Guns \'N Roses Music Video Project I

¶ … Guns 'N Roses Music Video Project

I am extremely proud of the finished essay, mainly because I think that I arrived at a cogent, complete paper due to my extensive pre-planning. The first step in my process involved doing preliminary research, which mainly consisted of re-watching the video a couple of times and analyzing the images and lyrics. During my re-watch, I brainstormed some ideas I had about the content, namely trying to find the differences between the song and the visuals. Once I had done that, I set up an outline of the major points I wanted to make about the differences. Then I did further research into sources to back up my claims. Next I did a bare bones draft which included all the information I wanted in the final draft but did not focus on persuasive or interesting language. Once that was finished, I revised my paper, paying close attention to grammar and editing issues and making the language more dynamic.

As I mentioned, my primary research for the assignment surrounded an examination of the music video. This was located via a simple web search, though retrieving a complete, "official" copy on YouTube took some time. A good deal of time was also spent evaluating these sources, as I knew I needed them for the final paper but I wanted to make sure that I understood both thoroughly. Once that was complete, I did a search of online databases (including Google Scholar and Questia) of scholarly writing related to both Guns 'N Roses in general and the video in specific. There was far less material on the subject than I had anticipated. I was finally able to find two articles which contained thoughtful criticism of the video from different perspectives. I thought about the arguments made in those essays and found that they contained relevant material to back up my points. Namely, the sources were useful in their descriptions of the lavishness of the video, their analysis of the video's religious allusions, their analysis of the central guitar solo, and their discussion of the larger implications of the video in terms of its messages about love and life.

I think that in order to have a good paper, one must focus on polishing the thesis, which is the foundation for all the rest of the writing. I spent a lot of time making sure that my thesis expressed my feelings in a persuasive yet direct way. The thesis reads:

Overall the video muddles the straightforward message of the song, which is exemplified by the plea, 'If you want to love me, then Darlin' don't refrain'; it opts for lush but heavy-handed imagery of religion and death over the simple sentiment of the desperation of almost-lost love.

It contains the active verb "muddles" which indicates that I view the video in an overall negative light and also implies the confusion between the video's content and that of the song. It also contains a reference to the lyrics -- specifically what is in my opinion the most meaningful and representative lyric of the song's intent. The thesis also contains both the pro and con of the video's images (namely that they are "lush" and "heavy-handed"). Also it ties in reference to the specific themes of religion, death, and love that the paper goes on to explore.

There were a couple of difficult aspects of this assignment overall, specifically in the research and in the mixture of elaboration and self-editing the paper required. I have discussed the fact that the research was trying, because cursory searches did not yield much discussion of this video in specific. While it was time-consuming, once I found the sources I used, I found them to be very helpful and pertinent. As to my second point, I found that some areas of the video were rife with interesting things to discuss and others were not as fruitful, but all had to be covered. I would have liked to write on and on about all the different settings of the video (Axl's bedroom, the concert hall, both churches, the reception, the graveyard, etc.) but I had to focus on a few to make my point in a more concise fashion. Conversely, I did not feel that there was much to be derived from the little evidence that the video gives about why Slash leaves the wedding and plays his guitar solo in the field. The fact that one of my support articles discussed this scene at length certainly informed my reading of the video.