Macklemore-Can't hold us

ACT: Macklemore & Ryan Lewis 

TRACK: Can't Hold Us
YEAR: 2013

DIRECTOR:  Ryan Lewis, Jon Jon Augustavo & Jason Koenig

GENRE: Hip Hop/ R&B

Relationship between visuals and lyrics:

When Macklemore is rapping he talks about a great white shark, there is then a very quick 2 second burst of a mid shot of him by the sea obviously to represent the shark.

'so we put our hands up like the ceiling cant hold us' these lyrics are sung whilst a panning shot of a crowd holding their hands up and dancing is played, this is done throughout the video in different scenarios.

Genre Characteristics: 

 In most of the Hip Hop/ R&B videos i have seen there is a shot of the artist rapping in a unique location. For example The first picture on the left is a long shot of macklemore rapping on a beach. It focuses on this for around 5 seconds then changes shot. 

This shot is of chris brown in his video 'champion' and like above with macklemore they do the same thing lip sync and a solo 'dance' 

Intertextuality:

in terms of intertextuality there isn't much of it in terms of music videos. However there is some slight intertextuality with the pirate ship, as their are many films that have the stereotypical pirate boat like pirates of the Caribbean. 

Linear Narrative:

There is very little narrative in this video, like many music videos it's very random. However the narrative i could pick out is that many people are going on a long journey to get their flag flying on the sky scraper.

I would say as this video has very little narrative todorovs 5 part theory narrative can't really be applied. However it does start with equilibrium then when starting the song fully it reaches a kind of disequilibrium stage.

Representations:

One of the main representations in this Video would be race as there is such a variety in race in the video. I think this video tries to signify that in america there is such a large variety of cultures from the african american boy gettting his hair done to the Indian looking man at the start. There were many representations like the african american boy having his afro groomed to an arab looking man walking a camel. therefore many representations and stereotypes we used

No. of setups

There was a large variety of set ups in this music video as the location and the people in it varied so much here are just afew:

In the desert 

Macklemore  on the boat set up

Snowy area where the video starts

Locations and Mise En Scene:

Macklemore when inbetween the boat scenes, as part of the beach and ship mise en scene; wears a sailor type jacket to signify further the boat location

there were many 4 main locations in the film, here is the snow scene in which it started where a native finds the flag that is then carried around the america. This gives the music video alot of variety and uniqueness.

The final location is the city where the flag is raised on the top of the famous sky scraper. This signifys how high budget this music video is, as they have a helicopter filming the scene as it shows the extreme longshot

Notable Shots:

Many of the shots in this video are very notable as macklemore & ryan lewis videos are always very unique. A great example is this shot of him laying on a sofa in a portable living room. I like it because it is very creative and unique.