Soap/Training Wheels Collaboration (Melanie Martinez)

Video Analysis of "Soap/Training Wheels Collaboration" (Melanie Martinez)

The visuals of the music video illustrates a cohesive narrative that is connected to the album.

Soap:

"Soap" starts out by showing Melanie (in this case portraying Cry Baby) sitting in a bath tub talking on the phone. She invites a boy called Jonny to come round to her house. To which, he agrees.

There is an extreme close up to establish the scene of Cry Baby's hand submerged in water. Whilst talking on the phone, shots cut to yet another extreme close up of Cry Baby's face to conceal the top half of her face. A lullaby-esque tune is being played alongside the sound of dripping water. The conventions of this suggest a darker/creepy undertone to the feel of the music video which foreshadows the theme of the rest of the video. The use of key lighting further reinforces the creepy theme of the video in a shabby 1960's themed corridor. 

Melanie's hair is coloured with one side being pink whilst the other side is black. The theme of the Cry Baby album uses childish subjects to convey darker/mature matters. Because of this, her choice of hair colour illustrates the conventional use of pink (which symbolises innocence) and black (which is commonly associated with darkness and evil) to convey the meaning behind the album. Furthermore, her outfit is made up of a bib and pink shorts (to symbolise a nappy)  which is universally known as being associated with babies. As a result, manipulating the idea that this song is illustrating that Cry Baby is meant to be a young character. 

As the music video progresses, more supernatural occurrences become prominent. For example, the tap mysteriously turns on to fill the bath, candles begin flickering and curtains begin moving. An old fashioned TV turns on - revealing snippets of Melanie's previous visuals of "Soap" which was originally released several months before this one. 

Cry Baby (Melanie Martinez) aesthetic in Soap. The vintage visuals of her
costume & floral background to show a cohesive theme of
old-fashioned/modern hybrid throughout her videos. This helps to make her
story telling through her album/music video to appear more
professional and remain her style.

Training Wheels:

Follows the relationship stage between Cry Baby & Johnny which was established in "Soap". The overall visuals of "Training Wheels" follow conventional romance themes such as holding hands, flowers, two-shot camera angles, bright lighting and playful body language. "Training Wheels" symbolises the bike's training wheels as a metaphor for a relationship. To communicate this in the video, two separate scenes transition between one another: Cry Baby teaching Johnny to ride a bike without the need for training wheels and a literal visual of Cry Baby and Johnny doing couples/relationship activities. 

The visuals for this music video is a marginally less dark/creepy than "Soap"; to keep the close link between the two songs apparent, things such as the large eyes to represent falling in love are kept in both songs. Interestingly, "Soap" depicts Cry Baby as creepily appearing then disappearing in the bath tub before sharing a kiss with Johnny (which then leads to the giant "love" eyes). However, in "Training Wheels" it is Johnny who disappears as he is riding towards Cry Baby after learning to ride the bike which results in Cry Baby "love" eyes returning back to normal as he has abandoned her. "Soap" follows a creepy visual to illustrate the idea of the fear of saying something you probably shouldn't have (in Cry Baby's case, telling Johnny that her mum killed her dad and that she loves him). On the other hand, "Training Wheels" (being the only romance/love song on the album) conveys the the idea of love can result in sadness. As a result, both videos are able to keep within the theme of the album to show child-like subjects with mature meanings.  

Cry Baby (Melanie Martinez) costume for "Training Wheels".
Pink flower crown symbolises the romance theme of the song.