Textual Analysis

Textual Analysis

Good Time

By Owl City & Carly Rae Jepsen

The music video I am analysing is Good time by Owl City and Carly Rae Jepsen. These are two different artists who have gained number ones in their careers, Owl city with Fireflies and Carly Rae Jepsen with Call Me Maybe. The song Good Time was written by Adam Young from Owl City and Carly was asked to feature in it. This song is classed under the Genre Dance-pop and Synthpop; also from hearing the song and seeing the music video it would be targeted for a young adult audience. From watching the music video I would say it was a narrative type, because it is telling a story about having a good time.

The mise-en-scene in this video are; The four main locations are outside the house, in the car, at a wooden cabin, in a lake and in the forest, which has the fields and high grasses.  These locations play a big part in the song because it is showing how they are having a good time and on a camping trip. The characters are all in basic clothing that would be worn on a summer’s day, e.g shorts, strappy shorts. Also some characters are in Wellington boots.  The music video has including natural lighting and in the forest the light from the camp fire has been the main source which means some things aren’t as easy to see as they were earlier in the music video.

The music video starts of with a long shot of Carly leaning onto the front of her Fiat 500 waiting for her friends to come outside, that’s when it turns into a medium shot of hugs and close ups of smiles and laughter.  A long shot is used again to show them getting into the car and packing rucksacks and luggage into the boot which tells the audience they are going on some sort of road trip/holiday.  Once the car has moved away and they are driving, they have used a tracker movement to track the car, which is driving through the city. In this scene they also use a two shot, which is positioned outside the car looking into the front of the car where Carly is singing. It then cuts away to a male singer who is Adam Young from Owl City; he is in his car with his friends heading through a forest. The director has used a low angle shot looking up into sky showing the trees going past them, which also establishes where they are driving. During the first chorus it cuts back and forth between the two artists driving and singing in their different places. During these cuts there are low angles used in a part of Carly’s scene, which is also an establishing shot because it is positioned low looking up at the car and showing they are in the city.

When the scene changes and Carly has arrived at a wooden hut sitting around with her friends, medium shots are used to show her singing. When the others have arrived long shots are used to show the car pulling up and it changes to medium shots to show hugging and friendly greetings. During the greetings there is Close up on Carlys face singing which starts of slightly unfocused and then changes to fully focused as it quickly zooms out a little bit.  The two characters then move onto the front of the car and a low angle is used which is looking up at Adam singing and Carly sitting slightly behind him. Throughout this scene the other shots used are close ups when it cuts to Carly singing ‘whoa’ and medium shots of the friends dancing around, There is also a two shot of them when the Slush machine breaks.

The video then moves into a forest. Behind and low angle shots are used to show the walking into the forest with there tents and camping stuff. There is little clips of different things happening at the start of this part, these are of people running through the forest with a huge fake butterfly and they have used a medium shot for that and also there are people sitting in high grass making daisy chains and medium shots, close up and extreme close ups have been used. Plus during these parts it cuts to Carly and Adam singing in two different places; very similar shots and angles have been used in this part which are close ups, medium and low angles and the artists are looking and singing into the cameras. In the scene with Carly singing the camera follows her running and dancing through the forest and open field.  In one of the shots of people running into a lake it has been slowed down.

The end scene of the music video is of all the friends dancing around the campfire and the camera work switches to close ups, medium and long shots. High angles are used to show the hands pumping the air. They have also used focus and unfocusing in this scene, which focuses on faces who are laughing and also the singers when they sing. The music ends with a long and wide shot of the whole crowd dancing in the forest and fades to black.

All of these camera shots help the music video show it is a narrative because it is telling a story of having a good time. The way they dance show that the genre is pop and upbeat and you can dance to it by the way the characters move and sing in this video.

In this music video I can only notice one of Goodwin’s theory, is also established, for example Relationship between Lyrics and Visuals. This is very easy to notice because the song is about having a good time and the whole music video is of the two set of characters having a good time with there friends and then meeting new friends and always having a good time.

In conclusion of my textual analysis I have discovered it doesn’t fully have a story line but is trying to show the audience they are having a good time through the camera shots such as close up were used a lot to show the happy emotions on there faces. Also the locations are helping with the message they want to give out which is having a good time.