Video Analysis

Through out the course we have been wrestling with how the media is made and who influences it. A lot of time there are underlying narratives to stories produced in the media. They use everything from lighting to shot angles to make a certain impression on the viewer. In this essay I will do a video analysis on Adele’s song “Someone like you. My goal is to illustrate my understanding of the many ways media producers make meaning and how we interpret that meaning. I will use narrative and semiotic analysis to see what strategies are being used to make the video. Through a careful analysis of how the video is being made we can see what type of meaning is trying to be expressed.

Theoretical Frame To be able to do a video analysis it is important to understand semiotics. Semiotics is the discipline that studies the nature of any type of communication (Grossberg p.143). Its important to understand this does not only involve language but other forms of communicating such as traffic light codes, dress codes, or rolls that men and woman play. In all these things we are communicating with each other by using a system that we all understand and can relate to. Semiotics define that system as codes and those codes are constructed signs. For example the English language is a code that we use to communicate with each other. The code consist of words or signs that arbitrarily symbolize something for us. As mentioned above the traffic light is another code of communicating through signs such as red, green, and yellow. The signs themselves are chosen arbitrarily. By itself red does not mean stop but we choose that meaning for this system. Through that example you can see the importance of everybody understanding the sign in the code. Imagine how many accidents there would be if some people thought that red means go and green means go faster. We rely on each other to interpret these codes the same way. When we make meaning it is important to remember that the meaning is located in the codes of the society. When we see the world we expect it to look like and behave the same way our codes say it should. These help us all make sense out of the world. We use them as maps to living our lives (Grossberg p. 145). As stated above, these maps or codes are constructed of signs. A sign is always about something else (Grossberg p.146). For example in the system of language if I ask you for a book the word book is simply just a sign referring to something else. The actual book itself is an object but the book is the symbol we use to represent the object. These signs are made up of a signifier and a signified. The signifier is directly connected to making meaning. But that meaning (signified) is also a signifier. These two are always intertwined with each other. For example, if I told you to describe the word computer you would have to use different words or signifiers to explain what is being signified. When analyzing videos it important to be able to understand relative codes. When we watch TV we organize that meaning through the use of narratives. The narrative of the the show is the underlying story that the producer is trying to tell. Narratives are forms of codes because they are a system of meaning that help us understand the world (Grossberg p. 170). The mass media uses narratives all the time to sale us on a story that they want us to believe in and behave in. Narratives don’t only have to represent a fictional story. Narratives are also used for documentaries and reality shows. Thats why if you watch the credits of “The Real World” you would see that they hire writers to create a narrative for us to follow. Like-wise in the documentary “March of the Penguins” a narrative is used to grab the viewers attention( Barsam p. 4). The narrative is made up of a story and a discourse. The two are very different. “The story is the actual progression of events through time that make up the substance and the content of the narrative (Grossman p.172)”. The discourse is how the story is explained. A good story line will tie the viewer in. They usually have a beginning, middle, and end with some main objective. The way that story is told is by its discourse. It can cut back in time or go to the future. It can be told from the perspective of different people(narrator). When doing my video analysis I will refer back to these theories to illustrate how they relate to my video. Method I stumbled across the video, “Someone Like You” by Adele, from a text message I received from an ex-girlfriend. She told me the video reminded her of our relationship. I thought it would be a perfect opportunity to analyze the video and see if it had a narrative similar to ours. Before I listened to the video I found the lyrics and read them out loud to get a good feel of the story being told in the song. Then I watched the video repeatedly both with and without music to see rather the song and the video had the same narrative. Each time I watched the video I would focus on a particular production technique.

Findings The video begins with Adele walking down an empty street in Paris. Her countenance is very dismal as she looks away from the camera. She continues to walk and sing. As she sings she is looking away at the river. Her hands are in her pockets the whole time. She stops briefly to look over the bridge then continues with her walk. The director cuts to a scene in what looks like a bar. Adele’s ex- lover is there but we don’t see any interaction between the two. It is actually not even apparent that he see’s her. The whole video is in black and white and is only filmed with two long shots. Overall it is a very dark gloomy video. The song itself is about Adele’s ex-lover. The ex-lover has moved on and started a family but Adele is still emotionally attached to him. She wants him to know that her feelings have not changed this whole time. She then snaps out of it and says, “never mind I’ll find someone like you”. The song tells a story about her long lasting love and how it never went away over the years. This song is the epitome of a sad love song.

Analysis In my analysis I will show how video production techniques help tell a certain narrative. The director chose to do a black and white film. In our culture black and white films signify realism (Barsam p. 213). I can see why the director chose this because of the reality of love is that sometimes it doesn’t work out. The director also uses lighting to tell a story. When she finally meets the ex-lover her face is highly contrasted in low key lighting. This allows the viewer to see the gloomy feeling she is having.He is in the background in a the dark with almost no light except for the back light. This helps us see him as a distant dark figure in her life. Someone that is so loved but causes so much pain.

The director starts the video with one long take. This is used to illustrate her emotion through out the video. He also zooms in to Adele to make her the main focus of the video. Again you get a visual of her emotions. He then fades out of the first long shot to the second. There are multiple times in the video where we see a panoramic shot. This is used to get a view of the object’s surroundings. These techniques are all used to help tell a story. In this case a love story gone bad. We see how producers make meaning in their videos by using codes. These systems of communication help us understand the world around us. The narrative of the video is evident not only in the song lyrics but in the production techniques. It is important to remember when we are watching any media that there is always a story being told. The better we are at dissecting that story the better we would be at understanding the nature of media making.

Barsam, R. & Monahan, D. (2007 & 2010). Looking at movies. In. R. Barsam & D. Monahan Looking at movies: An introduction to film. London. & NY: W.W. Horton & Co.

Barsam, R. & Monahan, D. (2007 & 2010). Looking at movies. In. R. Barsam & D. Monahan Looking at movies: An introduction to film. London. & NY: W.W. Horton & Co.Reading

Barsam, R. & Monahan, D. (2007 & 2010). Cinematography. In. R. Barsam & D. Monahan Looking at movies: An introduction to film. London. & NY: W.W. Horton & Co.

Barsam, R. & Monahan, D. (2007 & 2010). Cinematography. In. R. Barsam & D. Monahan Looking at movies: An introduction to film. London. & NY: W.W. Horton & Co.

Grossberg, L., Wartella, Whitney, D.C., & Wise J.M. (2005). Producing Identities. Media making: Mass media in a popular culture. Sage Publications.