Technical Analysis

Keri Hilson- Energy

Keri Hilson is an artist that Shontelle has said she takes lots of inspiration from. As you can see, the various different shots used in the video for Keri Hilson's Energy help tell the story of the song. This is what we are hoping to achieve in our music video.

Shots 1 and 2, are important from a cinematography point of view, and (from top - bottom, left - right) depict medium close ups of the artists face, allowing the capture of both her facial expressions, and also her overall body language. This is important when trying to show the audience the emotions of the artist. By seeing her face, and her hand movements, the audience can make an emotional connection with the artist, as they can see the emotions she is going through, possibly relating it to themselves, and improving how they will respond to the music video.

Shot 4 shows an extreme close up of Keri Hilson's face, emphasising her facial expression. It shows that she is not really that interested in the male character, which is important as the audience need to know what is going on. The extreme close up is also another shot we intend to use and we want to build a strong emotional connection between Shontelle and the audience, to increase audience involvement with the video.

Shots 6, 9 and 10 offer a completely different mise-en-scene, and the location has changed. Keri is now seen to be in a boxing ring, and is wearing costume relative to this. In our music video, we will be limited to a certain location, but intend to do inside shots, and maybe a few that are outside. It is important not to keep the location the same throughout, as an audience may become bored, so we are hoping to take inspiration from this and follow this convention, and even change costume to represent the fact the location has changed.

Shot 12 is a midshot, offering another different type of shot to add variety to the video. The mise-en-scene is the same as in other different shots, but this time you can see all of the props, and how they are arranged. You can see Keri is in a changing room, and she is clearly in costume that fits this. This is another thing we believe is important to do in our music video, make the costume and props relative to the song, and the mood of the video.

Overall, it is clear that our video can take lots of inspiration from Keri Hilson's 'Energy', and there are lots of good shots that we can maybe use to influence our production. The use of props was extremely fitting (gym, and working out in relation to losing 'energy') and we hope to follow this, and use fitting lyrics and visuals that can correspond with each other.