Jason Mraz Artist research

Jason Mraz’s songs I’m yours and Wordplay both belong to the alternative genre of music. I decided to use them as research into the genre as I believe that they achieve the purpose of a music video. They both include many shots that relate back to the artist, which ultimately links the artist and the music together and allows for a relationship to be formed between the audience and artist. The music videos are a mixture of Performance, concept and Narrative; with little to none concept in the song I’m yours- I judged the ratio to be 60:40 in the favor of narrative.

The song I’m yours connotes Jason to be a free and fun loving person, he spends a lot of time in the video out and about exploring nature connoting that he is a peaceful person that doesn’t believe in violence.

The cinematography of the song has a large range of shots, the most common shots used were mid shots and long shots which are conventional to the genre and especially music videos as it can draw focus to detail of the video. A low to high shot of an airplane is used as the establishing shot, this connotes that the artist has a jet set lifestyle.  Other shots that are used re extreme close ups, a pan shot and a point of view shot. The point of view shot is the main shot I think is significant, the reason for this is that a camera shot like this places the audience in position with the artist, which then could allow for a relationship to be formed.

The main type of edit in this music video is a Jump cut; it also has no examples of Computer generated imagery within the video. The editing style of this video follows the rules of continuity, which breaks away from the norm of music videos of this genre. The 180-degree rule is used throughout the video, allowing for the audience to understand what is going on in the shot. A match on action shot is also used within the opening of the video as Jason leaves his motel room. Other aspects of continuity that were used are an eye-line match and a sequence of shot reverse shot.

The mise en scene of this music video is very detailed and specific it is also high in verisimilitude .The settings within the video consists of an American airport, a motel, on board a plane, Hawaiian countryside, a forest and a waterfall. The three most significant of these in my opinion are the airport, motel and waterfall. All three of these can be linked to the connotation of travel, which represents the artist again in a positive and cool way. The motel could suggest that he is only briefly travelling, which could have a deeper meaning of Jason being confused by a situation and is a way to settle his emotions and he wont be staying for to long.  The waterfall is an amazing image, which could have been used to connote Jason’s extraordinary ability of music. The costume that Jason wears remains the same / similar throughout the music video; shorts, t-shirt, flip flops, trillby (hat) and sunglasses. The use of limited costumes reinforces the idea that he is not staying for long as is passing through. The lighting of this video fluctuates between low key and natural lighting, with natural lighting being the most common, making the video feel more authentic.

This video adheres to the theory suggested my Andrew Goodwin, there is an aspect of voyeurism within this video, or the notion of looking as it is also known. There are a sequence of shots of Jason mainly focused on individual facial features like the eyes, nose and mouth. Also there is a link between the lyrics and visuals when the line ‘open up your eyes and see your free’ is sung Jason is sitting on the ledge of a skate bowl with no shoes on looking like he has no worries.

Another song by Jason Mraz that I have decided to research is the song ‘Wordplay’- which was released far earlier than I’m yours.  Jason is portrayed to be more rebellious in this music video than he was in I’m yours, which suggests how he has developed throughout the years as his audience changed, suggesting to me that I need to thoroughly research the audience of the genre at the moment as it is prone to changing. The ratio % for this music video is concept-30 performance-60 and narrative 10,

The cinematography is relatively basic in this music video in comparison to the other. The range of camera shots within this video is seven; establishing long shot, low to high shot, mid shot, track / zoom, high to low, long shot and close up. The three shots I focused my attention to was the close ups, low to high and high to low. The close ups are a good way to show emotion of characters within the video- especially as further research has shown that the audience can relate better to an artist when they express emotions within their product. The low to high and the high to low shots represent the power Jason (as a character) has in the narrative of his music video, when he is playing with his band and enjoying himself the low to high gives him a higher status and suggests his importance. When the crowd of people starts hassling him the shots are changed to high to low to connote his character’s insignificance.

The editing style of this video is also basic in comparison to I’m yours. Similarities that both videos have are that they both use straight cuts as the main editing style. It difference to I’m yours is that it has a filter placed on some of the footage. When the old man is walking along the path toward Jason a time lapse is used- this is to speed up time but still express the same point to the audience.

The Mise en scene of this video is the more lenient of the two videos. The setting of the video is in a desert / savannah environment- it looks slightly biblical. There are also more costumes used; a band member is dressed as a wizard- it turns out to be Jason, Jason in the video keeps the same outfit on jeans and a t-shirt which is similar to that in I’m yours. There are also additional costumes for other actors; they looked to be wearing peasantry clothing  / robes which continues the biblical theme. The lighting is also limited to only using natural lighting. Props used in this video were the rocks being thrown to connote the disagreement of what Jason was singing about connoting controversial topics and different types of guitar, in which Jason plays- demonstrating his talent an d encouraging the audience to support him.