Rick Springfield is a Australian singer, songwriter, musician, and an actor. He released the track to ‘Jessie’s Girl’
in 1981, the track reached Number1 in the US and Australian charts, the song then
got Rick a Grammy Award for Best
Male Rock Vocal Performance in 1982. The music video was released in 1991, by BMG
entertainment. The video is performance as well as narrative. The narrative
consists of a man watching Jessie and his girlfriend writing a wall, and
singing about it. It then shows the band performing in a street with the
writing on the wall behind them, and the camera switches to just the main
singer singing and clicking his fingers. Next it shows the band performing on
what seems to be a stage, with bright lights behind them. It then goes on to
show the man walking into ‘Jessie’ and
his girlfriend, and looking ‘rather awkward’, they then walk away and he
watches them as he walks in the other direction with their arms around one
another. In the next part of the narrative the man is washing his face in the
mirror and when he looks in the mirror he can see himself performing with Jessie’s
girlfriend in the background, he then breaks the mirror. It is basically him wishing
that Jessie’s girlfriend is his.
In the music video a two
shot is shown of Jessie and his girlfriend to represent how they are separate
from the man and together as a couple. There is also a group shot used of the
band to show how they are one as a band, and are performing. Close ups are used
on only the man, to show his emotions; how he is jealous when he sees them
together, and his expression when he is singing. Another close up is used on
the man when he is seeing himself in the mirror; this shows his reaction to
seeing the girlfriend in it. At this point there is also an over the shoulder
shot used to show the man looking in the mirror, this shows us that it is
actually him looking in the mirror, and we can see both his face and his body. The
costumes of the band and of the man are all dark and plain, where as Jessie and
his girlfriend are dressed more brightly, this could represent how the couple
are happy together, but the man is jealous and sad. Most of the settings used
in this music video are plain, or simple, with the exception of the garden the
man walks into. This could once again represent how the couple are happy (because
of the colours), and he is not. Similarly to this the lighting throughout is
very dark and harsh, (with the garden exception), with very strong bright light
used on the man’s face, this emboldens his emotions. Editing in this has been
kept quite fast-paced, however is a shot lasts a longer period of time then the
editing is slower.
As far as Goodwin’s seven goes
this music video does conform to some of the aspects. Firstly it demonstrates certain
genre characteristics through the performance and guitar playing which shows
they are a rock-type band. Secondly, this music video has many close ups of the
lead singer (not actually sure if it is Rick though?!), which as suggested by
Goodwin is because of the demands of the record label. There is a relationship
between lyrics and visuals, as when the man sings “Jessie is a friend” at the
beginning of the song, he is shown to be looking at Jessie. There is many more examples
of moments like that. Finally there is a slight relationship between music and
visual, as when the beat speeds at the end (about 1:40) the actions on the
screen change in time with the music.
I do lik this music video
because of the mix of narrative and performance. I think the producer fitted in
the performance very well with the storyline off the narrative, Its showing to
me, how he is singing out his feelings because he can’t actually tell her,
because “Jessie is a friend”. I find inspiration in that longer shots promote
slower editing, this may be something Amy and I could use in our music video!
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