Kanye West- All of the Lights music video analysis

The music video to Kanye West’s ‘All of the Lights’ is very effective because it combines narrative, performance and lyrics on screen to create a fast paced and gripping music video from start to finish.

The video begins with narrative of a little boy, seemingly lost. This is created through the use of close ups so that the audience identifies with the character. Mise-en-scene is used here to create the feeling of a cold winters day in the inner city. The sequence is also edited in black and white to symbalise that this happened in the past. Further in the video, excerpts of narrative are shown again, this time edited with flashing colours over the top. This effective because it keeps up with the fast pace of the song while still providing a refreshing change to the performance. This different take on editing a sequence to look like memories also helps us identify that the narrative shown is the artist.

Another way in which the video is effective is through the use of the lyrics on screen at the beginning and end of the music video.  The lyrics appear in all different colours and formats and are edited quickly to create a flashing or lighting effect, in reference to the title. This is effective because it breaks the video up and offers an alternative and interesting way to relate to the lyrics. It also enables the audience to familiarise themselves with the title of the song, as it appears repeatedly, and the artists of the song as at the end of the video all the names come on screen as the lyrics did so before them. This is a clever and effective technique as it is the last image that the audience will see and makes it highly likely that the audience will either remember the song title or the artist so that they can easily seek it to purchase. It also offers a refreshing and new type of music video.

In between the narrative inserts and on screen lyrics, the music video to ‘All of the Lights’ is performance based. The mise-en-scene plays an important and effective part in the performances because the artists appear on just a black background with a spotlight. This draws the attention soley to the performer so that the audience concentrates on them and makes an effective contrast to the rest of the bright and flashing images and lyrics in the music video, drawing even more attention to the power and importance of the performances. This also evokes the image to the audience of impressiveness of the vocals and creates a star image.