♪ Tis the season to be jolly, fa lala la la la, lala la la~ ♪
Christmas. Amid the last minute gift-shoppers, the chiming and ringing bells, the inconveniently placed mistletoe and The Salvation Army asking for donations on the busy streets, there will always be Christmas music playing somewhere, or by someone. Since a Christmas tune seemed mildly appropriate during the Easter season, I decided to do my media analysis on a modern day Christmas melody-- Fa La La by Justin Bieber featuring Boyz II Men. ☺
The first few frames of the video is of a person playing a record on a record player and my first thoughts of that was "old school". Needless to say, the entire video is in black and white, giving me more of a reason to think that "old school" is a good term to describe the video. I thought that one of the reasons why the video was in black and white is because of Boyz II Men being in the video since they were a group popular in the 1990's and not so much now. It could also reflect the smooth and slow style song that is reminiscent of the old days.
To compliment the black and white nature of the video, bright lights are used. Lights on the buildings, lights dangling in the dance studio that Justin is singing in, strings of light hanging from lamp post to lamp post on the streets. The video itself has no real 'plot' or 'story' behind it-- just lots and lots of footage of Justin singing and being adorable, as well as shots of the Boyz II Men singing on the front steps of a building. Maybe they're singing for a special someone, making for a romantic move on Christmas Day. Normally the music video of a song doesn't affect my like or dislike for the song itself-- besides, I'm more likely to be listening to the song more often than watching the music video. This video was probably created to promote the release of Justin's Christmas album, Under the Mistletoe.
All in all, the video was just a video of minimalism-- nothing flashy or wicked sick or extraordinary awesome. Just a simplistic black-and-white video of Justin and friends singing their song like they own it. Which they do. I thought that it matched quite well with the music, but it was quite entertaining watching the video as well.
I like how you focused a lot on the lighting and the black and white because I think those reflect the music as well. Like, I think the black and white exaggerates the contrasts in the lights so they kind of compliment each other. And I agree with what you said that the music video is really simple, because the song is somewhat simple too.
ReplyDeleteI found it quite interesting how you noticed the little details such as the lights on the building or the lights in the lamp posts. I like how you compared the black and white of the video to the musical career of Boys II men. I think I might agree with that since they were incredible artists... back in the day. The black and white is sort of reminiscent in a way because it expresses the past--the past career of Boys II Men.
ReplyDeleteI love how you analyzed the whole video and how your brought up the tiniest details as well. When I first saw this video, the word 'old-school' also popped up for me, and I also thought that this was a very simple but eye-catching video.
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