Artist: Wiley feat. Daniel Merriweather

Song: Cash in my Pocket

Produced by: Mark Ronson

Released: 1^st December 2008

Analysis

The most striking technical aspect of the music video is the director’s use of a “handycam” or handheld camera to seemingly film the entire music video, a view reinforced by the splicing of shots of a wedding that occurs at the beginning and the end of the video. Aside from the end and beginning of the video, the entire scene of inside the stockbroker’s office is filmed in one shot using said handycam, resulting in some blurring effects as well as some “shaky-cam”.  This could have been done to reinforce the view of the director that all of those performing in the video actually work at that place and that the camera man also works there and is using their own personal camera to film the video as evidenced by the shots of the wedding occasionally interrupting the video, something that can often occur in handheld cameras.

The shot at the beginning of the video also furthers the view that the video was meant to be seen from a worker’s perspective, as it depicts two of the people at the office going into work and passing City Hall, near Tower Bridge as they drive to work, suggesting again that they work in London’s financial sector.

The final shot of the video suggests a satirical or even critical attitude towards those who work in the financial sector, and could be a politically charged statement, as it depicts many people in the office gleefully singing about how they love “cash in their pocket” yet the final shot shows the continually spiralling FTSE 100 stock prices and points in the stock exchange, suggesting the director is attacking the perceived greed of those who caused such an event in caring only for themselves, or could just be a humorous approach to the situation they find themselves in. This view is reinforced by the fact that the video was released on December 1^st 2008, of course being right in the middle of the financial crisis that was plaguing the world, and in particular the UK and its financial system.

The view that the video could be a critical analysis is supported by the obvious looks of glee in the faces of those who work at the office (presumably in real life many if not all are very well off) in the face of the crisis. In addition the final shot also shows the workers waving the camera man off as he departs from the office to end the video, and the final shot could be seen as ominous as he leaves them to deal with the crisis as evidenced by the fact that the final shot is of the stock market prices.

The representations of the video are also key as it show the bank workers miming along to the lyrics of the song while the crisis unfolds, heightening and displaying the greed of the bankers and festering anti-banking, anti-finance sentiment prevalent around the world and in London as well as the whole of Britain at the time. The video is also very typical of the racial minorities having very little representation in the fields of finance, with only a handful of minorities appearing throughout the video, and very little black representation.