Drake – Find Your Love – RnB/Hip-Hop
Location - There are two scenes in this video, one is set in a music studio, Drake is seen exhaling smoke, singing into a microphone and pressing buttons in the studio concentrating on his music. The other scene is a story of Drake going back to a woman in the slums of Jamaica where it is shown in a club and going to a house and being caught.
Lightning – Throughout the video, dim light is used which sets the mood of video of being mysterious and not sure what is going to happen in the way if Drake is going to be caught or is he going to get the girl.
Representation- Drake is represented as thinking with his heart over his head as he decides to go back for the gangster’s girlfriend
Story line - Drake wants to go back to meet a girl he likes but a older man has warned him not to and carry on with album but decides to find the woman but makes the wrong decision and ends being caught by the gangster and may have been shot due to a gun sound being made but not shown. .
Mise en scene – During the studio scene he is seen smoking as stereotypically in the rap scene it is smoking weed and this could be glorifying taking drugs which could be a negative of this video. He wears plain clothes throughout the video; this could have been so that the audience keep concentrating on the story of the video and not on other stuff such as clothes and other people in the video. He is shown in the slums so that stereotypical mise en scene is seen such as unpainted cracked walls and chicken coops.
Camera work - They used filming techniques to set messages about the characters; the use of low angled shots on the protagonist which was Drake. Most shots used are close up or medium shots so they establish who is in the shot as they only last for about 3 seconds, this helps with showing emotion but not presenting the entire story to the audience.
Editing - They are all straight cuts, no shot is longer then 3 seconds even when there is no music played.
Sound - The track is played in time with the shots but is barely shown singing to lyrics this could be due to Drake acting in the story and singing along would match the scene.
Genre and narrative - This video doesn’t follow Todorov’s theory even though it has equilibrium but it is left on a cliff hanger, this could be due to having the next single being the second part of the story. There could be Propp’s theory in this video as there are certain characters such as:
The Hero - Drake
The Donor - The man at the start giving Drake advice
The Princess/Prize – The woman Drake wants to go back to see
The Villain – The gangster who’s the woman’s boyfriend
Audience theory:
Dyer - They used Dyer’s Utopian Solutions Theory to motivate and engage the audience, offering the ‘solutions’ to ‘clarity’ by using the scene at start explaining why he is going back for her.
Maslow - They threatened the audience’s need of ‘safety’ by using an unfamiliar environment in the setting that the main character would explore.
Institution – The video was directed Anthony Mandler who is one of the top commercial and music video directors working today, having written and directed music videos for artists including Rihanna ("Russian Roulette"), John Mayer ("Who Says"), Jay-Z ("Run This Town"), Mary J. Blige ("The One"), The Killers ("A Dustland Fairytale"), John Legend ("Everybody Knows"), T.I. ("Live Your Life"), One Republic ("Stop and Stare"). The gang leader is Mavado who is another popular singer or artist who is from Jamacia.
Posted by Joe Lavigne
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