Picture Me- Video Analysis

We watched the original Picture me video in order to gain a few ideas about our own production. The tracks instrumental features a gentle piano which aids with the Dave expressing his clear message throughout the track: that your life is not predetermined and you make the path you take. Many of Dave’s listeners will be facing tough decisions and the track can really shed some light on what to do in these situations. At times during the track, he breaks down the “4th wall” of music and reaches out to the listener, asking “I don’t know your picture can you paint it for me?” and telling people “don’t let anybody tell you you can’t run, dance, sing, or be a baller. You can be a king”. While the track doesn’t fit convention as the track doesn’t feature a chorus – the track flows effortlessly and almost serves as Dave’s monologue to his fans.

The music video begins conventionally with a black screen, but then suddenly a jump cut diverts the audience to an establishing long shot where the purple sunset sky allows the white text that reads the credit of the track production to be seen clearly on the screen. As a result, the audience feel a sense of anticipation building up during the music video being enticed to continue watching to see what will happen next.

In addition the ambient sound gives the impression of a peaceful setting; allowing the audience to gain the impression that the song is more of how Santan Dave is telling a story that will move and touch the audience. Then a light wipe edit effect is used to uncover a young adult lying in bed; this chosen edit effect shows the beginning of a new day as the character, in a medium close up shot, appears to be waking up from his sleep. Soon followed by the introducing instrumental of soft piano keys as the medium close shot of the man waking up begins to fill the screen.

From the 

beginning the video cuts to the beat. In combo with a repetition of medium close up shots which display the man’s everyday morning routine of waking up, checking his phone, getting washed and dressed. It creates a fast editing pace which results in the audience keeping their interest when watching the video; because otherwise they would become rather bored watching the character get ready for half an hour.

The intro ends with with the long shot of the man walking up the stairs in slow motion. The low-key lighting within this short directly contrasts against the next high-key lit shot of Dave to allow the audience to connote that Dave will be telling story of the man who represents his younger self going through the hard times until he reaches the good in the music video. The audience hopefully acknowledge the actor is representing Dave because of not only their similarity in appearance since it’s common for artist’s to not play the character in their music video. 

The following shot is a low angle shot is followed b medium close up shot of Dave. As the camera almost looks up at him it gives the impression of his power in the sense of his strong ability to express a message to the audience is conveyed. The video then cuts back to the young man to express some of the key words that Dave is rapping about, including "my mum wanted me to do finance" the video shows the young man sat at a desk with a computer or "eating pasta on my lunch break while I'm scribbling my rhymes" sat on a bench eating pasta. We think we could replicate something similar with our own production.

There is a scene where Dave is standing in an underground tunnel, I really like the simplicty of the shot as the it allows Dave to offer the audience advice about how you shouldn’t be persuaded to get money through crime because you should work hard for something you love, then you will be rewarded.

Within the long shot, the audience can denote the stereotypical clothing of a teenager because the dark tracksuit and trainers represent Dave as a stereotypical young man. The intention is to remove the stereotype of young people being viewed as irresponsible as he is instead representing them with positive associations through his sophisticated understanding that is reflected in the lyrical content of the song. Fashion is a very important aspect of UK rap videos so we will definitely be incorporating it in our own production.