CASE STUDY 1: Eminem - Headlights

Headlights is a single by Eminem featuring Nate Ruess from his 8th studio album 'The Marshall Mathers LP 2' which has a narrative style music video with Spike Lee as the director for the short film. Similar to most of Marshall's music this takes on his personal life, however, in a more mature manner he wrote a remorseful song as a tribute to his mother, Debbie Mathers. The music video was released on 11th of May, 2014, Mother's Day.

Retaining the genre of hip-hop, the music video has a slow tempo and has a calm tone to it because it's nostalgic and emotional as the theme and motif is about his relationship with his mom who is also the protagonist. The video takes us to her perspective on how she copes alone while trying to reconnect with her son; Having the majority of the video in a first person can express loneliness and rejection due to Eminem's hate on his previous songs referenced on the TV as well as the guards not letting her in to see him.

Camera wise, still, focused shots of various places around a neighborhood (presumably where his mom lives) is shown at the few first seconds and is synced with the beat. Transitioning from an establishing shot of her home it cuts to a point of view shot using the handheld position as it's shaky and life-like. There are also a few third person/over the shoulder shots from the back of the protagonist, concealing her face; connoting how she felt irrelevant and unknown. Some close ups also appear on relatives of the family and when she meets Marshall at his drive way, the star is shown acting for a brief moment who's also presented in old photos. For representation, he's seen to be genuine as he's dressed up in his usual outfit, driving his car out of his home as if he's doing his daily chores.

Editing is used such as the flash back technique that had a sepia special effect to show that the clips and photos were from the past. After a fade transition of the protagonist driving away in a panning, high angle shot, a blur effect was used on the headlights of her car as she left the driveway telling us that it was sad for Marshall to see her go and part ways. Lip syncing was not used in the music video.
For mise-en-scene, it has a more realistic look on life, as we observe through her eyes in her home. However the whole music video takes place in Detroit, Michigan where the setting is around a neighborhood and in front of Eminem's home.

Although it's about Eminem's life, many people can relate to him and this alone has been a factor to encourage people to buy his records. This one in particular would target a wide range from late teens to adults (17 - 30). The ideas I would use for my own would include the camera techniques; to use the first person perspective as well as the stills shown at the beginning.