Music video analysis 5

In this music video there is a strong direct relationship between the visuals and lyrics. Both the lyrics and the visuals tell a story about a man called Stanley who believes he is the greatest fan of Eminem. Stan writes a sequence of letters to Eminem which each verse he increasingly becomes more obsessive and when he gets no response to his letters he becomes progressively angrier. By the end Stan creates a voice recording of him driving himself off a bridge into a lake with his pregnant girlfriend in the boot of his car. It is after this had happened that Eminem responds to his letters. Although Eminem is the only rapper in this he is the vocals of both Stan and himself as seen in the visuals.

In terms of genre characteristics for this music video there are very hard to identify due to the video being unconventional to the general hip hop. As this music video is following a narrative they were unable to follow any conventions so nothing can be spotted in terms of visuals which will enable the audience to link it to a specific genre. Normally hip hop portrays the main singer performing and dancing, so it is generally focused on the artist performing and not usually in terms of a narrative.

Stan provides us with a  closed narrative that follows a close story line. I would say that the narrative is non linear as Stan is writing in his letters and including things from the past tense, this is shown in the form of a flashback in the music video.

Again as this music video is unconventional there is an indirect mode of address as the artist isn't performing and looking directly into the camera as a narrative is being followed. Instead Eminem is playing the character of himself where star treatment can be identified. The whole main story line is about a crazy fan and Eminem receiving fan mail which reinforces his fame and stardom. This enables the audience to particularly single the artist out. Camera angles in the music video are shown to help emphasise the importance of the artist. For example when Eminem is performing on stage there is a high camera angle looking down on Stan and his brother.  There is also lots of close up shots that keep returning to the  artist on posters on the wall etc, this is another way that Eminem is singled out.

source:http://jayrvids.blogspot.co.uk/2016/06/eminem-stan-ft-dido.html