My Favourie Music Video

My favourite music video is 'Stan' by Eminem. It's such a poignant video that adds a lot of value to the music itself.

'Stan' tells the story of an obsessed fan named Stan who is writing a letter to his idol, Eminem. The song is sung from Stan's viewpoint for the first three quarters of the song, and Eminem's for the last quarter. The video sees Stan become increasingly obsessed with his idol, sticking Eminem's photo over his girlfriend's (played by Dido) face in a photo of the couple and even dying his hair to look like the rapper. However, Stan's obsession goes too far when his pregnant girlfriend stands in the way of him 'being with' the man he wants.

This video is effective for many reasons. Firstly, the way the video plays out the song exactly as the story is being told is ingenious. Most videos try not to be too literal with the lyrics of the song as is looks amateurish. However, this video strikes the right balance between story telling and mimicking the lyrics exactly.

The use of actors in the video also adds value to it. Devon Sawa plays Stan and Dido, who was then an upcoming artist, plays his girlfriend. As Eminem is not in the video constantly like some music videos, it allows the audience to focus more on the song rather than the singer. The casting for the video was also a fist class choice, both the actors played the parts excellently and convincingly which made the video even more entertaining to watch.

The mise en scene of the video also compliments the song well. Grey, black and white feature heavily in the video giving it a very simple look, but it also makes the mood of the video seem melancholy and eerie. The simple costumes and make-up of the actors makes them seem like ordinary people making the video seem more relatable to watch.

All of these factors make this a truly brilliant video that really add value to the song. The video also featured on 'Channel 4's 100 Greatest Music Videos' and came in at number 31.

I'm clearly not the only one who thought it was an amazing video!