Music Video Analysis: Sunmi - Gashina

Gashina is a song released by artist Sunmi in August 2017. The plot follows the singer as she develops from a weak character, to someone who realises the power of her femininity. 

The music video starts, with Sunmi's date abandoning her in a diner, with no proper goodbye. 

The car is central in the shot, as it drives away, which emphasises the importance of the man in regards to Sunmi. She sits on the very edge of the left third, barely being in the shot. It asserts her submissive nature and her lack of power to do anything. The faint yellow colour is present through the whole shot, connoting joy and happiness yet the vibe taken from the shot portrays the exact opposite. The area is shown as somewhere that should bring her joy, yet she is miserable due to the feeling that she herself isn't good enough to enjoy a drink alone.

The next shot is a high angle close up, looking down on her face. Her eyes are cast down at first, creating the expression of sadness. As the shot continues, she makes eye contact with the camera and wipes the milkshake from her mouth with her whole hand. The eye contact and angle connotes weakness, and creates the feeling of vulnerability that she feels from being in a powerless situation. 

The scene cuts to a different setting, where Sunmi enters into her home. The colours are pinks and reds, as if she is fantasising about the romance she wishes to feel. Her pink top covers the top half of her body, representing what her heart wants while the long unflattering blue shirt connotes melancholy feelings, and it is the start of her stepping away from the need to feel pretty for someone else and choosing comfort. In her hand is a paper bag which is assumed to contain a bottle of spirits. This has connotations of drinking away the pain of her heartbreak. Her gaze is locked on the floor and she walks slowly to emphasise her sadness at the situation. The high ceiling of the room is captured fully in the wide shot, to draw attention to the empty feeling she has having to remain alone at home.   

In the next shot, her head moves down and the intimate pink lighting of the room switches to a disco light and blue hues. The blue signifies her melancholy feelings, but this contrasts with the party lights that the room adopts. Sunmi changes her weak and limp body language and sits down on the sofa, with her arms back in a very confident position. Her head is still down but her expression shows one of annoyance and confidence. Her legs are opened in an unladylike fashion, and this proves to be the first part of the video where she subverts against the stereotypes of femininity and starts to discover that she can be powerful.

She then moves from the 'party room', and jumps into her bedroom, lading face first on a pile of clothes. For this portion of the video she reverts back to her ideas of femininity, and how she wasn't good enough for the man because she didn't dress well enough for him. The pile of clothes takes up a large portion of the shot, filling the entire bottom of the screen as if superficiality is all that takes up her private time, as she tries to make other people happy rather than herself.

This shot switches between different views of her sorting through her clothes, with a defeated look on her face. Different angles mean different views of her outfit, which is a rather promiscuous looking tight black under dress, which adds to her need to look 'sexy' for someone. She throws clothes around looking fed up of trying to find something.

She eventually rolls out of the room in an unflattering shirt, but takes it off whilst making eye contact with the camera. Close ups emphasis her beauty and portrays her need to make someone fall for her, trying her best to come off as desirable. She is left in a flowery bathing suit, but quickly runs off around the corner of the corridor she was in, glancing over her shoulder fearfully. 

As she comes back around the corner her expression looks fearless, and instead her face depicts determination. Her walk is no longer feminine and 'girly', and each step shows her striding with a clear purpose towards the camera, keeping the eye contact. She wears a bonnet as an addition, giving the feeling of a baby rather than a woman who the character is desiring over. She is dressing for comfort and no longer because it is what someone else wants her to wear.

As she gets closer, the camera stops moving and she places sunglasses over her head. The movement is handheld camera to suggest that she is aiming her focus on the person who left her in the cafe as it is as if it is from his perspective.  He is backing away from her purposeful stride before he stops and she moves close to the camera for a close up shot. She looks up at the camera which is on a high angle and speaks "Why are you leaving the pretty me here and going?", as if she is mocking him for leaving when she knows she is full of worth but he is missing out since he only judges her on her looks.

As the video continues, she falls backwards and into a bath which moves through some curtains. She it the center of the shot, with the blooming flowers surrounding her. This shows the cycle of her feelings about femininity returning to her, apart from this time she is empowered by it. Like the shot of her drinking in her room, she is surrounded by all things pink and 'girly' but it is no longer a weakness to her. 

As it transitions, she is back in the house, still in the bath tub but this time not afraid or feeling weak. She is holding a bouquet of flowers like you would hold a gun, and aiming it to the left as she moves through all the rooms she had appeared in, as if she is threatening her past self not to come back.

The shot then shows Sunmi pointing her right hand towards a balloon, infront of a flowery background. Her costume is all red, and she has a flower headband on. She holds a pink gun and shoots the balloon watching the confetti burst out and fall. She has completely harnessed her femininity and she has burst the 'fun' of the man who left her, having come out a stronger person because of his actions.

 There is then a shot of her walking through a darkly lit corridor, with the same amount of her body in the frame as when she was drinking alone in her home. This time however, she is striding with her head fully tilted up, as she flicks her hair behind her body. Her silhouette from the purple windows makes it seem like night time, again linking to the previous shot. It tells the story that now she is alone she is still confident, and it isn't just a front to convince other people. She wears heels as you might on a night out, because she can go out and enjoy herself and dress how she wants without needing to do it for anyone else. 

Finally, her journey in the bath tub takes her back to where the entire thing began, as she is shown standing up in a low angle shot of the dark diner. Blue light streams in from the window and creates an eerie atmosphere to the setting, as Sunmi still stands in the dark, getting up to face whatever waits for her outside the diner

The lighting goes bring and the shot switches to be a mid shot of Sunmi, keeping her in the central third of the frame and keeping her as the centre of attention. It is from a low angle to portray her as the dominant character, as if she has come back to the diner to finish her relationship properly, with her in control. Paper flies around her in circles, and she is no longer bothered by this as an inconvenience. As one hits her, she doesn't break eye contact with the camera and keeps staring with a powerful gaze into the lens, brushing off any disturbance and not letting unimportant things (such as her ex) distract her from where she deserves to be.

Finally, she rushes from the diner, pushing both the doors open as the camera follows her from behind. She looks back, referencing the shot of her in the house earlier, but this time her run and gaze behind her isn't showing her as a weak character running from something. This time she runs towards the confrontation, ending up infront of the car of the ex who has come back for her.

The final shot shows her running into the headlights of the car, before standing tall and defiantly in front of it, going back to get the message across that she is no longer interested. Even though she positions herself in the way of harm, being in prime position for the car to hit her, she knows she has flipped the table and now holds the power, ending the transformation of femininity weakening her to her being empowered by the same things she used to fear.

From this video, I would like to include the same feelings about femininity and how it can drag someone down to feeling like their worth relies on someone else. I want to use props to recreate elements from the video, such as the flowers. I also want to use the locations well like in this video, where the locations show emotions, and eventually the character has to revisit both the place and the feelings that they had in the beginning.