Texutal analysis of a third music video

Textual analysis of Foundations by Kate Nash

I have chosen to analyse the video of Foundations by Kate Nash, as she is our chosen artist and therefore this will help us to establish what we want to do with our music video and what sort of props, costumes, shots and styles we will use in our video.

Lyrics

When listening to Kate Nash’s single Foundation, the line ‘my fingertips are holding onto the cracks in our foundations’ is repeated throughout.  This is used to represent the breakup of a relationship. Throughout the music video, there are shots used to represent this line, for example in the shot below the male moves his feet in closer to hers and she moves hers away to suggest a distance and split between the couple.

Mise-en-scene

As you can see from the picture above which is the first shot of the whole video, it is a picture of 2 toothbrushes, although this is random, as they are blue and pink they’re representing a boy and a girl. Use of these stereotypical colours uses intertexuality through sex and gender stereotypes to help the audience identify what the song is about.

The mis-en-scene in this shot is bright coloured and happy, I think it represents the relationship that Kate is singing about, in the clip; the male (we expect) leans in and picks one strawberry off. This represents the ‘cracks in our foundations’ she quickly tries to fix the cake but, this is representing the fall down of their relationship through a cake.

Camerawork

This close up is used of the artist to show a closeness to her, it gives the audience a close look at her, which makes a connection to make the audience relate to what she is singing about.

A close up of the couples feet is then shown, I believe this shows the once closeness there once was between them, as during this shot they pull their feet away from each other to become separated, again reflecting back to the mainline of the chorus.

A high angle shot is used here to show Kate’s vulnerability and loneliness, a high angle shot is always used to make the character look weak and show that they are in a vulnerable position. The theme and subject of the song suits the high angle show.

Editing

In terms of editing, different to most pop songs, this music video has alot of long shots, one lasting up to fifteen seconds, this show’s Kate Nash’s variety through her music.  The song is quite emotional and reaches out to the audience therefore the shots are quite focussed on her.  Although this is contrasted by the shots at the beginning which are fast moving and rapidly edited, this shows the difference in tempo and beat of the music.

Voyeurism

There is no use of voyeurism in this video unlike other pop video’s, I think that because this is a music between indie and pop, it doesn’t quite follow the conventions in terms of voyeurism, however the style of music is definitely considered pop despite the lack of this convention.

Image

Although Kate Nash doesn’t follow the conventions of pop in the sense of voyeurism, the music is still of the pop style, however she makes it her own by adding an alternative twist to it, with her own vintage style and fashion sense.  Such as the preppy dresses she wears and the sets of the music video seem quite old fashion and antique.