Final MV Analsysis: Can't Catch Me Now (Oliviva Rodrigo)

 Can't Catch Me Now

- Oliva Rodrigo - 

Release date: November 13, 2023

Duration: 3:36 (3 minutes 36 seconds) 

(Co-)writers and/or producers: Dan Nigro and Olivia Rodrigo

Genre: Indie/Folk Pop

Style of Music Video: Narrative/Concept-based with Intertextuality element to the film "The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes". 

The overall meaning: 

Written for the sequel of one of the most successful dystopian films, The Hunger Games, "Can't Catch Me Now" by Olivia Rodrigo captures the core message of the movie "Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes" - Even if I'm gone, you can't control me, silence me or erase my impact.  

Through the context of the "The Hunger Games" franchise, the song holds a deep meaning of rebellion and channels the anger and sense of oppression from underrepresented or disciminated communities toward figures in power. The perspective of the main character of the film Lucy Gray Baird was utilized to give the song a stronger emotional core, embodying Lucy' spirit - refusing to be broken by the corrupted minds and manipulation of those with authority in the society of "the Capitol". The song reflects Lucy's resilience and escapism; her longing of freedom and reclamation of justice for those she represents. Additionally, the song was composed with an intention of evoking a sense of lingering and haunting, addressing that even though she is gone, her persona still stays in the back of people's minds in the form of guilt, or a dark memory that they would have to live it for the rest of their life, which overall gives the song an eerie resonance. 

How the message of delivered through cinematography: 

The music video starts with an establishing shot of a wooden house surrounded by dense trees and grassland, encoding a naturalistic setting and, as a result, separating the audience's perspective from their modern environment to immerse them in a completely different ambience. The bright sunlight shining through from the right also encodes the time of day (morning to noon), and at the same time, gives the setting more values (contrast in dark and light areas). The song doesn't start right away; however, a diegetic sound effect (possibly Foley) of a wind chime. 

A wind chime is similar to a bell that is made from a cluster of resonant pieces that are moved and sounded by the wind, or, in other words, by an invisible presence. The melodies created by a wind chime are often referred to as being delicate, almost ghostly, like they were being played by a supernatural being. By adding this sound right from the introduction, the music video sets a haunting, eerie tone that foreshadows Lucy Gray's spirit - the remnant of her physical form that lingers along the storyline of "The Hunger Games" - and how it symbolizes the idea of being present even in absence. 

The camera slowly zooms into the entrance, which can be encoded as the viewer being visually guided into the track. Simultaneously, the artist's name ("Olivia Rodrigo") appears at the center in a subtly cursive font, hinting at a sentimental yet cultivated theme. This was quickly followed by the title of the song in the same font, which shows the production team's intention of keeping the message consistent throughout the sequence. 

The song starts 13 seconds in with a slow but rhythmic guitar strum - non-diegetic - that reinforces the chilling sensation. In the same oneshot, the camera continues to enter the house, exposing the audience to the wooden furniture - wood connotes a connection between us and the earth, or the forest, which, according to the Hunger Games, tightly aligns with Lucy Gray's character, who is deeply tied to nature, encoding another indication of the protagonist's influence on the song. The camera pans to the left, where a wind chime can be seen hanging above what seems like a kitchen table; this brings us back to the sound of the wind chimes at the beginning of the music video, encoding a solid relationship between visuals and audio. Tracking technique was used to go around this object, depicting a closer view of the decoration of the chime piece: a bird. This is a deliberate intertextuality to the film in which the song was produced for; the image of the bird was taken from the "Songbirds" in the name of the movie. The tactic there surely had some sort of promotional motivation, facilitating the viewer's recollection of the franchise, specifically mutual fans of Olivia and the series. 

Subsequently, Olivia is introduced (still in the first and only shot up until this part - [0:33]). She is sitting on a bed while lip-syncing to the lyrics and playing a guitar; her presence in the sequence follows Andrew Goodwin's theory 4: clear demands from the record label, which is to give the audience a clear way of remembering the artist's face for marketing purposes, to increase Olivia's chances of being recognized in other media forms and products. 

Despite the setting seemingly mimicking the film's as being set in near-medieval conditions - included in the books and films "The Hunger Games" - similar to the "districts" (places where the lower classes are forced to live in as opposed to the "Capitol", where the wealthy and spoiled live and entertain themselves by exploiting those from the districts by pressuring them into realistic, cruel, survival games), Olivia Rodrigo's outfit provides a juxtaposition as it has more contempoary elements to it with details that align with voyerism - serves marketing schemes, perhaps portraying Olivia as more attractive to the audience. This helps highlight that instead of Olivia trying to mix herself into the actual story and becoming an extra part of the narrative, her appearance should be taken more as a subjective view from Lucy. 

As the sequence progresses, Olivia is actively taking steps out of the house, leaving the darkness and coldness of the internal setting (encoded through the limited sources for light to encompass) then stepping into the sunlight. This can be decoded as Lucy Gray's (the main character) mindset in the film, trying to escape from the unfair domination and constraints of the rich and vicious, exposing them to the light and therefore releasing herself into the warmth of the sunlight, or can be understood as freedom. However, despite not truly overthrowing the ones in charge by the end of the story, Lucy Gray definitely created a major impact among the society of Panem (the world of "The Hunger Games" franchise); this detailed is emphasized in the lyrics: 

"There's snow falling over the city

You thought that would wash away

The bitter taste of my fury

And all of the messes you made

Oh you think that you got away..."

