scene elements in the video, we see many variations of why and how each element is used. Firstly with costume, we see Nick Jonas continually wear a brown leather jacket with a dark t-shirt and dark jeans. All three of which connote manliness and tough guy aspect especially with the leather jacket, therefore linking to a typical view of a male pop artist of looking strong and well, manly. Whereas with the women that are in the video thet can be seen to wear much more revealing clothes that show off a lot of their skin. A good example of this is at 1:36 where we see a brunette haired woman with a bass instrument wearing an almost bikini looking outfit showing of her skin and looking rather attractive. Therefore linking to Mulveys male gaze theory of some videos having fetishistic values, that that particular woman knows she is being watched at by the male audience and that they are enjoying the attention. The lighting in the video mostly stays withing a consistent high-key throughout, with going moderately low key at points. The most noticeable high key elements are at 0:35 seconds onwards when Nick is walking towards the camera down a street, this adds positivity to the video and creates a nice chill aspect towards the song, that anyone can just watch the video and feel almost happy. On the other hand, we do see a more low key lighting mostly at the start when we see the TV'S bundled up ready to show the music video. This brings somewhat anticipation into the scene for the audience as we are waiting for it to get brighter and for the video to actually start. Therefore the low key lighting creates intrigue for the audience. Then we come to the props used in the music video, which are particularly used to promote Nick Jonas and his skills. Firstly at 1:02 Nick is seen with a long, classic microphone in which he swings it around whilst performing his high pitched vocals. Next art 1:41 we see Nick on the piano with an elderly woman next to him looking like they are having a good time. Both of these parts in the music video show and promotes the artists talent and that he has the ability to perform, suggesting that he is innately a genuine music artist and performer. Lastly we can mention the hair/makeup used in the video and in this case mostly the hair. Nick is shown to have a bald/army type buzzcut style which immediately makes him seem more masculine and tough, as having no hair at all completely diverts from subtle female implications and it sticks to genre conventions and stereotypes of men in pop videos being overall manly and a dominant type.

 

Next we move on to the camerawork techniques that are used in the music video. At the begininning of the video, we see a zoom technique where we go from the shot of the TV's into Nick Jonas on the motorbike. This acts as an initial introduction into the artist himself and gets the video started off nicely with a bit of continuity and flow into the song. This will therefore create an attraction to the audience and a glimpse of appreciation for such a nicely done introduction. From 0:45 to 0:50 we go from a long shot of Nick to then it cuts to a mid-shot, reasoning for this is at 0.50 the artist hits a high note with the main title of the song 'Jealous' and therefore being closer to Nick lets the audience see his singing talent and that he can hit these perceived hard to hit high notes. This particular part of the song could relate to that of Andrew Goodwin's theory that "Music videos are not primarily a commodity form but a promotional one". Ultimately meaning that using a mid shot in order to show more of his talent does promote him in a way that he can genuinely sing and therefore will gain a bigger audience. At 1:11 we see a zoom out into an establishing shot which we see Nick on top of a mountain in a desert/rock environment with the words 'Gratitude' witten below him. This connotes manliness and denotes a certain adventurous personality Nick may have which in turn suits typical male pop artist stereotypes of sticking to their gender perceptions and possessing this strong persona. It also can relate to that of Dyer's theory with paradox 1, "the artist must be both ordinary and extraordinary" as we see the artist in a normal urban envrionment of a street and then he's all of a sudden on top of this untouchyable mountain. This therefore gains intrigue from his audience that he is willing to divert away from a normal, typical environment to be different. Meanwhile at 1:27 there is a two-shot of Nick and an eldery woman who is on a piano. This shows a friendly side of the artist himself as we see both people smiling and looking happy, this then could promote Nick further and help him gain respect from a wide audience that not only can he sing, but he can make others happy themselves. So from what i can see when it comes to the camerawork in the video, is that a lot of the techniques are used to help Nick Jonas looka better pop star and person.

