MUSIC VIDEO ANALYSIS MEDIA VPink – U + UR HAND
Alecia Beth Moore or better known by her stage name; P!nk is an American singer and song writer. She was born on September 8, 1979 and Since developing her singing career from a very early age she has become one of the worlds most successful solo artists with over 30 million album sales and 40 million digital sales worldwide, two Grammy awards, five MTV video music awards and eight top 10 hit singles. At a young age she developed asthma and used song writing as a way of escape creating some very deep lyrics. She began performing in Philadelphia clubs when she was 14 years old. At 16, she joined the trio ‘Choice’, which included Chrissy Conway. The group signed with ‘LaFace Records’ and recorded the sound track ‘Key to My Heart’ for the 1996 film ‘Kazaam’. Choice eventually split up after recording an unreleased album; Pink remained at ‘LaFace’ as a solo act under the stage name P!nk, which was from Steve Buscemi's character in the 1992 movie ‘Reservoir Dogs’. Her five major albums contain songs which are known to be characterised by how personal she makes them, basing a lot of them on her life situations. Her forth album was released in April 2006 and included seven hit singles including ‘U + Ur Hand’. P!nk was first signed to ‘LaFace records’ which is part of Sony Music, according to P!nk, her biggest influences are Bette Midler, Bob Dylan, Madonna, Whitney Houston, Indigo Girls and Don McLean. ‘LaFace’ was formed in 1982 by both Antonio ‘LA’ Reid and Kenneth ‘Babyface’ Edmonds joint with ‘Arista Records’. Due to the increasing success of their independent production companies they used their existing nicknames and combined them to create the name of the record label; ‘LA Face’. Through out the 90’s they produced artists such as Usher, Toni Braxton and P!nk. towards the end of the 90’s the company produced fewer artists as the big names had moved to ‘Arista Records’ and Edmonds started to focus back on his original production company ‘Babyface’. Reid became appointed chairman of ‘Arista’ and due to his promotion La Face dissolved. In 2004, after the corporate restructuring of the BMG labels, ‘LaFace’ was reactivated as one quarter of the newly reconstructed Zomba Music Group. Most of its former roster that had moved on to ‘Arista’ returned to the company, upon its reactivation. P!nk is well known for her rock and pop music style and very personalized videos to accompany her work. The main focus in all of her videos is her as this highlights the lyrics as being the most important. The song ‘u + ur hand’ is part of her forth album released in 2006. According to an interview in the documentary ‘Making of the U + Ur Hand Video’, she always found it irritating when boys were riding on her when she is dancing in a club: "When you turn a boy down in a club you are automatically a lesbian,
MUSIC VIDEO ANALYSIS MEDIA according to them". She heard a boy once say "Oh well, it's just me and my hand tonight" after a girl turned him down. Pink found that funny and started to write a song about it. The video was directed by Dave Meyers in Sun Valley, California. The video shows her as six different characters all taken from Martin Emond's work, including ‘Baby Red Knuckles’, ‘Rocker Bikerboy’ and ‘Hard Candy’. The image that she gives off to her audience is how she wants her self to be portrayed as.
The video opens with a story book opening, very neutral colours are used and predominantly the only colour seen at this point is red. The book pre empts the scene that is about to be shown. The same is done before every scene to show what is about to happen. In the still above it shows that the words on the page have been lifted and made to float across the screen, not only highlighting the importance and relevance they have to the plot line but also bring what is being told in the book to life. These words also appear over shot of P!nk singing, linking the two locations together and constantly reminding the audience about what it is about. The beat of the song is quite upbeat which contradicts with the pace of the editing which is quite slow however it is the speed of the camera flowing over the scene which keeps them both held together.
