Real Media Artefact 2 (music promo)

Just the way you are- Bruno Mars

Just the way you are is a narrative based music video where we see Bruno Mars (the artist) sat in an apartment singing to a girl. He uses the tape from her tape cassette to create actions mirroring what he is singing to her. Both Bruno Mars and the girl are in casual clothing to match their surroundings therefore setting the scene for the music video, also promoting Bruno Mars’s image as an artist.

The music video begins by panning upwards to show the girl is listening to music where we can faintly hear the beginning of the song. We are then introduced to Bruno Mars with an extreme close-up to show the audience the artist by using the close-up, which is also promoting him as an artist. With this camera shot we can see clearly Bruno’s facial expression. This sets the mood of the music video as his face is happy, therefore as the audience we can see that the song is going to be cheerful and uplifting.  It then cuts to Bruno taking the tape out of the cassette player, at this point in time there I no music playing. Bruno then places it on the table and beings to make a picture with the tape meanwhile the music has begun to play. At the beginning of the song the shots are mainly medium closes ups of the tape changing into different shapes, but as the song progresses the tape is more in the distance and Bruno and the girl are more inset. For example there is an over the shoulder shot showing us what the girl and Bruno are seeing, which is the tape but they are the main focus of the frame, promoting him as an artist and to show the narrative of the story. This is also true for promoting Bruno Mars, as there are many medium close-up shots of just him singing.

At this point the music matches the visuals as the first image Bruno makes with the tapes is a drum where it them beats to the same beat as the music. This is also true for the visuals matching the lyrics. For example it says ‘her eyes, her eye’s’ and the tape is the shape of her eyes.  As you can see from my analysis I think that this music video conforms to Godwin's 6 elements of a music video however not all of the 6 element are used. Throughout the song the lyrics match the visuals, the music meets the visuals, it demonstrates genre characteristics as it is pop video with a girl and boy relationship and it includes multiple close-ups of the band to promote them. However it does not include notion of looking and intertextual references. 

The editing of this music is quite basic but effective. The pace of the editing is quick to match the visuals and the pase of the music. Bruno Mars is creating images with a tape from a cassette player. When he is creating the images he does the movemnt quickly, therefore the editing matches this by being a quick pace.  

This music video meets the expectation of pop genre. This is because it has the stereotypical narrative story of the normal pop song. It's a male singing about his love for a girl. The music video also uses lots of close ups of the artist as it is aimed at teenage girls who would find the artist (Bruno Mars) attractive. The surroundings and area of the music video are also pop like and would appeal to the age group that listen to pop.

Towards the end of the video it shows Bruno Mars playing the piano. I think the reason for this is to again promote his as an artist to show that not only can he sing but also he has other musical talents such as being able to play the piano.  

Overall I think this is a very successful music video. I think the use of the tape cassette to create images that match both the music and lyrics is very creative and makes the music video memorable. I also think it is good at promoting Bruno Mars as an artist through the use of different camera shots.