This is a music video for the song 'Location' by Khalid. The video is mainly a narrative, however, it does have some elements of a performance video as Khalid can be seen dancing around in the El Paso desert. The video and song are about Khalid would travel the world to be with this specific person. The demographic for this video and song are most likely people between the ages of 16-25. The reason for this is because these are the ages where people are mainly focused on finding love, therefore, they can relate to both the song and the video as they would most likely have someone they would drop everything for if they asked.
Textual Analysis:
At the beginning of the video we are greeted by establishing shots of El Paso and the car which Khalid is driving. The video utilises a lot of mid-shots throughout and a couple of close-ups for cinematic type shots. There's also a few long shots used in the video, mainly whenever the car is in view to get the whole car in shot. The camera is moving in every shot of this video. Although, some of the shots have been slowed down in post and it looks like they are stationary. The movement of the camera is almost always horizontal with a face on angle. This gives the viewer the impression that they are equal to Khalid in this narrative video and are able to relate and compare themselves to Khalid in this situation. Most of the shots of the love interest in the video are from a low-angle and move vertically. This could mean that she has a lot of power in this type of situation. However, the final shots we see of the girl are from a high-angle, showing that she is vulnerable on the bed and now that she has finally met up with Khalid something is going to happen between them both. The lighting from a lot of the shots are mostly natural, considering a lot of the shots are outside. Although, I can assume that they also had light boxes directed at the faces of the actors and artist so that we could see their faces clearly. This would also be the case for the scenes shot inside. I think that two lights were being used. The tungsten lights of the room and the white lights from light boxes.
The sound in the music video is non-diegetic, however, we are able to assume that sections of it are also diegetic considering that we can see Khalid lip syncing to sections of the song. Baring in mind, this only happens in the shots where he is on his own.
Mise-en-Scene:
One of the main props in this music video is the car. It's the main form of transportation that Khalid uses in order to get to the locations that are pinged to him throughout the video. It's the second main focus in a lot of the scenes considering that in a lot of the desert shots, it is the only other thing in the shot other than Khalid himself. Another main prop used in this video is the American flag. This is first seen wrapped around the car wing-mirror early on in the video and is later worn by Khalid. This prop represents what nation Khalid affiliates with because of how much he travelled as a child he didn't really have a place he specifically called his 'home'. So this flag has the meaning that El Paso, Texas, USA is where he considers his home.
The location of this music video is El Paso, Texas. This location was chosen because it is the place where Khalid feels most at home. Due to his parent's work Khalid would move around often. He has lived in so many places that he never really has a place that he considered his 'home' until he moved to El Paso. This is where he graduated from High School and the city that he feels accepts his creativity the most.
Khalid is dressed in a grey shirt and jeans. You can visibly see that Khalid is sweating a lot in the desert scenes. This is to most likely emphasise how long he's been waiting for this girl to send him her location.
Editing:
The editing in this video is quite slow. This follows the beat of the song which is slow in general, however, there are sections of the song in which the speed of the hi-hats increase. It's at these points in the song where the editing turns faster.
At the beginning of the song the editing consists of cuts and slow transition fades. This most likely represents how Khalid is taking things slow and doing things at his own pace. However, when he receives the notification for this girl's location the editing speeds up, most likely to connote how quickly Khalid is going to travel to the location provided; dropping whatever he's doing and rushing to the scene in order to see this one girl.
Throughout the music video the clips have all been slowed down in post. This connotes how things are going slowly for Khalid in terms of his love life. Even the scene of Khalid speeding off in his car are slowed down drastically. This connotes how Khalid feels it takes forever to meet up with this girl even though he knows exactly where she is.
Audience Analysis:
This music video was advertised widely when it was released as the song was a very popular song as of it's release after being promoted by Kylie Jenner. The video is accessible mainly on YouTube and Vevo. However, this music video didn't really need to be marketed and advertised because of Kylie Jenner's input towards making the song so popular. The only aspect of advertising this video gave was advertisements on the YouTube homepage when it was initially released. This gave people who were interested in the song/video an insight as to what it entailed.
This video has been received very well by the target audience as it currently has over 300 million views on YouTube, making it the second most popular music video on the Khalid YouTube channel as of March 2019.
Industry Analysis:
The producers of this music video are Khalid himself and the director (who is referenced to only as "@alex_dimarco"). Although, the licensing for the video was bought by Vevo. Khalid isn't a company himself, however, he does have a team working behind him to produce a lot of his none music content, such as music videos. This team could be big or small, but we don't know the number of people who work with/for him.
The reasoning behind the video was to visualise the feelings of Khalid in a format with multiple dimensions. So, instead of just audio, we now have a visual aspect too, giving us a wider perspective on the meaning and context of the song.
This video has a large outreach as it is uploaded to YouTube meaning that it's accessible to anyone who has internet connection. This music video is available on a lot of different platforms, but the main platform it's available onis YouTube. This was most likely funded by Khalid himself.
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