Kanye West – Homecoming Analysis

We chose the video Homecoming by Kanye West. The genre of the music video is hip-hop and the category is art/narrative. The use of monochrome is used throughout the whole video. Kanye West’s video involves a lot editing. These include the use of silhouette edits on top of camera work, this effect is used to focus on Kanye West to give motifs that emphasis the artist to make him more known to the public, the variety of locations of his hometown are also shown at the same time. Other effects used are slow motion, which is only used a number of times throughout the video and fast pace editing. Green screening is another effect used whilst playing the piano with fireworks as the background, they also used low key lighting give more even further effect.

In this video there is a variety of camera shots and movement, this includes low angle shots and mid shots to focus on Kanye West. There is a close up on the piano, which highlights the use of illustration, which means there is a relationship between music and visual. Inter-cuts show Kanye West performing then quickly change to him walking through the city. Tracking shots and pan shots are also used during the video to focus on Kanye West.

The lighting in the video is the same throughout although at certain parts the lighting is changed when there is a mid shot of Kanye West with the sun in the background and the light from the sun dominates him. The video also includes a decrease in lighting as the lyrics change to night, as does the lighting in the mid shot. This also shows illustration.

Within this video there is a number of locations that relate to the lyrics. The videos set in different places of Chicago. For example there is a medium close up of the DuSable museum of African-American history.

The video features a montage of Kanye West walking through many different areas of his hometown. We chose this music video because it inspired us to do ours this way about Manchester, this also means we can focus on camera shots of locations and buildings, like they do in this video, we can also use editing skills to make our video of high quality.

Goodwin’s Theory

Kanye West’s video refers to Goodwin’s theory as he demonstrates genre characteristics through the things they wear, actions and setting. There is also a relationship between lyrics and visual as well as music and visuals, as the lyrics are about his hometown and the music video is set in his hometown. Also there is a piano in the music that is included in the video. Kanye West is the main person featured in the video which means the focus is all on him, they use a lot of mid-shots on Kanye West to help develop motifs as well as including the buildings into the shot, although he is already a well known artist. In this video the reference to the notion of looking is mainly on Kanye West with the use of mirrors to show buildings around him in distorted way, they also use editing to show a silhouette of Kanye West whilst as well as showing locations.