This verse connotes the expectation of the ones that held in their hand the power but used it for their own selfish needs that as time passes by Lucy's impact and the effects she had caused would fade into thin air - "snow falling over the city washing away my fury" encodes the passing seasons (snow from Winter melting in Spring); "the taste of my fury and the messes you made" encodes her rebellion and the wrongdoings of the opposing side. 

But I'm in the trees, I'm in the breeze

My footsteps on the ground

You'll see my face in every place

But you can't catch me now...

This verse, on the other hand, directly reputes that expectation by stating that even though her body is beneath the ground, her spirit lives on, hanging in the leaves and in the atmosphere; who she was will alway continue to be alive in the deepest corners of the hearts and souls of the corrupted and that no matter how hard they try, they'll never truly be able to "get rid" of her anymore. 

There isn't any intentional or additional narrative-based content from the music video production, but instead the sequence took advantage of small clips and cuts from the film itself (which can be considered a convention for soundtracks of texts in cinematography). 

This part shows the scene where character Snow (who later betrays Lucy) looks at a white rose intensely - taken directly from the movie - as if it reminds him of something. Later, we get to see the reason behind this. Snow associates the rose with Lucy, and even though she wasn't there, he was reminded of her through the beauty of nature. 

Shot-reverse-shot editing is used throughout the music video of Olivia Rodrigo's lip-syncing and cuts of the actual film, encoding a direct, emotional correlation between the two components. 

As the song comes to an intense buildup, the fast-paced cuts start to slow down to a more moderate tempo, where Olivia can be seen walking in a meadow at a wide-angle, extreme long shot. Following this, the video cuts to a medium close-up of Olivia, positioning the camera horizontally to her face to give the composition more value. 

Olivia's facial expression seems almost frustrated, encoding her indulgence of Lucy's character and feelings within "The Hunger Games: Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes." 

As the lyrics repeat the phrase, "You can't, you can't, catch me now; Coming like a storm into your town; Higher than the hopes that you brought down", each time adding more layers of harmonization to increase the depth of the sound, the camera tracks Olivia running through the field. Her flowy, white dress further accentuates the chaotic movements in which she is making while speeding through the grass. The scene cuts to a somewhat similar scenery in the film where Lucy is sitting beneath a tree and Snow comes from behind, as if was watching her from afar - this raises curiosity of the viewer who may then wonder about the relationship between the characters and may want to watch the film; this detail reveals that marketing could sometimes work both ways in a music video, not only that it is building upon the brand of the artist but may also create discussions of other products. Slowly, the camera moves upward into a high-angle shot. The pacing picks up as more cuts and scenes of the film are shown, most of which are quite disturbing or unsettling: Snow drops what looks like a deceased body into the water; Snow pounding on a container to project his anger; crows, which often connotes bad luck, flying in all direction with no organization at high speed, could potentially mean something bad happens in the film. 

By the end, the song comes to a soft outro with only the strings of the guitar as the instrumental part. The camera pans upward, zooming close into Olivia's face as her expression seemed more relaxed and calm, as if she is now free like Lucy Gray. A diegetic sound of birds singing is heard as the sequence fades into black, encoding the survival or reproduction of Lucy's spirit. 

MARKETING SPECIFICS: 

The Music Video can be interpreted as a cross-promotional marketing device for both Olivia Rodrigo and the Hunger Games film. By aligning her identity with a globally successful franchise, Olivia is therefore exposed to a massive population, both her existing fanbase and those intrigued by the movie - the haunting element of the song not only markets the film's theme of rebellion and resistance to power, while simultaneously promotes the song. This detail may help drive up the amount of digital streaming and possibly downloads by listeners because it is common knowledge that once the audience leave the cinema or movie theatre they would immediately search up the song on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube, especially if they find themselves attractive by the melody. Another reason that could explain this phenomenon is because as human we associated our senses to memories, in this case the song itself may remind the watchers of the viewing experience of the film, bringing them a sense of nostalgia to the narrative. This is further supported by the extremely visible connection between Olivia’s lyrics and the emotional core of the film, portrayed by the protagonist: Lucy Gray. 

The music video, instead of creating a deeper narrative or meaning to the song like other narrative-based musical sequences, amplifies the actual story of the film, giving the audience little peaks into the cuts and clips, which makes the video more memorable since it then feels more like an extension of the Hunger Games story rather than just an individual track. By having Olivia’s image in coordination with the film’s clips, the music video encourages an ideology in the watchers’ mindset that the 2 are related to each other, giving them more of a motivation to include her name on searches on social media as well as in products of textual poaching, namely TikTok edits or fan-made trailers. All this “noise” could result in more people becoming intrigued by Olivia Rodrigo’s persona and biography, leading to a bigger exposure and awareness of her artist’s reputation. 

The collaboration between Rodrigo and this big series elevates the artist's image beyond any other ordinary singer. She can be seen as a cultural vocalist tied to a major narrative who successfully uses her skillful lyricism to capture such a complex set of emotions in one of the most mentally powerful characters. This positions her as a writer with versatility and cultural relevance, capable of getting into the film and soundtrack side of the music industry.