Media Representation: Music Video

Kid British – Our House Is Dadless

The first shots in the music video are establishing shots that have been long shots of the environment where the rest of the music video is going to be set. The first shot shows the audience what type of place the artist refers to as their “house” and it is an over-crowded estate, representing him and his family as potentially the working class. The shots that follow are of the different parts in the estate and have included different types of people starring in them, such as elderly people and students. This shows the overall diversity that you can find within this community that he also finds makes it feel like his home. A lot of the shots used when focusing on people are medium shots, for instance, the first shot of the rapper and the shot of the elderly lady in her garden. This is showing that both age groups are equivalent and neither of them is dominating over the over which then creates an idea image the entirety of the community, despite age, are equal. Alongside this idea, the medium shots of the rapper throughout the video are showing him at eye-level, this increases comfort and makes the audiences feel as if he is talking to us which then creates the idea that we too are equal to him. From the less intimidating shot type we get this feeling because if it were a shot angled higher, we’d believe we are better than him, as he’d be below us, and if it were a worm-eye angle, we’d see him as more powerful than ourselves due to his intimidating height over the camera. The shot has therefore emphasised the feeling that the entire environment is more of a democracy.

As a contrast the video has also shown hand-held camera use when the police officer is attempting to arrest one of the residents, in comparison to the constant smooth pan shots and the medium shots it shows the police officer as an outcast in the environment he doesn’t live in. The idea he is an outsider constructs a viewpoint that the community is tight and...