I am going to be analysing ‘Just the way you are’, written and sung by an American singer - Bruno Mars. The song itself was released in the US on July 20th 2010 and the video was released September 8th that year. This song is from his album - Doo-Wops & Hooligans. Simply from the name, one can tell that the album will be quite different and entertaining. This is why I chose to analyse this video because I believe it shows a variety of different dynamics to portray the genre. Throughout it, Bruno Mars ensures his star image is made and sustained. He carries this out through a number of ways but one that is most noticeable is his choice of clothing - his trademark hat, his tight trousers, a formal check shirt and his informal shoes. His style is very casual yet unique. It defines him as an individual and through the clothes his personality emits. His consistent style of clothing allows creating a brand image and it places him in that specific gap of the music market. Creating an identity is useful for him as a solo singer, as it allows him to be recognized by his demographics easily and to be appreciated in this business.
It
begins with a mid-shot using tilt camera movement which slowly moves upwards from
the stomach of a woman to her face - here we see the protagonist in the video. A reference to the notion of looking and particularly
voyeuristic treatment of the female body is evident here, from Andrew Goodwin’s six point
theory. Beginning instantaneously with the protagonist is a technique to convey her
significance to the video. She is shown to be listening to music in her large
headphones. These large headphones create a vintage element to the video. The
music is very loud and can be heard audibly; consequently inhabiting Foley track.
This is purposely carried out in order to permit the audience to hear it too. This is advertising the song in a positive way, by showing how good it is, as she is listening
to it quite deafeningly. Rendering is taking place here to convey the feelings
associated with the situation on-screen. Bruno Mars then enters into the scene
and disturbs her by taking the cassette out of the player. Another point of
Andrew Goodwin’s theory has been identified here. The demonstration of genre
characteristics is visible – he grabs the cassette tape and turns it off,
disclosing the stereotypical role of a man. Indirect mode
of address is visible here and throughout the
video. This helps to accentuate on the romance. All of these factors
immediately illustrate who the two main characters are. The flirtatious facial
expressions convey the two lover’s feelings. This right away illustrates the
possible genres of the song – romantic, heart-felt and joyful. All of the
possible genres portray positive and upbeat characteristics of the song.
The
music stops whilst he takes the cassette out, sits down and unwinds the
cassette reel. Another use of foley sound here is used to emphasize on the situation. There is no dialogue at any point, which helps to enhance on the romantic atmosphere being created, as they seem to be doing all the communication through their eyes. This emphasizes on the lust between the two. The
music then starts clearly from the beginning. The overall video has a
very simplistic style, which adds onto the concept of 'simple love' they are trying to convey. Stop motion is visible from 17 seconds onwards.
The stop motion is seen through the cassette reel, which makes it very
different and interesting. The cassette reel becomes a drum in which he flicks
on, it transforms into himself singing, it introduces the title of the song and it shows other objects as well including a bell.
On the right is a
print screen image from the music video conveying one aspect of its'
simplicity. The location chosen, equipment and props used were purposely very
minimal. Considering the title and the purpose of the song is to
show how a woman is perfect just the way she is - without putting effort into herself. He is playing the piano for his 'loved one'; portraying men to be gentleman's and also to show to the demographics that one does not need to go overboard to impress someone. This makes the video relatable. The seems quite low-budgeted on purpose because if it were a high-tech video, the producers would be
contradicting themselves.
On the left we can see
an example of one use of Stop Motion. It was used very cleverly throughout the
video. Most of it was displayed in an animatic way as if he was reeling out the cassette tape and
drawing these items himself. Over here he is flicking the drum, which then adds
onto the soundtrack of the song. This made the video more exciting as the
viewers could visually see where the background music was coming from - on-screen medium. This
idea was used throughout the video with the piano being played, the cassette
recorder at the start, the drum, the recorder at 2.01 and the bell at 2.38. All of this makes the viewers perceive that he, himself, is creating the sound.
On the right is an
image of Bruno Mars himself being illustrated through the cassette reel. If
an object is going to be shown through the use of stop motion; it is conveyed in a repetitive way. All the scenes with the cassette
involved have the same point of view shot from Bruno Mars' eyes. In the
repetitive shots, the audience views Bruno Mars' arms only, the table, the
cassette in the middle and the moving image coming out of it. Repeated scenes
in videos help to enhance on the concept they are portraying. In this case, the
main genre and key concept is cute romance. Thus, the idea of him communicating
with the protagonist through drawing everything himself, with the
cassette reel, is seen to be very sweet and romantic. Consequently, doing this
repeatedly compliments the genre very well and creates the amorous atmosphere
required.
