Fourth Music Video Analysis - (Pop) Shawn Mendes - Stitches

• Stitches is purely performance based when looking at visuals, however you can tell there's a narrative within the lyrics. When listening to the song alone, we'd refer the style to be similar to that of Ed Sheeran, and to say that this is a pop song, there isn't a certain style or conventions for pop songs to follow. Pop music is a broad category to which every song can be different from another. For instance, Ed Sheeran's "Lego House" is on the other side of the Pop 'scale' in comparison to Girls Aloud's "Sound of the Underground". Each genre has a sub-genre so, "Lego House" can be associated as Pop-Folk whilst "Sound of the Underground" would be Pop-Classic with a modern up-beat.
• A focus point for this song is low key lighting - could be either natural, implemented studio lighting or through a little addition in editing; not to a great extent however.
• It's apparent there is no use of animation or special effects as they would be an unnecessary link to the song. However, the pace of editing isn't continuous throughout, even though the beat is consistent, the pace of the editing changes; at certain times it's slow and others fast, despite the tempo being nigh consistent. As I've previously stated, there is no standard convention for pop music and so I can't compare this song to another of the same genre, although there may be the odd similarities between them.
• Relating to clothing & mise-en-scene, Shawn has gone for a modern appealing look that consists of a brown leather jacket, grey shirt, slim/skinny jeans & what appear to be similar to VANS footwear. The reason for saying 'modern' is that Shawn is Canadian but has significant relevance to the US, for which I'm not familiar with their styles and stereotypes. However, I could deduce that their sense of clothing is relatively similar to ours in the UK, but as the US is a larger country than England, the stereotypes and sense of style differs throughout each state. Par example, Texans and Californians both dress differently, act differently and possess a different lifestyle.
• Mid-way through, Shawn smashes his head onto the glass of his car. The broken glass that ends up surrounding him on the floor can connote the feeling in both his mind and his heart. Not only does the glass connote a broken heart/mind, he is being negated by an entity; whether this entity being a girl from a past relationship or a past event that's caused him pain.
• The literal sense of "Stitches" signifies that he's cut both physically and metaphorically whilst he's battling this potential entity - a ghost, a figure from his previous life or life in general with the aspect of how difficult it is. The amount of objects that can prevent you from moving on in life or make it nigh impossible to find a solution.
• Throughout, to add dramatic effect, each punch and hit are slowed down. The only way this video could be cheesier and more overly dramatic, is if the video consisted of montages - similar to those of the Rocky Franchise. Although, the quick successive shots is similar to that of the definition of a Montage.
• Towards the end, there's the use of make-up which can associate to the lyrics "I'll be needing stitches", where the make-up is used to represent blood, scars, dirt and a black eye.
• Another focus point is the constant use of tracking shots where the camera focuses and literally follows Shawn during the video. Despite the use of tracking shots, there is a variety of angles where the camera focuses on Shawn; from low-angle to high-angle. It's not always tracking shots being used, at certain times, the camera remains still where the shots considered here are: close-ups, mid-shots and distant shots. Even though the camera tracks the artist the majority of the time, the torso is the main focus (Mid tracking shot). The camera never moves away from the artist, this is considered the use of star image.
• Throughout, the artist is moving towards the light - the area where the lighting is bright, considered to be the white in this case. Whilst the performance used keeps throwing the artist back, into the darkness, considered to be black. There is a contrast between white & black where white represents freedom and black constitutes the idea of being stuck and gloom.
• The finals shots denote him walking away, the connotation elaboration of this is him walking away from the memory and leaving it behind - it has scarred him in both manners thus, why follow and run back to something, when it has hurt you?
• The literal final shot is of him washing away the blood, the signified view on this is him as well as walking away, but him washing away the pain and moving on to return back to his relatively normal life.