Other Texts
As part of my research I also studied other texts of the same breif. This was very useful as it gave me an insight into both professionally made big budget music videos as well as smaller videos. This allowed me to identify common conventions within all music videos as well as music videos specific to our genre of music.
Sockets - Slaves
Directed by: Ciaran Lyons
Producers: Jolyon Thomas, Roby Jelly
Sockets creates a a disjointed effect between the narrative of the song and the content being displayed in the video. While we can see some references to specific lyrics, such as the strong precense of plug sockets and other electic appliences, on face value the similarity ends there.
The narrative of the song follows a girl who 'was so sweet, she made sugar taste like salt'. Through out the song it references this girl, while also addressing the audience with lines such as "Now your shuffling your feet with your hands in your pockets"
The camerawork of this video provides excellent synchronicity with the tempo and genre of the song by making use of very close up shots, with the inclusion of lots of almost stop-motion like animation in the video.
As well as the camerwork, the editing also matches the pace of the soundtrack with much of the shots being very fast paced. This helps create a sense of chaos within the video and conforms to the genre of 'Punk Rock' of which Slaves fall under.
Finally, despite the ambiguity of the narrative and the seemingly unrelated video content the video features the most common convention within music videos and that is an aspect of performance. Throughout the video we see the presence of both of the band members in the form of a TV show in the narrative.
Sheila - Jamie T
Directed by: Adam Smith
Producers: Jamie T, Ben Coupland
Jamie T is another obscure music video with no obvious link to a narrative at the start, besides from the location which we assume to be London, a location that is mentioned several times through out the song due to its inclusion in the chorus.
The main thing that sticks out for me in this video is the style of editing and camerawork used throughout the peice, whereby continuity of scenes is not maintained and almost porposley broken up via the use of edit cuts from the performers face when he is mid sentance.
The lighting of the msuci matches the sombre mood of the song, however the ighting seems to be provided by naturual sources as the video is set at night.
Once again we see the convention of performance through the actor, Bob Hoskins. Towards the end of the video we see a removal of the diegetic soundtrack, and a fade into diegetic ambien sounds of the city and in paticular an ambulance or other emergancy siren. This is where the link between the video and song is revealed and we see that the performer is actually Sheila's father who is placing flowers on Sheila's memorial.
Something Good - Alt-J
Directed by: Brewer
Producers: Matt Paley, Adam Hirsch, Jake Teresi
Something good is probably one of my favourite music videos for this project as it showed me the freedom to which you can produce a music video with.
The videos is very discontinuous in both its editing and camera techniques, with the use of many computer generated effects being included. It also features slow motion very heavily, which matches the tempo of the song, however creates a disequilibrium within the video, as the content of the video is actually very voilent.
This is one of the first videos I analysed with no aspect of performance, and simply it choses to instead focus on the narrative of a matador in a bull ring. Through out the video we see the matador getting injured heavlily by the bull which leads to an overly red theme, both in mis en scene, editing and camerwork with the inclusion of a lot of red film burns, transistions and lens flares.
The song itself features miminal lyrics and so a performance aspect may actually not be needed. The video starts and ends with a computer generated graphic of a red background with a white shape on it, at the start this is a circle and ends up as a triangle.
The video also features very high-key lighting through out the peice which contrasts the narrative as we see gruesome scenes of the matador being injured by the bull. The analogy of the song follows the story of getting over a tragic event, such as breaking up with a loved one, or a loved one dying, this referenced in the lyrics:
"Oh something good tonight will make me forget about you for now"
This show that while a music video does not have to match the lyrics true meaning, it can simply adapt the face value of the lyrics.
Pumped up Kicks - Foster The People
Directed by: Josef Geiger
Producers: Mark Foster
The video for Pumped up Kicks is very unsual in the fact that is does not feature any real narrative or connection to the lyrics. This may be due to the sensitive nature of the song, which revolves around a boy performing a school shooting.
Throughout the video we see a very definate color scheme in the color correction, which could have been acheived in both post-production or via the use of a camera lense.
The video itself is made up of seemingly home shot video, with a lot of camera shake and simply seems like it is following the grup as they tour.
While this may be an easy style of video to follow, I believe it shouldnt be the one that is copied as for a mainstream band it is easy to pull of with viewers watching regardless. For a smaller peice, the lacking aspect of any plot or performance would probably deter viewers.
Of The Night - Bastille
Directed by: Dave Ma
Producers: Dan Smith, Mark Crew, Deniese Davis
This is a very interesting video as the lyrics do not seem to have any outstanding decipherable lyrics. The video itself follows the story of a detective attending various crime scenes. The only element of performance in the video is in the form of the victims in the crime scenes singing in an eerie way. This eerie tone contrasts the upbeat tune of the song which sings about the 'rythem of the night' in a fast and happy way.
The eerie tone is cairried on in the mis en scene of the video with the lighting being very dark as seen in the picture above. As well as this the video is set completely at night, thus creating a pathetic fallacy.
The one think I noticed with this video in paticular is the timing of cuts with the music as it seemed to cut to a different scene everyimtthe music featured a beat or changed tempo. This is a very interesting technique and seems to increase syncronisity between audio and video and gave me something to think about with my production.
