Professional Project Review Post (Music Video)

As second semester begins, we are starting music videos. For an additional assignment we analyzed two different music videos to see what professionals did give their songs a really unique music video. I chose Lose It by Oh Wonder and Say You Won't Let Go by James Arthur for my review. As I analyzed the videos I took notes over things I noticed such as what the beginning shot/end shot was, what the midpoint, or the sentimental moment of each video was, and the theme.
The screenshot below shows you what all my notes consisted of during the analysis of the videos.
My post will be all about James Arthur's video of Say You Won't Let Go which you can watch below.

The lyrics to the song are absolutely beautiful, and I think the video goes along perfect with the message he is conveying.

I met you in the dark, you lit me up
You made me feel as though I was enough
We danced the night away, we drank too much
I held your hair back when
You were throwing up

Then you smiled over your shoulder
For a minute, I was stone-cold sober
I pulled you closer to my chest
And you asked me to stay over
I said, I already told ya
I think that you should get some rest

I knew I loved you then
But you'd never know
'Cause I played it cool when I was scared of letting go
I know I needed you
But I never showed
But I wanna stay with you until we're grey and old
Just say you won't let go
Just say you won't let go

I'll wake you up with some breakfast in bed
I'll bring you coffee with a kiss on your head
And I'll take the kids to school
Wave them goodbye
And I'll thank my lucky stars for that night

When you looked over your shoulder
For a minute, I forget that I'm older
I wanna dance with you right now
Oh, and you look as beautiful as ever
And I swear that everyday you'll get better
You make me feel this way somehow

I'm so in love with you
And I hope you know
Darling your love is more than worth its weight in gold
We've come so far my dear
Look how we've grown
And I wanna stay with you until we're grey and old
Just say you won't let go
Just say you won't let go

I wanna live with you
Even when we're ghosts
'Cause you were always there for me when I needed you most
I'm gonna love you till

My lungs give out
I promise till death we part like in our vows
So I wrote this song for you, now everybody knows
'Cause now it's just you and me till we're grey and old
Just say you won't let go
Just say you won't let go
Just say you won't let go
Oh, just say you won't let go

The video shows not only him singing, but a stories of couples, and a big family. Throughout the video you can tell that the big family is split down into little parts and shows a little bit of each individual family. The video appears to be relayed in a timeline showing different couples at different points in their life.  There are many things about this video that I can incorporate in my video, such as the black and white to show the extra detail in the face in hands to show real emotion in the subjects. One element they use a lot in this is the use of multiple shots, such as the extreme close up/wide, wide, close up, medium, and over the shoulder. All of these shots are used numerous times during the video itself, which is something we have already learned and I can do within a video of my own.

The creator of this video did a good job of recreating the actual story behind the song, and what the meaning of the song is. This is so good for the video because you want your audience to understand, relate, and feel emotion towards what they singer is singing about. This video however could be improved if it focused primarily on one subject, instead of an entire family. If this video centered around one couple, and them growing up together, going through life together. This would improve the video because it would tell a single story which would help the audience get more attached to the "characters".

I had listened to this song a couple times before but never saw the video until today and I was very impressed with how well it was done. The video was not hard to follow, and you were actually able to feel some of the same emotions the characters were showing in the video. I plan on using some techniques used the the videos I watched today in hopes to improve my video.