Music Video Analysis: Lil Wayne - 6 Foot 7 foot (Ft. Cory Gunz)

Media Conventions And Representations


Lil Wayne's "6 Foot 7 foot" video is one of the most literal videos I have seen. The video (directed by Hype Williams) was largely inspired by the film Inception; it consists of numerous shots and clips which visualize many of the metaphors and similies Lil wayne uses in the song. This music video is so literal in terms of displaying a visual image that every few seconds the shot changes to match almost every lyric he says. However you can see that the main theme within the video is Inception. There are dozens of shots and images which imitate the film, this is show in the first few seconds: 

Rapper Lil Wayne falling in bathtub

Film character Cobb falling in bathtub

Here we see that the exact scene has been copied of 'Cobb' falling into the bathtub. This is used effectivey as from this scene the video jumps into a metephorical state where it shows Lil Wayne in a variety of shots, scenes and situations. I have picked out numerous shots and the underlying meaning behind them.


Lil Wayne is seen as the 'general'

This shot is quite interesting; it displays Lil Wayne in the forefront with the other artists in the background. This is because all the rappers in the shot are part of the group YMCMB; Lil Wayne is seen as the leader of this group so it makes sense for him to be in the forefront and this is reinforced by the 'general' jacket and hat to show that he is the leader or in charge.

'Syncronized swimmers'

During this shot Lil Wayne says the lyrics: 'two bitches at the same time, syncronised swimmers'. This is visually displayed by a shot of two twin females represented as 'bitches' in swimming costumes.

Young Money 'Running shit'

In this shot you see Lil Wayne running and beating female runners to get to the finish line. Again this relates to the lyrics as he says: 'Young Money running shit and you niggas just runners up'. Also the fact that the female runners are in the background shows the dominance of the opposing male in hip-hop videos. Also the slow motion technique is used to make the scene more dramatic but I think the overall affect they were trying to create was a lighthearted 'immation' of a slow motion race.

In this particular shot, this copies the inception theme again by immitating a scene from the film. They try to replicate this as close as they can by using slow motion effects to mimick the actual shot.

 

'Mind so sharp, turn around and cut my head off'



This was very effective as it combines clever and tricky special effects to literalize his lyrics: 'Mind so sharp, turn around and cut my head off'. They use a white background and darken out the shot of Lil Wayne to make it look more realistic. The editors would have properly of used programs like adobe after effects to give the realism of his head falling off.

This video is full of special effects; this looks like the same person is in the shot six times. This is done by filming differnt shots of him behind a greenscreen and then incorporating this in the scene. The inception theme continues as you can see in the background; they use the dream state theory to immitate and produce their own scene.

The video as a whole, is very unique and different as it is very literal. However I think that this music video can be tediuos because almost everything Lil Wayne raps about is in displayed on the screen. The audience might not apprieciate this style of music video.