Home By Joseph Toman

In his music video of the hit song “Home”, Joseph Toman describes Phillip Phillip’s life on the road during his music tour after winning American Idol. (I know I need to put something here, I just don’t know what) With these rapidly changing moments in the music video Toman compares musicians to common man by claiming that both have fast paced lives and lose themselves in the moment as a result of chasing after their successes. With the inclusion of these fast changing moments in this music vedio, Toman conveys the transient lifestyle of musicians and also relates it to the life of common people. In the video there are several images in which Phillips is seen with people he is close to, such as when he is in the bar. Toman includes
this scene to show that Phillips has social interactions that normal people would have in their everyday lives. However, Toman also includes instances in which his job takes him away from this social interaction in order for him to be successful at his career. Toman highlights this by specifically showing him eating and working on his song lyrics alone. As a result of showing him working alone like this Toman is able to bring out the hardworking nature in Phillips. For most of the video, Phillips is seen writing lyrics since he appears to be very driven towards his goal of being a successful musician. However, to reach such success, Phillips is forced to separate himself from the few relationships he holds. Because of his intense focus on his work, and the removal of all the close relationships around him, Toman shows Phillips life as speeding by, leaving him unaware of the things that are happening around him. A viewer, or success- minded common man, of this video could also see himself in Phillips because he is probably very success-driven in his particular field as well. If this is the case, the viewer also has to put aside important relationships in order to intently focus on his work and further his career to attain success. The overall result of this drive in both certain viewers and Phillip Phillips in general helps Toman relate Phillips to them. As a result, Toman is able to further show that this quick, success-driven sense of life lulls people into a trance and they lose track of everything else as they get pulled into it. The several scenes in which Phillips is on the road also help to establish the connection between Phillips and his success-minded viewers.
There is a specific scene in the video in which Toman uses raindrops to represent speed. In the beginning of the video the amount of raindrops and their speed is very low. Since Toman includes this image along with Phillips getting ready for a concert, the raindrops seem to indicate the speed of Phillips career as a musician. The low number of raindrops in the beginning of the video indicates the serene nature of Phillips career as it starts out. As the video progresses, the speed and vast number of raindrops greatly increases, as does the tension in Phillips career. Toman shows Phillips getting more and more concerts and spending a greater amount of time preparing for those concerts. With this intent focus Phillips is forced to spend more time on his career and less time for other things happening in his life. (I think I need to work this in better together) Upon graduation, success-minded people could easily relate to Phillips’ career lifestyle. These people are later on driven to reach their goals, and as a result are forced to put a hiatus on their relationships. For example, as people are looking for jobs, their lives are slow because many are venturing out on their own for the first time, so their lives are fairly calm, like the beginning of a rainstorm. However, as people delve into their careers and settle down,
they become engrossed in the work around them. Those that are driven like Phillips are focused only in their work. They end up losing sense of the time passing by and separating themselves from the people around them. As they make their job more demanding in order to attain a higher rate of success, they become more tense because of the increasing number of tasks they have to complete. As a result, their job becomes their main priority to alleviate this tension. By becoming so attached their work these people also lose sight of the things that are happening around them. Because of this similar progression from calm to tense environment and its correlation to fast paced lives, Toman is able to relate Phillips to his success minded viewers. As a contrast to the fast-paced life it seems that Phillips lives, Toman displays several scenes in which his life actually slows down.
For example, when Phillip’s eats alone in the café, he appears to be reflecting upon his newfound successes. The eating time Phillip’s sets aside for himself represents a time of self-reflection, because he is alone, enjoying his time and not working. Toman describes this down time as much needed to break apart from the chaos and hectic nature associated with Phillip’s paced life. ( I think I should go back and look at my previous paragraphs) Toman shows that even though Phillips is in a prime moment of his career, he also needs down time.Toman is also able to use this scene as a way to relate Phillips to success minded common people who are overwhelmed with their lives. Toman shows that even though Phillips has a fast-paced, work-focused life, he is able to find few moments to slow himself down and evaluate himself ( I don’t know if evaluates really goes here). ( I wanted to incorporate the following article(s) here as well
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kenneth-kales/the-petals-and-thorns-of-_b_814319.html
Furthermore, Toman also includes several images that demonstrate activities between Phillip’s concerts and success to illustrate that he is really lost in his life due to its fast paced nature and his constantly growing success. In these scenes Phillips is seen walking in some run-down neighborhoods and looking around indicating he is lost, which can be taken to mean, in some figurative sense that he has lost his way. Toman elaborates on this fact by dispersing moments of Phillips to claim that although Phillip’s has such great success, he has lost himself in the true meaning of his life. Like Phillips, common people also lose themselves in their unending need for success.