 

Thirdly, there's the soundtrack of the song and how exactly the different elements of the song unite in order to create effect. We first see that effect being created through the lyrics within the first line of the song. "I don't like the way he's looking at you". This line immediately creates the mood for the rest of the song and introduces the audience to what the theme of the song is, which is of course a 'boy after a girl' type of song with Nick being the boy that is after the girl. This easily links to the stereotypical theme most male pop songs possess that we as an audience are very familiar with, therefore creating familiarity. Steve Neale (1980) suggested that "genres are instances of repetition and differences" and that repetition would not attract, and when relating the first line of the song, we can say that the pop genre as a whole is used to using a boy after girl or girl after boy type of theme and that it is quite repetitive, although disregarding that point most pop songs released to date are still popular and has always been. loved So with that, the pop genre as a whole goes against Neales theory. We also see an element of lip syncing used within the video especially with the dark haired woman character. At 1:36 she lip syncs to the line "Puffing my chest, and i'm ready..." This adds difference to the video and almost suggests the girl is feeling jealous as well as Nick, so it adds a genderdiversity to the video therefore creating more attraction wthin audiences. The video uses both non-diegetic sound and diegetic sound, non-diegetic being the track itself with guitars, drums and a electronic type sound we can hear at the start of the song that goes from a high pitch to a low pitch, then the diegetic being mostly the lyrics being sung by Nick himself. This is usual for a music video, especially with a performance typology as we as the audience like to see the artist themselves sing their own lyrics and show off their talent, and of course the non-diegetic track needs to be there in order for the lyrics to be sung and to provide that unique catchy tune that defines the song 'Jealous' by Nick Jonas.

 

Then we come to the editing of the music video in where we see elements which go back to an old school vibe. At the begininning of the video, 0.51 seconds and many other parts of the production we se a contrast of black and white effect which gives the audience an old fashioned feeling towards it. In terms of the history of the music video we are all famliar with iconic vidoes such as Jailhouse Rock by Elvis Presley which consists of that black and white image. This can create that feeling of nostalgia for predominantly older audiences as they lived through an era of black and white imagery, therefore helping Nick gain an even wider audience and sticking to the roots in where music videos became popular. This also could relate to diversion of the Uses & Gratifications Theory as it could divert an older audience away from their modern life and take them back to when they were younger and everything was in black and white.  Obviously I can mention the jump cut from long shot to midshot at 0:50 seconds in which we see the promotion of the artists talent of hitting the hardest of notes. From around 1:45 to 1:50 we can see a fast paced editing being used with the camera switching from TV to TV with showing the brunette haired woman character being faded in and faded out. These quick transitions make the video exciting for the audience and adds a certain mystery towards her perceived character as we do not get to see her for long, therefore creating intrigue for the audience. Lastly there is a unique effect used to match the old-styled TV's with a certain buffering effect we can see at the begininning of the video that distorts the screen for a minimal amount of time. This then matches the old fashioned rewind/forwarding motion a video tape creates and relates back the that nostalgia for an elder audience that could be created, and also adds a difference to the video in order to segragate away from typical pop video conventions. "Differences are absolutely essential to the economy of genre".

 

Lastly there's the typography of the video. Which the titles are predominantly seen in the first 10 seconds of the video. The title of the song 'Jealous' is seen in bold upper casing positined across the whole screen at the top and is underlayed behind the TV's. This is used in order to remind the audience of the title of the song and uses a basic white colour to not over do the imagery but still be aesthetically pleasing. The fact that it underlies the TV's still puts emphasis on the videos start and the zoom into the television and doesn' distract the audience off what they are about to watch. When it moves to the shot of Nick on the motorbike the titles of 'Starring Nick Jonas' appear in the center of the screen which becomes almost eye level for the audience to definitely see. These are also in bold upper casing consisting of the colour white keeping that classy look to stick to the aesthetic.  Both pieces of texts are of a serif font which stick to that simplistic, basic look without having fancy curls and flicks that could over do the message the video is trying to put out. This introduces the artist to the audience and makes it concrete that we are about to see a music video by this particular male artist and therefore promotes Nick Jonas even futher.

 

Overall I have noticed that each element is mostly used as a promotional form and sticks to the theory that belongs to Andrew Goodwin, manipulating vital aspects to making an effective video in order to make the atist look good and of course the song, therefore gaining success. For me I can bring elements of this music video, like the old fashioned black and white contrast as I particularly enjoyed that part, and input different ideas based on the video into when I start to produce my own music video with my group, and then see what we could use in order to make our music video a success and match typical pop genre conventons but also make it different for audiences to be able to see something new and unique.