MV Opinion: Big Sean - Halfway Off The Balcony

Honestly, Big Sean is my all-time favorite rapper. I don’t think I ever listen to other people’s music more than I do Big Sean’s. As an aspiring cinematographer, this music video really works with a lot of the stuff that I’m into. I get a lot of my ideas for film, poetry, storylines, etc etc from listening to music and watching music videos like this (really anything that deals with abstract concepts or shall I say “transcendental” ideas, all separate from the norm). You can compare my aesthetic to surrealism, I take Salvador Dali as one of my personal favorite surrealist artist all solely because of the unique mindset that he uses to create his pieces. Hopefully that helps to segway into my opinions and why I thought this mv was great. First off, the cinematography was amazing in here. Despite being a pretty slow-paced song, the music video really helped to evoke a great deal of emotion without having to stoop to using the standard mv strobe editing (which I’m not so bothered by, but am really glad that it wasn’t used in here). There’s this idea of wanting to go with the music, especially for editing, where the shots are edited in a way that reflects either the melody or beat of the song and I find that this mv kept a good distance from that. Off the bat, the color pallet really helped to add more atmosphere for the song itself and visually display a story within each shot; the contrasting colors really helped guide the ambiance without having to say much. The selective lighting is pretty common practice in horror films to provoke this fear of the unknown and I felt that in many of the shots along with the contrasting bright/neon colors, it really helped to build up some tension (maybe not fear but even a slight dread) in the audience. Let’s talk about the mv’s story for a second. I enjoyed the full-circle concept used, where that repeated movement take of the camera is taken from the side of the house to the front showing off the older version of him and then the younger version; at the end the same exact technique is used with camera movement just the characters are switched. People may disagree, but I think it’s very fascinating that the mv was very vague with it’s plot and yet so detailed at the same time (in technicalities). I would consider a video vague if there wasn’t enough detail (dialogue and all) but that wouldn’t be a negative thing in my opinion. What constitutes a “good concept” in my eyes is the fact that there is that subtle, indirect story being told somewhere within the video that is more through showing than telling (moreover because I love abstract things and interpreting and judging is all I really do with my life lol). I don’t have a set a interpretation on the mv at this point, but I’ll shoot this post with an edit (RE) if I come up with something “juicy”. Thanks for making it down here guys, you earn a medal for entertaining me.