'Johnny Cash - Hurt' Music Video Analysis

For our analysis of a music video as part of research into existing products, we as a class watched a music video of a cover of Hurt by Johnny Cash, which was originally done by Nine Inch Nails in 1994. This was one of Johnny Cash's final hits before his death and was critically acclaimed, given best music video by the Grammy Awards.

The video features images and archive footage from Johnny's life and career, from the House of Cash Museum to a prison where he was once banged up, showing the highs and lows of his life.

The video in its entirety is very grainy almost old fashioned in the way it has been edited to look, even though it was 2002 at the time. This gives it a dark look maybe to signify that Cash himself was in a dark place because of his ever decreasing state of health and that he was in an unstable state emotionally.

The video was shot in his house surrounded by antiques that seem to clutter the place up. These are possibly what Cash has Collected and been given over the years and it gives a sense of the life he once had.

Another shot sees the American flag fluttering with great power and the connotations we get from this is that Cash is a True American, and American icon, important and the he's living the American dream.

As mentioned at the start we are shown the House of Cash Museum. To have a museum totally dedicated to you is a true honour and it's this, that lets you know that you're at the ultimate level of fame. That Cash was at the highest point of popularity you can get.

Archive footage dominates the second half of the video, but little snippets are found near the start but they are irregular, because it's mostly Johnny Cash himself at his house sitting alone. Some of the footage are of films that he has done, personal home videos and shots of him performing on stage. This shows the good times of his career.

Another feature in the video is a picture of his mother on the wall and at the same time the lyrics are sang "Everyone I know, goes away in the end". Which gives us a clear message that people close to him are suddenly disappearing and leaving including his mother years ago that he didn't cope with very well.

We can see from the video of his house, possessions and footage the he is of great wealth and power, however we see him sitting on a thrown at a table full of food all alone not looking very happy, which is evident from him pouring wine all over the food (which incidentally is red wine, which is to signify blood and God). This is a sign that you can have everything but if your alone it's not going to make you happy. After all this song is about reflection and regret of his past life, like when he tampered with drugs and was sent to prison.

Towards the end of the video we are shown a fast montage of everything that was to do with him. It features his performances, parts from 'The Johnny Cash Show' which was his talk show, films, the music video it's self. Also it features shots of Christ dragging his cross and being nailed to it which looks like it's from a separate film entirely.

'TYSON: THE MOVIE' Documentary analysis

In our second Media lesson we watched a diographical documentary about Mike Tyson and his life and career. Told mostly by himself together with archive footage of famous fights, contraversial interviews and personal home videos and pictures.

Before the film opens, we see credits bizarrely done in all random different colours, but it quickly became apparent that this was done deliberatly to demonstrate the randomness of Tyson's life. Dark colours used for obvious reasons, red used also to represent bad and serious times and of course bright colours used to represent the happy times or the highs of his career and life. Like winning the fight that made him champion.

The film opens with the Rocky Balboa soundtrack which is quite fitting as the Rocky films are almost a mirror of Tyson's career of ups and downs and an unlikely boxing coach that gets him too the top.

As with a mojority of films, the film started with an establishing shot taken from past archive footage of a boxing ring warming up for a extremely important and well anticipated, at the time, fight that would make either side world champion. The footage had probably have been edited differently from the origional television live broadcast to give it a even bigger build-up. With the close ups switching from each competitor. As this is occuring the soundtrack is still playing but quietly as to not drown out the diagetic sound of the audience cheering, however this maybe non-diagetic and edited in to add to the build-up, also the comentary from the comentators of the fight at the time. All these elements make this all seem more like an actual movie, rather than actual footage. It's clearly existing footage because of the grainy look and can tell its more than likely footage from sometime in the 80's.

The fight has been edited cleverly to emphasise the big hits and blows the Tyson's apponent endured. The use of split screen has been encorporated to show multiple shots of the fight, and two shots in synergy but giving different angles of the fight. Plenty of freeze frames are used too. And are used at the point of a punch or heavy blow that Tyson gives, and this emphasises the strength and the power that Tyson has.

To give a more deeper meaning to how powerful and dangerous Mike Tyson is, his name is shown at the start of the film in a fire or flame style look to show his firery temperment. The font its self is very pointy and it's very bold with hardly no curves possibly to demonstrate his masculinity.

What we think is non-diagetic sound is Tysons Voice narrating as he give anecdotes of his life in his own words. This is then paired with a visual of him talking in an interview type style, which is a convention of a documentary.

The narration starts to overlap it's self with more of Tyson's stories and this keeps re-occuring. This could've been done to show his thought in his head that they keep whirling around and seem to not make any sense when they overlap together with his slured words that was most probably a result of repetitively being punched in the face for years.

A dark and shadowed close up of Mike Tyson's face seems to represent the dark periods of his life and the mean, scary persona he has created for himself.