Kanye West Ft. T-Pain - Good Life

Ideas I Like

In the start of the video we see Kanye  writing on what seems to be the camera, then it flips round and we see him writing on a white wall. I would like to try and use this idea somewhere in our film preferably at the start like in Kanye's video.

I also really like the idea of filming with a white background behind the actor. Lots of other Hip-Hop/R&B artists include this type of effect in there videos so we would definitely like to try and incorporate into ours.

I also really like having the lyrics pop up on screen in some strange style, I'm not sure if I will include this in our video but I do really like the idea of it.

Analysis of Video

I personally think it is very hard to see the visual story aspect of this video as it more focuses on all the fancy effects that can be included than matching the video to the meaning of the lyrics. I think the lyrics are talking about how Kanye has become rich (through his music) and is now living  the 'good life'. The video represents this with the large over sue off colour in the video. This colour is showing there is colour in his life its not just black and white, so his life is boring and simple its fun and enjoyable its the good life. We see him going through all the big states in America and showing off his new cars, girls etc to help emphasize how good his life is and how much he has got. Half way through the video we see a short clip of Kanye standing back to the camera putting on some sort of show for his fans, we see he is wearing dull black and white clothing although all the fans are coloured so this is maybe a hint to his audience to say they are the colour in his life as they have made him successful and rich. Towards the end of the video we see the background change from white to black as if its suddenly become night time. We now see and hear things about what we presume is his night life there are casino links and he is talking about Vegas. We have switched from him having a good time in the day enjoying sharing music with his fans, be on TV and driving fast cars to; him going out presumably gambling, spending time with good looking girls and partying. I think he has put this at the end of the video because he enjoys this the most in his life and has chosen to 'save the best until last'.

Generic Conventions

I would say the editing through out this video is mainly off beat, this might be because the beat of the song would be quite hard to match with cuts also it is easier to match the beat with dancing or singing as it is more subtle and creates a better visual effect. There are some parts with in the video where there is more synchronized editing for example when the camera is switching quite quickly between Kanye West and T-Pain. I feel that the actual shots in the video are quite slow particularly when Kanye is lip syncing however the shots may seem fast because lots in happening in the background and there is quite a large use of zooming styled effects on the editing. There isn't really a strong narrative for the song so there is no real mood set by the lyrics that has to be followed in the video, however the general mood of the video is very up beat as shown with all the colour in the background. The images in the background are very typical of the Hip-Hop genre there are clips are cars, girls and money all things we usually expect to see in this genre of music video. Also can fairly safely presume that both Kanye and T-Pain are wearing fairly expensive clothing and brands again that you would associate with there genre.

Application of Theory

Andrew Goodwin

As I have said above the generic conventions are fitted quite well by Kanye as he has included the top 5 things you would maybe want to see when watching a Hip-Hop video (girls, cars, money, clothes and the artist). There is a very illustrative relationship between lyrics and visuals as most of the lyrics are thrown up in a cartoon styled way in the background as he is singing them. The whole visual style of the video is very colourful and obviously mainly done in the editing process it is clear the goal of this video was more to wow the audience with fancy effects rather than a interesting storyline. There is no frequent refeerecne to voyeurism however there is possibly one small bit where we see Kanye reading a magazine that is blurred out and has the word censored in it.

Laura Mulvey

I think the male gaze theory is definitely relevant for this video as there is one women dancing around in the video with limited clothing on who has obviously been chosen to be in the video because she is good looking and they want people to look at her so they therefore will watch the video.

Evaluation of Video

I think Kanye West's good life video is very good, I really like the whole cartoon style he has got throughout the film and think it is really rewarding for the eyes. The video in terms of affects looks really easy to make as it seems like he spent a few hours with his mate T-pain and a good looking girl in a studio dancing, singing and  having fun. Then someone will have edited the video to his taste to create the visual effects for the audience. Despite the fact the video looks simple in production the end product is really good the effects are very creative and appeal to the audience, they also fit really well with the lyrics and music. However I still think they could have added a little more story based action for the video that the audience could watch instead of just cartoon effects. Overall I would rate Kanye's video 8/10.