Eminem's videos have always been one of my favorites so when asked to do an analysis of either his video 'Stan' or George Michael's - 'Outside', i opted for doing Eminem.
The Stan video has always caught my attention from when it first came out as it explicity tells the story described by the lyrics which very few other videos do. There has been a lot of controversy around both the song and the video due to its violent and threatening nature. Despite this, however, it went on to be nominated at the MTV Music Awards 2001 for various categories including best video.
When the video begins you know that it is not going to be happy video due to the setting and colour scheme used. Its very dark and all you can hear is rain and thunder and creepy background music. You can occasionally see flashed of lightening and the camera zooms in to an open window with the net curtains blowing. The audience instantly get an eery feel from this opening which sets up the rest of the song and video. There is then a long introduction before the music begins, introducing the basic story of the video. There is a high angle shot of a pregnant girl in a dingy house lying in an empty bed. We then cut to a shot of a man wearing a white vest and has lots of tattoos bleaching his hair blonde over the sink. We then cut back to a low angle shot of the woman running along a dark, run down corridor. It cuts back to an OTS shot of the man staring longingly into the mirror with a evil grin as his hair turns from brunette to blonde. We then see the girl begin to bang on the door, shouting 'Stanley'. The audience come to the conclusion from this that the man inside the bathroom is called Stanley and that the pair of them are having a child together. There is a high angle shot showing the two areas of the house with the wall dividing them. It is as if signifying the divide in personalities and interests between the couple, that later becomes apparent in the video. We then see a long, low angle shot of the man opening the door to the woman and getting abusive towards her. She says 'I really think you have taken this too far.' after a comment about his hair change which makes the audience think that his erratic, crazy behavior has been going on for a while. As the man, Stanley, slams the door shut the music begins. It sounds like a radio track being played, as if they have turned the radio on in their house and are listening to it, as if blending in with the scene more. This opening scene shows us just how much the couple do not get along but it never tells us the reasons why or what has been going on before. It sets the story up to be quite dark and depressing and so we are expecting an almost tragic or horrific ending. When watching this introduction the lighting and background music reminded me of an opening to a horror movie. It is warning the audience that something bad is going to happen.
The first shot we see of Eminem himself is after this opening introduction. We see a long shot of him sitting on a tour bus or coach with a man handing him mail which we assume to be fan mail. He is not rapping or singing along to the song, which although his setting does not seem to fit in with the rest of the music video so far, still makes him seem like part of the storyline rather than just the singer of the song.
Throughout the video we are constantly being shown a divide between the Stanley and his girlfriend, through the use of setting. At the beginning it was the door, further in its the use of the floor and then later on its the use of walls. It is showing the divide between the couple and the separation between them. Also the camera work also very cleverly does this with their positions in the frame. They will always be on opposite sides of the frames with an object in the middle seperating them. The editing also highlights this detachment too. In one shot we see her sitting alone with her back against a wall, and in the next shot we see him writing a letter facing the opposite side of the wall. It is almost as if the camera is emphasising just how far apart the couple are from each other in emotional terms as well as physical.
The colour scheme throughout the video is very dark and bleak. It is representing a very depressing and sad situation and therefore the use of colour reflects this. Also the scenery is very dismal which signifies just how bad and grotty Stan's life is. It is almost saying that without a life with Eminem, Stanley's life lacks any sense of happiness or colour and is therefore meaningless.
A lot of the cuts during the video are not straight but fades to and up from black. It is a way of showing clipets from their life backing up the lyrics. Some of them are memories from the past, others are showing the time passing between each letter write of Stan's. However they are all used in the same way, to tell the story and to allow the audience to get a deep an understanding as possible in a short space of time.
The video is very different from average music videos because instead of going back to CU's or MCU's as the focal or stable point of the video, instead the focal point seems to be Stan himself. We are constantly cutting back to shots of him in between the other shots telling the story. As the song is supposed to be a narrative from Stan, this is the reason why. Eminem is not the main focal point as he is not the one writing the letters, Stan is. Therefore with Stan as the focal point it makes the story seem a lot more realistic and believable, as if its a true story rather than someone telling the story.
The lyrics of the song mirror the visuals exactly. The lyrics are written as if it is an obsessive fan writing letters to Eminem and the video shows this fan writing the letters and living his life. During the verses where he is supposedly writing the letters, the camera keeps cutting back to shots of him writing in his dark basement to enforce the fact. We occasionally see shots of other things but these shots are placed in due to the lyrics being relevant to them. For example, when he talks about seeing Eminem's concert, we see a shot of him in the front row. It is as if we are seeing his memories as he is writing. We are observers in the video, watching the unravelling of two parts of a story and we hold more knowledge of what is going on than the people actually in the video, for example the dropping of the letters and the suicide.
The weather in the video emphasises the emotions that Stan is feeling when writing the letters. When he gets more angry the thunder and flashes of lightening become more prominent and the sound of the rain is more noticeable. By the third verse where he is about to commit suicide the rain is very heavy and almost masks the sound of the rapping. The lighting flashes are also more regular and the thunder seems to be a lot louder. It is showing how his emotions are becoming stronger and how he is getting more frustrated and angrier by the situation.
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