Prior to watching this music video, I saw Kina's interview on Ellen which intrigued me and lead me to watching it!
Initial reaction: What are your immediate thoughts and observations when you view the music video?
Initially, my thoughts are... WOW! This music video is 100% stop-motion animation associated with jelly beans! Almost everything is made of jelly beans in this music video from beginning to end. How can that not interest you? This music video is cool and it must have involved a lot of tedious work. The great thing about it too, is that the music itself is compatible with the video -it's mellow.
Analysis and interpretation: Describe the Principles of Media Arts as they appear in the music video. Why do you think the musician, musical group, or director created this music video? What themes are promoted in this video? Are they aligned with Gospel Values, or do they counter them?
In the video, the ironic thing is, media art is the least thing involved and the thing that was worked with for the least amount of time. This particular blog enabled us to compare videos from back then and now, this video was not a good example of the typical videos now. It is totally out of the norms! Which is why it is so good, the artist herself stated "I wanted my video to be unique".
Kina Grannis is not a regular famous artist. She is actually only YouTube famous. The purpose of this video was just so she could upload her song on YouTube with a video to express her art. Exactly as pointed out, you cannot just make a song anymore. Usually, to capture people's interests on your song, you would need a visual component, especially with an artist like Kina Grannis, she is only starting out, and she needs to capture her audience's interests.
The theme promoted in this video is to help people be aware of jelly bean art. As for the lyrical component, it is just another love song. She is speaking of her experiences with some guy she likes and how she will always be with him. In my opinion, they neither align nor counter Gospel Values. But if I must answer, Jesus said, "Love others as I have loved you" and she is technically loving this guy and letting him know she cares for him and will always trust him. It is not the best example and it does not really relate that well, but it is the closest thing I can think of.
Consideration of cultural context: What events may have influenced the musician, musical group, and director to create this music video?
The video below shows the making of this music video. In it, she explains how the director once introduced her to the form of art which is jelly bean. She wanted a unique music video and I can honestly say that I have never seen another music video that involved: 288, 000 jelly beans, 22 months, 1,357 hours, 30 people, 2 ladders and one still camera. Her and her director may have been influenced by other people's jelly bean art but she probably influenced just as much people with her video.
Expression of aesthetic judgment: How does the cinematography, acting and performance, choreography, storyline, special effects, lyrics, and musicality work together in the music video? How do the visuals affect your admiration or disdain for the song?
The cinematography, acting and performance, choreography, story-line, effects, lyrics and musicality work together in the music video in a way that they all relate, they flow together well. The cinematography is done well; it is just a still camera with images in a slide-show creating the effect of a video not made in just pictures? Did that make sense? hahah basically the cinematography involves stop-motion animation. As for the acting and performance, it looks like she is acting but it is just her posing differently in each slide. It was really good considering the fact that she looked like she was just moving casually. As for choreography, she posed so many different times and each pose was planned a certain way and in a certain position in order to fit the slide perfectly so that it flowed with the one before and after. The choreography was so good and it was a lot of tedious work. The story-line matched the lyrics well. Each picture incorporated the way she spent time with the guy which was depicted in the song. There really wasn't any special effects except for the way they sketched a picture, digitally re-sketched it and turned it into jelly bean art. As for musicality, Kina Grannis would not be recognized if her music was not good. She started from YouTube, the only place where you yourself can try to be famous without a producer, auditions and such. She is obviously good considering the fact that she has well over 96 million subscribers.
The visuals affect my admiration for the song in a way that the only reason why I was originally attracted to the song was because of the visuals. It's that attractive!
Ongoing reflection: How has your chosen music video influenced your reception of the song?
This video has influenced my reception of the song in such a way that the only reason why I even took interest in it was because of how much others raved about it enough to get it on Ellen. The video appealed to me first before the song did. I genuinely like the song now, but I probably never would have heard of it or searched it up if I had not heard about the video first.