The first location shows P!nk in a garage. Again the colour tone of the shot is quite dark maybe reflecting her personality and thoughts on the situation. The only colour seen in this shot and through out the entire video is red. The connotations of red are love,
MUSIC VIDEO ANALYSIS MEDIA passion, danger and sex. The main theme of the song being about sex the colour suits the issue. It is also a bold colour that stands out and makes whatever is red in the shot become the most significant and eye catching. In this shot the colour red is used for the car, initialising the idea of speed and movement. A car garage is also normally associated with the male gender, and by pink standing centre of the shot and the man in the back ground it puts her as the main focus and idealises her as a strong woman. The way she is dressed makes this video appealing to both genders and through out the video there are a series of fragmented body shots. It also portrays her as a bit of a rebel as she is dressed as a biker and in this shot is fixing a car, so not afraid to get her hands dirty.
Again in this location the predominant colour is red; mainly her hair which has changed from the last location but also the punch bag. As the punch bag is red it makes it stand out highlighting the picture that is on it, which is a man. These visuals correspond to the lyrics as she is singing about trying to push a guy away. By showing her working out in a gym, also taking into account the previous location she is almost trying to prove herself as more manly. The lyrics say ‘I’m not here for your entertainment, you don’t really wana mess with me’ this idea s shown in the visuals because you wouldn’t want to mess with a guy who works out a lot and she is showing through the visuals that she’s not just for looking at. In this shot she is skipping in time to the beat, which creatres movement in the shot, and the camera is tracking in on her. Representing again that she is the main one to focus on.
MUSIC VIDEO ANALYSIS MEDIA
This shot shows again another location and another side to P!nk. Firstly she is the main eye catcher dressed in red and again in the centre of the shot. Showing her importance and that what she is doing and singing is the main focus. Because of where she is positioned it shows her higher than every one else including the city below her, giving her power and authority relating to the song lyrics as she has the power to reject the guy. Her costume reflects another side to her personality. The shots used here are very feminine and sexy. She has been ‘glammed’ up. in the back ground it shows men fighting and this creatres the idea that they are fighting over her. She presents herself as a very confident, independent woman, knowing what she wants and not afraid to do what she wants. There are lots of close ups of her again personifying her as the artist. This shot is then followed by the linking shot of the book, setting the scene for the next location as it goes into the chorus.
The main feature of this shot is the red book and her ring, following the continuous theme of red. It also links back to the linking shots where she is reading from a red book. In this shot is shows what is written in the book which is also what she is thinking, and all relates to the song- ‘at least a book with substance isn’t hard to find’ this is shown just after she has looked round a the man showing that she thinks all men are the same. This scene has quite an eary green fantasy look to it perhaps representing that what she is looking for only happens in fairytales.
MUSIC VIDEO ANALYSIS MEDIA
When this scene is introduced the pace of editing picks up and jumps between this and the shot of her on the sky scraper. Again the only colour in the shot is her red hair personifying her. Through out this scene she engages with the audience by turning to sing at the camera making the audience feel as though she is singing directly to them, as if asking her audience if they know what she means. The lyrics are linked directly with the action in the shot as she says ‘quit spilling your drinks on me’ he spills his drink on her. The camera movement in the shot is very obvious and hard on the eyes. It is unnatural for the eyes to zoom and so by using jumpy zooms to get closer it makes the audience focus and pay attention to what is going on.
The last location is introduced at the end, and is predominantly white – representing pure, coldness, stability and peace, and combining it with black it makes the shot very simple and easy to focus on the only red things, her lips and camera she is holding up. by lying on a circular bed surrounded by handing beads it makes her look as though she is trapped, when actually she has proven through out the video that she is completely independent. Most of the camera movement here is quite still allowing the viewer to
MUSIC VIDEO ANALYSIS MEDIA focus on her and how beautifully she has made herself even though she is ‘home alone’ showing that she doesn’t need a man. The editing then picks up to flick between all the locations bringing them all together. On the faster drum beats the editing flicks really quickly between two of the shots showing her on the screen in two places at the same time. the song ends with the linking scene of the book saying ‘the search continues...’ connoting that there is more to come from P!nk.