As the lyrics begin, he starts drawing the
protagonists' features according to what he is singing about. Consequently, there is a constant relationship between the lyrics and the visuals throughout the product - another aspect of Andrew Goodwin's theory. For example the first line
was: "Oh, her eyes, her eyes, make the
stars look like they're not shining." Therefore, as seen in the image on
the left, we see him drawing his love interests' eyes. The next set of lyrics
are "Her hair, her hair, falls perfectly without her trying She's so
beautiful, and I tell her every day." As the lyrics move onto this, the
eyes disappear and Bruno begins to draw her whole face including her hair. He
ensures that he is relating the visuals to the song. While he does this he
keeps gazing upon the protagonist in an enticing manor. This is seen through
his facial expressions - he has a smirk on his face and his eyes seem to be
smiling as well. These facial expressions reflect on the sweet and innocence
concept of love in the video. They are portraying love in a naive, fresh and
positive way. Usually, most songs involving love end up to be rather seductive
and the women are conveyed to be 'toy-like' items. The producer's of this product are therefore, rejecting Laura Mulvey's theory of the male gaze. She holds a high status in the feminist theories. Feminism is the response to society's assumptions that women should be subservient to men. Until the emergence of feminism, women were treated almost as objects, passive agents in a male world. Thus, she believes that until this feminist approach took place, we lived in a patriarchy society. A patriarchal society therefore is one where the men dominate and the media are constructed for them as audience. Although in the beginning the protagonist was introduced in a fetish manner, it was not done in a stereotypical way. The intentions seem to be that they wanted to show all her perfection, including the body.
They used many
conventions throughout the music video to portray the genre and the romantic concept. An example is on the right. This image conveys the concept through
various ways - the camera shot/angle, the mis-en-scene and the facial
expressions. The camera shot is over-the-shoulder to emphasize on the facial
expressions between the two lovers. They look very intimate and gazed into one
another's eyes. However, they are both blurred in order to enhance the stop
motion in the back on the table. At this point, Bruno Mars was singing as an
animated cassette reel. The conceptual idea was using the cassette reel to add
in another piece of art. This was highly repetitive, which amplified the
notion, to drum it into our vision. As mentioned, through this stop animation,
he expressed his love for her. He creates the images himself which then start adapting into a life of their own. It is a very simple song and video which, reflects on our personal music video ideas - this was another reason I
chose to analyse this. Another key feature of the video is his voice itself.
This is the main factor to attract the audience - if the voice is not
pleasurable, people will not listen to the song. He has represented his voice
in a very positive way. He made sure it reflected on the concept of the song.
As it was a very calm, peaceful, mellow song; he ensured the way he sang conveyed that. The way he sang it was in a very soothing manner whereas, in some of his other
more aggressive songs (such as Grenade), he emits a very soulful and powerful
tone of voice.
Andrew Goodwin states that songs can be seen as
stories and the artist, being the storyteller, conveys it through the music
video visually. In addition, Bruno Mars acts as the narrator as well as the participant (the lover of the protagonist). This assists to increase the authenticity. This was also supported by the lip syncing, which remained through most of the video, to certify and increase the realism the audience takes from it. Bruno Mars stated that he was the main director of this video. Furthermore, this is expressed in this song; many of his interviews he
states that this song was written and dedicated to his real-life girlfriend. Therefore, the protagonist in this video would be illustrating his girlfriend.
The way he treats the female central character probably reflects his
relationship with his partner. Consequently, he seems to be expressing the
positivity within his life.
To conclude, music videos are significant when
releasing songs as singles. They help in numerous ways to promote and portray
the meaning of the song. Music videos are either (or all); conceptual,
narrative and/or performance. This video was mainly conceptual and performance.
This was because the artist himself was visually seen a lot in the video
singing, which showed the performance side to it. The conceptual aspect, on the other hand, was shown through the idea of both live action and stop motion. Overall, I found this video highly interesting as I believe Bruno Mars sells himself in a very smart manner. He is aware of who his demographics are - young females - and consequently, produces his work accordingly. His music is portrayed in his point of view, thus, one would assume that the females cannot relate to his work. However, this is not the case. Young females enjoy his work due to the fact that it makes them go into this 'dream world' and want what he supposedly gives to women. This demonstrates another point of Andrew Goodwin's theory. The demands of the record label include the needs for lots of close-ups of the artist and the artist may develop motifs which recur across their work (a visual style). This is visible evidently in Bruno Mars' work.
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