Angus And Julia Stone - Big Jet Plane (Textual Analysis 2)

Written by: Angus Stone, Julia Stone and Govinda Doyle
Genre: Folk, Acoustic
Structure: Narrative
Director: Kiku Ohe       

The narrative plot shows the life a female protagonist working the late shift at a large supermarket store who in the video is repetitively stacking and unstacking the shelves. Clear to the audience this is not the lifestyle she desires and wishes to travel the world. Towards the end of the video the woman is riding in a car with her hair blowing behind her. The music video ends with the girl spraying the windows at her work job showing that the girl still has the same lifestyle.

The music video is a narrative piece and is conventional of a indie folk song due to the nature of the song.

The female protagonist is presented in  blue jeans, a black t-shirt and her work overalls. Throughout the video, this is the only clothing we see the woman in which could suggest that she feels as though her only purpose is to work. The clothing she wears are plain and are simple colours which contrasts with the lifestyle that she wants which is shown when she puts the black guitar sunglasses on which suggests she wants a rock star lifestyle. As guitars often are associated with rock music. Also as the girl is wearing a cream overall as her work uniform it suggests that she is restricted in being herself and has to settle to just being another work colleague.  The girl wears bright pink nails which give connotations of youth and freedom but this is the only bright colour we see on the girl reinforcing the idea that she is restricted in what she wants to do. The man on the television (Angus Stone) has wild brown hair and beard which gives the audiences connotations of being free and not caring what people think.

The opening shot of the females hair blowing in front of the sun gives connotations of freedom and by using the warm colours it suggests that the woman is on  holiday. This follows with the close up of the girl having her hair blown by the fan, this contrasts with the initial idea of her being in the sun showing how she is limited in what she can do. By having the females eyes closed it suggests to the audience that she is  in fact dreaming to be in the sun matching the style of the music.
The extreme close up of the clock ticking could connote how time is quickly passing, so that her chances of her going on holiday or flying away are quickly slimming. By having the field of depth shot of the twinking bright lights and the girls hand in front it shows how the woman is dreaming of flying away matching the non diegetic sound of the music. The over head shot is used to show the girl sweeping up colourful confetti and stars, by using this the audience find out how insignificant her job is and would rather sweep up the small things like confetti because she does not enjoy it. This shot may also have been used to represent how sweeping up the confetti and stars she is infact 'sweeping' up her hopes and dreams accepting that she will not be able to travel. The long shot of the world map and with travel clippings surrounding it, reinforces her dreams of travelling around the world. As the lights are flashing above it gives an urgency in that she has to fly or travel soon and also shows that it is a constant desire of her to fly.

Throughout the video, the edits are usually straight cut edits and between each cut there is a large delay to the next shot. These edits match the pace and beat to the music making the video seem calm and sobering. At 2:59 the shot is edited to show the extreme close up of the womans eye, the use of this and the flashing light matches the beat of the music and shows how she drastically wants her life to change. When the shot is on the girl in the car, the edits are very delayed which connotes that the girl wishes she was no longer working and infact in the sun.


In total
18 close up shots
12 long shots
4 field of depth shots
7 medium close up shots
1 pan shots