Similar Media Product Research #2

The Streets - Everything Is Borrowed

This is another emotive, dramatic and brutal music video with a strong narrative. The music video circles around a young family living in London, struggling to pay the rent on their home. The lead male carries the burden upon his shoulders and that is evident throughout, through his facial expression, body language and the lyrics in the song spoken in first person. There are a group of bailiffs outside the house as well, whose manner and attitude is entirely different. They are made out to be robots who show little emotion in order to make the audience sympathise more with the financially stretched family.

I'd say that this music video would appeal to a wide variety of people, making the target audience rather broad. The family consists of a young boy and a young couple, however I think anybody who has a family or has even encountered financial difficulty at some point in their life could find themselves within the target audience.

The use of interior and exterior shots shows the audience how the family are afraid to leave their home and how eager the bailiffs are to get inside. This is in some ways a paradox, as the family are somewhat afraid to be out in the open and free from their secluding four walls. Whilst the bailiffs are desperate to get inside.

The over-the-shoulder shots used whilst the bailiffs are in the car are also point of view shots. The viewer is made to feel like they are in the back seat of the car with the bailiffs planning their 'attack' on the home. Whilst at the same time, the handheld camera technique used in the interior shots puts us in the family's shoes. The audience is put in a somewhat awkward position as they would now be 'defending' the family and wanting to stop the bailiffs they are so 'close' to. This interaction with the audience is something I would love to use in my music video as it can make the music video more memorable than the song itself.

The mise-en-scene is homely and it is plain to see how settled the family are in their home, particularly the boy's room. The mise-en-scene is deconstructed by the bailiffs and we see the family's world fall apart around them. The long shot used at the end of the video shows this deconstruction and ends the video on a negative, but somewhat optimistic note as the family remain togther.

In my music video, I would definitely like to create some form of relationship between the characters and the audience. However, this may prove difficult as the issues being tackled in this music video are more serious and therefore will have a greater effect on how the audience perceives the characters within the video.