Group Analysis of Music Videos

Matt Bostock:

Wrong Direction - Passenger

British Folk/Rock band.

Warm-up for Jools Holland and Ed Sheeran

'Let Her Go' reached number 2 in the Uk charts.

Split up in 2009 and now the lead singer has hit out as a solo artist using the same name 'Passenger'.


Camerawork:
Song did not start straight away.
Tracking shot used to show scene change
Large variety of shots (Mid shot, close-up, focus changes, tracking shots and long shots)

Editing:
Use of animation (fishes in the bowl)
Use of straight cuts and is not too chaotic in it's editing
Representation of simplicity with fade to black at the end.

Mise en scene:
Links to lyrcis in places
Shows stage crew and offstage warehouse (at ease, relaxing video)
Use of the paddling pool and trumpet to indicate instrument playing in song and relaxed atmosphere.

Good usage of link to the title with man running in the wrong direction during the video!

Sound:
Acoustic song
Relaxed and happy

Narrative:
About a man getting lost and use of green screens to show time passing.
Mixture of narrative and live perfomance.

Veronika, Laura and Shannon:

This is War - 30 Seconds to Mars:

American rock band formed in 1998.

Narrative:
About fighting for what you believe in.
Tells the story of a soldier fighting for something he doesn't believe in but continuing to fight anyway.

Camerawork:
The start of the video shows the main lyric in the video, introducing the music and setting the scene in a simplistic way.

Mise en scene:
A lot of shots used to indciate shots of the Earth in satellite view and to indciate imminent danger or evil.
Not an extremely colourful video due to it's depressing concept but the idea of fighting war is a bleak idea so the colours symbolise this.

Sound:
Sound cuts in and out in order to maintain the narrative and explain to the audience what is going on.
Extra sounds are thrown in like talking, driving, people screaming etc... to add to the story and maintain audience interest.

Beth and Hayden:

Hey Ya - Outkast:

Formed in 1992 by 2 people.
One artist is more funky and rap whereas the other one is hip-hop and electronic but they came together to create this hip-hop/pop song.

Narrative:
The story shows a live perfromace by 'The Love Below' which mimicks the Beatles live performace on the Ed Sullivan show in 1964.

All characters are played by the same person (Andre 3000)

Two shots showing the Beatles influence using the old fashioned televisions as a border for what is happening.

Stereotypical fans going mental, showing the conventional modern shot of people who love the band, in order to promote the band.

Short narrative at the beginning to build the story. This short narrative links to the short narrative in another song called 'I Like the Way You Move'.

Added a very upbeat song to this song to make it catchy and make everybody want to watch it and listen to the music.

Preliminary Task: Music/Shots Timing

Prelimary Task: Prop List

• Cup of Coffee
• Exam Paper with 'F' on front
• Moped
• Whiteboard

Preliminary Task: Lyrical Analysis of Bad Day by Daniel Powter

Preliminary Task: Shot List and Timings

1) James sat in canteen looking sad (6 Secs)
2) James leaving canteen, with someone offering reassurance (6 Secs)
3) James singing line (3 Secs)
4) Shot of a jigsaw falling apart (3 Secs)
5) Sitting at desk, throwing papers in desperation (2 Secs)
6) Throwing bag against wall (2 Secs)
7) Shot of James kicking ground (1 Sec)
8) Mixture of Piano playing & singing (4 Secs)
9) Shot of exam paper with F on the front (1 Sec)
10) Opens exam paper, words 'Don't lie' on first page (1 Sec)
11) James walking out to bike and waving at someone (3 Secs)
12) James riding bike (1 Sec)
13) Shot of CCTV camera pans down to show James walking along corridor (2 Secs)
14) Angry boss shouting at James (3 Secs)
15) Stop motion - words 'You Had a Bad Day' written onto whiteboard (3 Secs)
16) James riding on bike in distance (3 Secs)

Intertextuality, Illustration, Amplification and Disjuncture

Intertextuality:

An intertextual reference is where something is linked to something else. For example, a music video may have scenes within it that link to particular scenes in movies or may link to particular aspects of a video game.

Californication – Red Hot Chilli Peppers

This video has an intertextual link to lots of different films through the use of a video game style. It is an extremely clever video as the concept of the video is that the world is becoming fake and unrealistic and everything about places like Hollywood in California is fake as it is full of celebrities.
 

Take On Me – Aha

This video is interesting to me as it contains intertextuality to another type of media (comics) as well as a story, meaning that people could say this video is an illustration.

Illustration:

Illustration is where the lyrics of the song illustrate the scenes in the video and tell the story to the audience as it is occurring in a visual context.
 

Dancing in the Moonlight – Toploader

This whole song illustrates the idea of ‘dancing in the moonlight’, so basically having a party, and in the video, all that happens is that people are dancing and having fun at night at some sort of party.

Stacy’s Mum – Fountains of Wayne

All of the lyrics in the music match what is happening in the actual video, illustrating the idea of Stacy’s mum being ‘hot’ and the idea that the boy wants to see her and not Stacy.

Amplification:

Amplification is where a key idea is taken from the lyrics and the whole music video is purely based on that one concept. This is probably the most popular way of producing a music video due to the tacky look that can be gained in many cases when using illustration or disjuncture unless they are produced properly.

In Too Deep – Sum41

This music video highlights the concept of being in too deep with the references throughout to the high diving board where a team of professional high-divers are competing against the actual Sum41 band members and is supposed to portray the idea of being in too deep. This is also symbolised by the fact that they are in the deep end of the swimming pool which is supposed to match the main concept of the song by saying that the people are in too deep in more ways than one.

Playing God – Paramore

This video portrays the idea of amplification well as it highlights the idea of someone 'playing God' and acting like they're better than everyone else, which is what Hayley Williams (Lead singer of Paramore) does in this video.

Disjuncture:

Keep it all in – Beautiful South

This video is obviously disjuncture as it is completely random. The lyrics of this song do not match what is happening in the video at all and every scene of this video is just a load of random things happening to a family. I think this is disappointing as a classic song like this could have a much better video to it that actually links to the lyrics because the lyrics are actually very easy to link a video to.

One Step Beyond – Madness

This video is even more random than the last one but as the beat of the music actually matches what is happening in the video, it works quite well. The chaotic tempo and instrumental sounds in the music of the video work really well with the way the video is made as the music actually tends to make you think about dancing around and being completely random.