Detailed analysis of music promo: Frank Hamilton – “Summer”

Camerawork:

The camerawork is controversial as it includes typical shots of a music promo such as close up shots of the singer and lots of short cuts throughout the video.

 

The shot type is a middle shot of Frank’s upper half as he looks directly to the camera and is typically used in music promos as he makes eye contact with the audience and the viewer’s get a realistic audience perspective to seeing him

This is a close up shot of the young boy looking past the camera. It is a close up shot as we can see his clear facial expressions

This is a middle shot of Frank sitting on a chair. This middle shot allows the audience too see what he is wearing as the next couple of seconds he changes clothes to connote time passing for each day

Editing:

The pace of the editing is fast as the promo contains lots of short cuts between characters. The pace fits with the songs structure because of its slow to fast pace when the chorus starts as the clips become shorter.

The editing is cut to the beat well as when the lyrics describe a new scene such as the chorus, it cuts to the children so the audience are able to follow the plot of the promo.

M-E-S:

The music promo has been set in a number of locations. These include:

-A field/woods

-Café

-Screen in a room

-Street in a town

 These locations have been chosen because they represent places to visit in the summer linking to the promo. The promo’s lyrics talk about how summer has passed. The field location is typically where children go and explore in the summertime and the café is where the adults go to work and eat. The screen is interoperating the themes of summer with different videos such as corn and paths and the street is linking to the journey to the café.

The costumes used include:

·         Children – wear typical summer clothes such as t-shirt, shorts and a jacket

·         Waitress – apron for the food and white shirt and trousers.

·         Frank Hamilton – wears a collared shirt and jeans typically for a man in late 20’s casual clothing.

The lighting appears dark for when Frank is singing as it stays dark for the projection of videos playing in the background of him.  The scenes in the woods/field are a darker shade of green to represent the summer and wildlife and the café/town scenes have a typical summer/indoor lighting.

The actors in the promo include:

·         Children – young Frank and summer

·         Frank – singer

·         Waitress

·         Café citizens (public)

There is no use of makeup as all the characters stay natural so the audience can see their faces as this is based off real life events.

The props that are used in the promo include:

Picnic rug – the young girl uses this to sit on and gives a summer feel of the theme ‘picnics’

Notepad and pen – the young girl is using this to appear she is lonely and that is her only company

Phone – what Frank uses to talk too during the promo to make it look as if he is busy during the day?

Laptop – what a typical young man uses in a café to pass the time

Tea mug – represent what the café serves and is the typical drink served in café to give a realistic look

Narrative/Performance:

The promo is split into both narrative and performance. Roughly 1/3 of the promo is narrative from where the audience see Frank singing towards the camera whilst the rest is performance from the lyrics of the song.

The narrative does link in with the song’s lyrics with a closed ending to finish the song with a multi-strand narrative as two stories are taking place at once from the young child version to the older future Frank. The song is amplification as the lyrics are similar but don’t link directly to the lyrics but create the same meaning with the video.

Intertextuality:

There are no intertextuality references made in the video  but the video is a parody of the summer holidays as Frank shows what good times link into the holidays but how he ends up missing someone in the end.

The promo appeals to the audience because the song is relaxing with an acoustic guitar tune playing and soft singing which summer is all about relaxing and having fun. The target audience are older teenagers and young adults as Frank can relate as he is a young adult himself.