In order to learn and understand the conventions of msuic videos, which I will need to have the ability to do when creating my own, I have analysed the music video ‘Just Lose It’, sung by Eminem in his fifth album ‘encore’ and directed by Donn J. Viola. Many celebrities were featured in this video, such as Dr. Dre and Paris Hilton as well as many parodies.
In some parts of the video, the visuals do not always relate or even contradict the lyrics because of the narrative parodies included. However, in other parts the relationship between the lyrics and the visuals is very clear. For example, the line “come here little kiddies, on my lap” is linked with a visual of Eminem dressed as a ‘mall Santa’ with children sitting on his knee. Here there is a direct connection between the lyric and the visuals. The same goes for the line “Yeah boy shake that ass”, in the second chorus, as there is a shot of a young boy dancing which is then followed by the line “Oops I mean girl girl girl girl” and the shot changes to a young girl dancing.
Visually, the video does have a relationship with the music. Such as the pace, the cuts and the performance are quite fast paced, symmetrical to the pace of the song.
During this video there aren’t really any close ups of the artist, which challenges the usual conventions of music videos as they normally include close-ups in order to promote the artist. However, with this song being from his fifth album, promoting him was probably not as important. Instead, this video had a humorous focus. Including many comical parodies, such as Michael Jackson’s child molestation trial, this generated huge controversy and also contained intertextual references, such as the bad Santa film. The way in which Eminem was promoted as an artist during this video, was not only by his own lyrics referring to previous songs, but there were a few links to his film ‘8 mile’ and the use of many celebrities highlighted his importance and status in the industry. This humorous approach has been used in similar videos, for example ‘without me’ and ‘ass like that’. Some of the parodies in his videos portray him to be quite harsh, however the comedy effect makes him likeable as an artist and also proves him to be a more realistic and grounded singer. This sense of ‘realism’ is conveyed in many of his songs and music videos, relating to his past and background, creating a truthful relationship between him and his fans.
Voyeurism has been used in this video, in the form of cctv footage. Such as, there is a scene when Eminem dances next to an old lady in a bank and a scene of little boys jumping on what supposedly in Michael Jackson’s bed. Both these scenes were used for comedy effect and part of a parody.
There are many intertextual references present in the video. A lot of references were made towards Michael Jackson, as Eminem is dressed as him in various scenes in the video. For example, at the beginning Eminem moon walks down the side walk which refers to one of Michael Jacksons videos and his nose falls off which mocks his plastic surgery. The video also makes important references to his film ‘8 mile’, which is a way of promoting the film. Such as, when he is on a stage rapping in what seems to be an underground club similar to or the same as the one in his film.
The music video is mainly performance-based, as it contains various scenes where Eminem is dressed as another celebrity, such as Michael Jackon, Mc Hammer, Madonna and Elvis. In each of these scenes, Eminem performs something which is well known of that celebrity, for example; when dressed as Mc Hammer he copies the dance to his song ‘Hammer Time’ and when dressed as Elvis he appears on a toilet which is where he apparently died.
