Analysis of Music VideoMirror – Lil Wayne Ft Bruno Mars

ManorajSivantharajah& Michael Kirby

Camera work

Close ups- shows emotion, Tattoos shows that he has past and what makes him himself. Razor blade shows dark past and perhaps self hatred.

Wide shots- Establish where they are and put them into context.

Hand Held- shows song getting more fast pace and almost make it a POV shot from the viewer

Medium shots- To show what the singers are doing within the music video.

Panning Shots- All very slow to show the movement of the paint and to expresses what is happening to the singers in terms of the music video

Editing

Long Takes- allows the audience to focus on his tattoos so they can see the underlying meaning of his past.

Short Takes- represents that things are starting to happen within the music video and perhaps he is starting to make a change

Slow motion- adds emphasis to the video especially as the red paint symbolizes things also it is aesthetically pleasing which engages the audience.

Montage- Not physically but mentally the whole music video accompanied by the lyrics is of lilwayne rejuvenating himself.

Pull focus – Recreates a human eye squinting and refocusing as if experiencing self realization which is an underlying theme of the song. Which makes it an implicit/sub textual meaning of the song.

Sound

Music- As the music video is a song there is

musc present within the song.

Juxtaposition- The pace of the song and lyrics

is slow which juxtaposes the paint bucket being

kicked and the short takes

Synchronus sound- The singers are in sync

with the lyrics and it is all sung in time.

Special effects

“God” Like effect- (0.27) An effect has been put

behind Lil Wayne to emphasis his power and

makes him look angelic as if God is behind him

both physically and metaphorically.

Contrast changes- They have heightened the

contrast to show between the dark and the light

and also emphasis the color of the red.

Mise-en-scene

Lighting- Contrast between tattoos where is dark and the angelic lighting at 0.27 which can represent his past and his new found future or his realization which can also be suggested by the name of the song “Mirror” and the lyrics.

Tattoos- shows a lot about his past and suggests a lot about him self. It also an arguably signifier of his genre.

Red – The red connotates a lot of things such as love, anger, danger etc. The color is also contrasted with the black paint and the general darkness within the video.

Laura Mulvey Theory

The song which is from the genre of RnB which is

popular to emphasis Mulvey’s male gaze theory.

However this song contradicts this theory as

there is no mention of women nor any present

female characters or objects associated with the

male gaze theory.