KT Tunstall – Suddenly I seeFor my first video analysis I looked at the song ‘Suddenly I see’ by KT Tunstall. The song is classed as several different genres such as Female Vocalist, Indie and Pop etc… But as an artist KT Tunstall considers her work to be of the pop genre. The song was released in 2006 and used for the introduction to the film The Devil wears Prada.

The video to KT Tunstalls song Suddenly I see opens with a tracking shot following a car whilst buildings around the frame grow and appear, this could suggest that world around her in her mind is growing and judging by the song title ‘Suddenly I see’ could suggest that she’s now seeing what’s going on around her. Starting of with a tracking shot helps to bring the audience along with the character as the song progresses, it is usually quite typical of a indie pop video to follow a character around using this technique.

The camera then zooms into the character in the car framing her at the centre of the screen focusing attention on her who starts singing the lyrics which conveys that the song is about her as the first lyric is “Her face is a map of the world” and “You can see she’s a beautiful girl”

The fact that she is riding in a taxi conveys her sense of not feeling in control of her own life and that it is somebody else, in this case the taxi driver, who is passing her dreams outside the window. The song follows her journey of getting control over it and embracing her dreams.The video carries on to a long shot of the road ahead with the surrounding buildings made out of speakers. This shows her passion for music. The long shot could suggest that her passion for music is far away in the distance, this could relate to the artist herself as in interviews done with her she found it hard to get into the music industry and it seemed like a dream so far away in her mind.The animation technique used is used in other pop music videos such as a song my Michael Jackson called ‘Just leave me alone’ a screenshot of the video is below

Later on the video everything gets put into perspective by her in the way the car she was in drives onto the palm of a giant hand which you later find out is the hand of the artist herself; this could show that all the things she may have thought were big and important were now irrelevant and trivial and that she now has realized what she wants and is taking control of her life. This scene is fairly surreal and is typical of indie videos to be surreal and strayed from reality.

The video in general is showing the audience the progression in her life from how she felt trapped in the taxi behind the window and is now walking around freely leading her own life. An example of this progression is shown here.

1. 2.In the first picture she is inside the car being driven by somebody and also it looks as if she encaged behind the suspension cables of the bridge and in the second picture she is now on top of the bridge walking and leading herself at her own pace showing the development of the artist through the duration of the song.The idea of freedom and individuality is common throughout

There are a lot of strong vibrant colours throughout which usually conveys happiness, blacks and darker colours are usually associated with sadness and evil so the use of bright colours does the exact opposite. In a lot of other videos of this genre bright vibrant are also used, this shows a constant theme being used in a lot of similar videos.

The setting around looks as if the props are cardboard cut outs, this could show that she can make the world around her whatever she wants it to be, this is a reoccurring theme by personalising the world around you.This an extreme long shot showing her walking around the world.

Obvious hanging cut out clouds on strings

She’s not a cut out like everything else and is also bigger than everything else showing power

The houses are a lot smaller than her

Buildings made of speakers

This is a long shot of her sitting in a tree playing guitar, this lyrics at this point say “Suddenly I see this is what I want to be” This shows that she’s suddenly realised after walking around thinking about things that music is her future. The way she begins to perform the song happens mostly after she becomes ‘Free’ in the world.