Basic information: The music video is directed by Rich Lee and was partly filmed on the streets of Newark, New Jersey in early May. The video premiered on June 5, 2010 in the states and on June 6th in the UK. The record is produced by eminem's company "Shady records"
Eminem presents two images within the music video, one is the version we first see on top of a sky scraper, he’s wearing a leather jacket, jeans and decent trainers overall he looks clean cut and successful but not overly corporate as his clothing isn’t particular formal. This would appear to represent the success he has had in his professional career and is reflected in one of the first lines which is “I guess I had to come from there to get here” implying he has achieved something and got somewhere of note. The contrast to this is the Eminem we see in the darkly lit dingy basement; here he is wearing a vest (which he refers to as a “his wife beater” which is common American slang for vest) and dark jeans, this dirty unkempt appearance seems to be used to reflect the hard work and gritty side of what he does. The jump from the image of him in one set of clothing to this other provides a juxtaposition and aids in highlighting the contrast between what the outside world sees of him and how he appears in his more private life.
Eminem performs throughout the song, but he isn’t simply on stage or in a studio going through the basic motions of a music video, he emotes his performance using his whole body to translate the feeling and mood of the song, he performance stretches throughout the streets of the city where people can see him and contrasts with the practice style performance he has in his basement, again this seems to represent the contrast between what the public see and all the hard work that goes in to making it. Overall though there isn’t a particularly specific iconography to Eminem’s image, the leather jacket and jeans could just as easily be worn by someone like Chad Kroeger of Nickelback and his vest and jeans could be the lead singer of a metal bands outfit, there is no majorly defining feature of Eminem that relates him to the rap genre.
The videos imagery represents what the song tells us about his life and his journey, how he was trapped and broken then broke down the confines that encaged him to reach new heights, we first see him break out of the cellar, this represents how he first broke out as an artist then we see him slowly entrapped by mirrors suggesting he became a prisoner of himself following this (which could relate to his personal issues with drugs etc.) The eventual climax comes where Eminem reaches what appears to be the edge of the world as everything just drops away, he steps of in to this void highlighting the “not afraid” aspect of the song. An interesting way in which the other section of the chorus line (“we’re not alone”) is highlighted by the fact for the most part of the video Eminem is in fact alone but he is confident, un-fearing as if to say although he is appearing alone on screen he isn’t actually alone. There are some more specific examples of lyrics being related to what is happening in the video such as the line “You can try and read my lyrics of this paper before i say them but you won’t take the sting out of these words before I say them.” At this point Eminem throws the piece of paper he’d been holding up at the camera in an obvious visualisation of what he just said.
The song is classed in the rap/hip hop genre of music. There aren’t many key features of the video which relate to this genre, Eminem himself is a very well known rapper and one of the icons of the rap world so it could be said that by featuring in the video he is a form of iconography for the rap genre. The video initially starts with a fair degree of realism, the un-realistic features build up over time with the music, the first unrealistic part is when he walks between moving traffic without being hit, the video then gets more surreal as mirrors enclose Eminem, next he’s punching through brick walls the worlds dropping away and he begins to fly ultimately this change from realism to fantasy and surreal helps further represent the journey of the song.
I found the most dramatic shots to be the parallel ones in which he breaks out of his two prisons (one of mirrors and one of brick). The light that floods in to the shot when he breaks down these walls is perfect and everything about them is dead on what you want to see from someone breaking out. An interesting part of this is that the two very similar shots are ran in parallel, some may see this as a lazy and repetitive but i think it’s meant to represent the two prisons he is confined to, the brick one is representative of any physical confines he faces and the mirror prison is more of a metaphor for being a prisoner of himself and all the mental restraints placed on him by himself overall this adds to the dynamism of the song. A real example of a stereotypical music video is the fact that a lot of close up shots of the performer are demanded and the “not afraid” video is no different but the close ups of the performer aren’t just for publicity they are also because the focus of a rap video are the performer and his lyrics.
Most believe that the video is set in the city were Eminem grew up as the song and video are more of a metaphor for his life journey this would seem to make sense and be a logical setting. The only things that Eminem interacts with are the walls of the “prisons” and the sheet of lyrics at the start of the video. The lyric sheet obviously relates to lines in the song and Eminem’s profession, and the meanings of the prisons have already been discussed. The lighting in particular in the break out scenes seems to be key, in the basement it is dingy dark and dirty and then later in outside shots it’s very bright to the point of being over exposed creating an almost dreamy, surreal feel. The contrasting lighting seems representative of where he came from and where he is now. Special effects play a large part towards the end of the video when Eminem takes flight in particular. They are used to achieve this effect which represents him being free and feeling like he is able to do anything. Tying in to this form of flight through a city is some intertextuality as whilst in flight he looks allot like the superhero “Hancock” from the film of the same name which is interesting because the journey Hancock takes in the film (from alcoholic to superhero) is similar to story this song is trying to tell. The other piece of intertextuality is the basement which looks allot like a location from “8 mile” which is a film based around Eminem.
The lyrics and the visuals are tied together in many ways, the entire idea of not being afraid and being able to do anything is what the song and visuals are all about. The line “not afraid” is key as Eminem pretty much jumps of the edge of the world, other lyrical-visual links can be seen in the opening scenes with the lyric sheet, which has been explained earlier on. There’s also the multiple visual metaphors for not being afraid such as walking through moving traffic and running through a brick wall. In summary the message of this song can be found in the opening lines
“Yeah, it’s been a ride...
I guess I had to go to that place to get to this one
Now some of you might still be in that place
If you're trying to get out, just follow me
I'll get you there”
Basically it’ll be a hard journey but you’re not alone and so long as you’re not afraid you can get to where you want to go.
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