Case Study 1

Jay Sean's 'The Mistress' album

Jay Sean - Where Do We Go

The music video I will analyse for this case study is a song by Jay Sean called ‘Where do we go’ from his album called ‘The Mistress’. The music video is about Jay Sean who looks emotional and distressed as his relationship changes and needs to make a decision on where his relationship stands and what he needs to do.

The music video has been shot in Miami. There have been many locations used in the video such as, the recording studio, Jay Sean’s house and the streets of Miami.   The reason why these locations have been chosen is to show the audience the everyday life of Jay Sean and the fact that he can be rich and afford to buy an expensive Bentley but one thing he can’t buy is love because it’s priceless. The video has been shot as a narrative showing Jay writing his song ‘Where do we go’ and being in the recording studio. In this scene we see a long shot of Jay walking down a corridor in the recording studio where the audience can see records on the wall in the mise en scene portraying that Jay has been a success in music but not in love. There is also a use of a extreme close up showing Jay sing the words ‘Where do we go’ followed by a long shot of him driving to an unknown destination relating back to the idea that he feels lonely without his girlfriend and doesn't know what to do or where to go.

The music video uses a range of different camera angles such as over the shoulder, medium close up, long shot, high angle shot, extreme close up and many more. The first scene opens with an over the shoulder shot of Jay Sean writing the song in a notebook which he tosses back after a little while. This shows that Jay Sean is writing a song for his girlfriend which makes him emotional and saddened as he doesn't know which direction his relationship is heading in and doesn't want to break up with his girlfriend. During the video we can see many close-up shots where we see Jay Sean’s facial expressions who looks confused, hurt and concerned about his relationship. This connects to the audience as it looks as though Jay Sean is singing directly to his audience and expressing his feelings by making direct contact to the camera making it realistic and understandable. Throughout the video we see parts of Jay Sean’s everyday life where he looks distracted, depressed and miserable over the whole situation. This is portrayed through a medium shot where we can see that Jay Sean sets a game of pool up for himself but decides not to play it last minute and walks away heartbroken. The last scene opens with a long shot of Jay Sean driving his Bentley down the road on his own and goes for a walk where he seems lonely and wants some time to think about his relationship. In this scene there are many close up’s used and a extreme close shot where the audience can see Jay Sean lip sync the song word for word as though he is singing it to the audience and expressing his emotions.

The music video uses various types of editing techniques such as cut and fades. The video uses many cut away shots to show that there will be a change of scene but the camera will come back to the first scene later during the video. There is also the use of fades which help link each scene onto each other which makes the video look consistent and professional give the video a good flow. The video includes a tracking shot where the camera follows Jay’s journey as he is driving. This makes the audience feel as though they are going with Jay to a particular location which is unknown. This is followed by a panning shot where we see a medium shot of Jay walking down a street in Miami looking lost, isolated and miserable whilst people behind him are with their friends or partners. This is portrayed as the focus changed to Jay only as there is a use of depth of field where the background is blurred allowing the audience to see Jay’s facial expressions and emotions.

 The target audience for this video are people who like the genre R&B and slow jams. This is because the video is a slow jam which has a consistent beat throughout the song. This is because the motive of the song is to connect with the audience and show them how Jay is feeling about his relationship. As a result the cutting rate is average throughout the video which helps to keep a calm atmosphere. The target audience are encouraged to buy the record through social network websites and interviews made by the artist. This is because Jay Sean would use Twitter and Facebook to promote his single by keeping competitions for his fans and getting other artists to spread the word about his record helping him make sales.

In conclusion, some of the ideas I would take from this video would be the colour scheme. This is because the video mainly uses dark colours such as black, grey, brown, blue and many more. However one colour that is used the most is the colour black which symbolises sorrow, pain and regret.  I would also use a range of different camera angles and editing techniques such as panning shots, tracking shots, cut and fade in order to make the video more appealing to the audience and interesting to watch. This is because the editing techniques help to attract the audience to the video and help to show the location and emotions of the artist.