[Task 1] Analysis of Music Video - Mehmet Tarhan

Tinie Tempah ft. Eric Turner – Written in the Stars.

The song I have chosen is ‘Written in the Stars’, by Tinie Tempah and Eric Turner. It was recorded and released in 2010. The music video is straight to the point, and unusually for a music video of the lead artist, Tinie Tempah, it has no similarity what so ever compared to his previous works’ – ‘Frisky’ and ‘Pass Out’ – reliance on effects.

I believe there could be two reasons for this. Firstly, ‘Frisky’ and ‘Pass Out’ have a relatively electric and dance/disco theme to them, where as the genres I personally associate with ‘Written in the Stars’ are hip hop and pop rock. From this, I deduce that the intended audience were not primarily dance and disco lovers; although the song has a high tempo beat to it that is a connotation of the dance/disco genres.

Secondly, after watching the video I can see that Tinie Tempah wanted to show us how his life was like as a teenager. Showing the physical and mental challenges he had to go through, and some of the though periods of his life and how he had to work to get to where he is today. This would clearly be something personal to anybody, and so brings forth a sense of security and seriousness, therefore I think it would have been unorthodox to use special effects, that would just take the attention away from the purpose and meaning that video has - to show us his emotions about his past - and special effects would have been an unwanted distraction to this.

I will be focussing on four key concepts of a music video; narrative, genre, media language and representation.

Narrative of Written in the Stars.

The narrative is an important part of any media; it is the structure that is implemented to the specifically selected shots to give them meaning and purpose. Written in the Stars makes use of a chorus-verse-chorus narrative and uses one of the Goodwin theories, of illustration. This is because the of the way the narrative is pieced together with the addition of flash backs and the use of setting, which illustrates perfectly the lyrics.

The conventional narratives of a story are given the structure of equilibrium (balance) – disruption (something that challenges the balance) – equilibrium (balance is restored). This convention was thought up by Tzvetan Todorov. I think that Written in the Stars has some of the characters of film noir also. It has quiet a pessimistic tone at first, such as in the first minute, where we see presumably a single woman walking a business man type of figure into the flat she lives in, but then and young boy escapes to the corridor and puts on his music. The boy is shown to be upset and angry after the man comes out of the flat to leave.

The music video makes use of various techniques like cross cutting between Tempah up on the roof of an apartment block dressed in all black with setting of other buildings a grey and dull colour,  and Turner in an all white room, him dressed in all black too and an addition of a black piano. Tempah is shown to dance out his lyrics to emphasise the tone of the video. He speaks directly at the camera at points during the verse, he is trying to directly get across his lyrics as best as he can to the viewer. The chorus is always sung out by Turner while Tempah acts out dance moves.

The key addition to the narrative of the video is the use of flash backs, through which we can assume that the young boy is, or is in a similar situation as to Tempah was in his early years. The flash backs show that the boy used to rehearse his dance moves on the top of the room that Tempah now sings the lyrics to, and the same applies to the corridor in the apartment block, and also the play ground where the boy gets bullied.  

Genre of Written in the Stars.

As mentioned before, Tinie Tempah is often associated with dance, rap, and grime. In this video, there is a broader and wider foundation of those genres, hip hop and rock mainly. This is a good way to extend his base and lay the foundations to move into those genres in the future should this song prove to be another hit.

The hip hop aspect of the song relies on the typical instruments that we associate with that genre; guitars and use of vocals and the same applies to the rap and rock aspect of the song, with the use of base guitar and heavy vocals and drums.

Media language of Written in the Stars.

-       Camera

The most prominent shots are mid shots and long-mid shots. They are used at the start as establishing shots to show us the setting. Close-ups are not used as much, only at the choruses, showing Turners face while signing, and at the corridors and playground where Tempah sings and looks towards the camera. Tracking shots are used sometimes, Tempah is made to look the centre of the shot, with big skyscrapers circling him, almost as though he is trapped.

-       Mise en Scene

The costume of Tempah is primarily all black, but once he is shown to be wearing a simple white T-shirt. When he is on the roof, the skyscrapers and the water tank behind him all have grey/mid-tone colours, that suggest that it was a bleak period for Tempah, and then in the chorus, the setting turns from a dull city background into a white, tranquil setting.

-       Lighting

Lighting was primarily used to show up the brightness of the room that Turner was in, and there were rarely any other times where the mise en scene had connotations of light. Lighting was mostly used to add mid-tones to the scenery at the roof, and corridor, because they were ‘dark’ times.

-       Editing

The editing was simple, straight to the point. The music and beats were edited to too be in sync, and allow a smooth and seamless transition between locations as the artist got the lyrics across to the audience. No post production effects were added, with the exception of lighting, because effects would just distract the audience and ruin the story of the lyrics.

Representation in Written in the Stars.

The mother of the young boy in the video, has less status. The man she is holding hands with has more, because his attire is smarter and hers is suggests that she is a promiscuous woman, we can also see the man touching her bottom, this shows that her objective is sexual in the video.

Turner does not seem to have a character in the video, but his inclusion in the chorus suggests, and the way he sings the lyrics, suggests that Tempah got inspiration by dreaming about the stars and working hard. He is shown almost as a saviour.

The young boy is meant to illustriate the troubles that Tempah received in his childhood and show that his journey was hard and that getting to where he is today.