“Just the way you are” is a song by American Hip-hop/Pop singer-songwriter Bruno Mars, from his debut studio album, “Doo-Wops & Hooligans”. The album was realised in 2010 on July the 20th. The music video of the song was directed by Ethan Lader, and was realised worldwide on September 8, 2010. The song “Just the way you are” was written by The Smeezingtons, Khalil Walton and Needlz and produced by The Smeezingtons and Needlz. The music video also gained popularity by featuring Nathalie Kelly in it. She also featured in the film “Need for Speed” meaning that she is a recognised figure, this also means that people would watch the video just for her appearance. The song has been added to Radio 1 A Playlist in the United Kingdom, and was consider “just the way you are (Amazing)”. The song won the Grammy Award for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance.
The lyrics of the song and music are visually mimicked to audience. Bruno Mars makes images out media tape in the cassette in the video, which was inspired by the Artwork of Erika Iris Simmons. Just the way you are music video has been criticised that the choice to act model Nathalie Kelley defeats the object of the song. This is because when Bruno Mars says, “When I see your face, there's not a thing that I would change, Cause you're amazing, Just the way you are” and compliments Nathalie Kelly, when most of audience would like Nathalie Kelly just the way she is anyways. This was one of the YouTube comments: “The video would make more sense if the girl wouldn’t look like a gorgeous model! A more average looking girl would make the video slightly more beautiful. But that’s just my opinion.” But in my opinion I think starring Nathalie Kelly in the video was a good market strategy and it will encourage more people to view the video, also enlarges the target audience.
The music video starts on with the actress Nathalie Kelley listening to “just the way you are” on her music player. Bruno Mars stops the music player and get the cassette out of the Walkman and makes images from media tape of the cassette on the table. The instrumental of the song begins in the background as Bruno Mars pulls the media out of the cassette tape and organize it on the table in to letters forming his name followed by the song title. Following that Bruno creates image of a drum, on the table using tape media, Bruno Mars continued making images out media tape through out the video, which also included a portrait of Nathalie blinking her eyes and portrait of Bruno singing. Most of the images in the video use a mix of motion graphics, CGI (Computer-generated imagery) and real-time recording. CGI (Computer Generated Imagery) is software used for computer graphics or 3D computer graphics to give special effect in video games, films, television, commercials etc. The images look very artistic so it will draw artistic people towards the video and encourage viewing the video more.
The convention of this genre of music is that the artist plays the main role of the music video, along side the Nathalie Kelley. In “Just the way you are- Bruno Mars” music video there appears to be a love story, of a couple, and how much Bruno Mars loves Nathalie Kelley and how he thinks she is perfect the way she is, she doesn’t need to change and also signs his feelings about her. He also creates Nathalie Kelley’s face out cassette’s media tape and than plays the piano towards the end of the video, showing us he is also musically talented, that he can play the piano as well as sing. There are not many frequent cuts and most of the camera shots are medium or zoomed in to the faces of the characters to see the reaction and facial expressions. The emotions showed by the characters were happy, smiley, joyful and calm and it goes well with the genre of the music. This help builds calm, relaxing and comfortable mood on the screen. They also edited the video by using fast motion when Bruno Mars makes images out of media tape from the cassette to save time.
The music is supported by the visual in this video, for an example, when there is bell and drums played in the instrumental, a bell and drum can be seen and is as if they’re being played, which matches up together. “When I see your face, there’s not a thing that I would change, because you’re amazing, just the way you are”. This is a line from lyrics included in video and in the video it is as if he is signing those words to the actress, describing the way he feels towards her like Andrew Goodwin identified “There is a relationship between lyrics and visuals”. Bruno also tries to impress the actress by playing the piano. Some of the shots used where it’s a close up of Bruno Mars to capture his facial expression and to also make the audience feel as if he is singing those words to the actress. The lyrics also match the visual in another way, when Bruno sings about her hair and eyes, which is shown cleverly through the use of moving the media of the cassette tape into shape of her face, hair and eyes.
The mise en scene in this music video is cleverly linked to the lyrics of the song. For e.g: Bruno Mars sings, “Because you’re amazing, just the way you are”. This implies that he feels as if she’s perfect the way she is and he loves her because the way she is. He is saying this because the actress is wearing clothes that could be viewed as quite lazy and isn’t dressed up. Another feature of mise en scene used is the lighting. The lighting is placed behind each person through the windows as if it’s the sun shining through into the building; this helps to set a happy mood on the set. It also helps to focus on his feelings for this woman. This is also shown through the body language that they both show, and how the girl is getting embarrassed to hear these nice words from the boy.
In our media music video project we will not have any character singing the song as we will be performing acts on base of the lyrics on the song but, I am also thinking to keep a love theme like done in “Just the way you are- Bruno Mars” music video. In my opinion the message of “Just the way you are- Bruno Mars” music video is that, you should like your boyfriend or girlfriend or wife or husband for what they are and how they are.
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