Cocoon - Catfish and the Bottlemen
Directed by: James Moore
Producers: Jim Abbiss, James Moore
Cocoon follows the story of a couple who are madly in love and don't care about if they annoy anyone else with their realationship. This is reflected in the narative of the video as it follows the story of two people in what is perceived to be a mental hospital.
As i discovered with my last analysis this video also follows the editing template of cutting in between words and on the beat. this creates a much needed syncronisitiy between the audio and video as there is no aspect of performance throughout the video.
The video does use the changing tempo of the song to dictate what is being shown on screen however with the slow paced parts of the song being the build up to an event in the video, such as the crescendo of the song showing slow paced editing with the peak of the crescendo showing a female nurse hitting a tambourine which triggers fast paced editing and the running of the male charecter in the video.
This is probably one of my favourite videos to analysis as it shows that while a music video does not have to directly link to the lyrics line by line, it can follow the theme and still prove to be very successfull and so will probably be a big insparation to my final piece
Moaning Lisa Smile - Wolf Alice
Directed by: Ozzie Pullin
Producers: Nicole Gray
I analysed this song to give some variation in the genre of the songs i was looking at. This is an interestesting video as it also includes ambient audio aside from the audio of the song at both the start and finish of the video.
The first thing I noticed in this video is a huge use of handheld camera angles, the use of these angles however does not lower the production quality and instead adds a different feel to the standard high quality hollywood style production music videos that are usually seen, which works perfectly with the slightly individual genre of the song.
These establishing shots work perfectly with the lack of a soundtrack and is definetly a technique I'd consider using in my final piece. While there is no performance aspect in regards to singing in this video, there is still reference to the song as a turn table is turned on which triggers the peak of the crescendo in the song, as well as this throughout the video there is dancing which is another interesting performance aspect to think about.
The editing of this song is interesting as it does nto seem to conform with other videos and the technique of cutting within the beats or between lyrics and instead we can see a more continuous style of editing.
Take Me To Church - Hoizer
Directed by: Brendan Canty, Conal Thomson
Producers: Adam McCarthy, Emmet O'Brien, Damien Murphy, Hozier, Rob Kirwan
The immediate thing that jumps out in this video is the post production color scheme. Instead of going for normal color the video has opted to apply a monotone filter whichs adds a sinister look to the video. While this sinister look seems at first out of place it is soon explained that the narrative follows a gay couple in what is revealed to be Russia.
This is a very interesting video as it also is spreading a political message about the dissension of homosexuality in Russia. The video conflicts however with the lyrics of the song as the song references a female partner, however this follows suit of several other music videos I have analysed whereby the video will follow the theme of the lyrics but not reference the song line by line. This is a very important point as I want to make sure I dont over-analyse the lyrics of my chosen song.
Throughout the video there is a use of very fast paced editing, which wihile not always matching up with the audio, helps portray the desperate panic of the narrative. As well as the editing the camera angles also help to establish clear sides with most of the shots of the couple being quite close up and eye level or high angled and nearly every shot of the attackers being low angle, thus showing the attackers have the power. Like the Moaning Lisa Smile, this peice also features a lot of handled camera angles which again adds to the confusion and choas in the piece.
This was a useful video to analyse as it showed me some interesting post production techniques as well as showing me about the possible success of a music video even when the video and audio have a different tempo.
Sunlight - Modstep
Directed by: Modstep, Liam Underwood
Producers: Modstep
Sunlight is another video which also features non-diegetic music at the start durign the establishing shots. This video has an element of humor to it and again only links to the plot of the lyrics very loosely.
The video follows a group of old age pensioners who spend the day stealing alcohol, drinking, taking various drugs and partying. The genre of this music is hugely different from previously analysed as it falls into the 'drumstep' genre which is an electric based rock genre. This means the tempo and beat of the song is a lot more upbeat leading to a fast pace of editing with a lot of close up angles.
This tenchique interested me and I looked back on other videos and noticed a similar technique being used across a wide range of genres, whereby fat paced editing will generally encorperate a larger number of close up shots and slow paced editing will use more long shots.
throughout the video we see many jump cuts to the performance element of the song with Modstep themselves playing. We later find out in the video that Modstep is playing in a live venue with our main charecters then visit.
As seen in other videos the tempo greatly influences the video and in paticular you can see cuts and more upbeat editing on the'drop' of the song, however unlike other videos we can also see a lot of slow motion encorperated into the video to highlight the madness while still making the scene seem chaotic.
As well as the performance element with Modstep singing, we also see much of the crows duering the video dancing to the tempo of the song.
Tokyo (Vampires & Wolves) - The Wombats
Directed by: The Wombats
Producers: Eric Valentine
Tokyo is another song which starts the video with diegetic sound, with the introduction to what is assumed to be the group and their manager in a limosine. The shots are also very handheald with the camerafollowing the group as it climbs out of the limosine.
Interestingly there is also a soundbridge present in thisvideo as we can still hear the manager talking to the group when the song first starts playing. As well as this Tokyo is the first song I have analysed that makes use of a title as well as on-screen text introducing the name of the manager as well as location names.
Because of this handheld camera motion it is difficult to say whether certain angles have been put in place for effect such as one of the first shots, where we see the camera following the manager up the stairs in a low angle shot, and then turning around and going back down as the manger realises his band have gone.
The performance aspect of this song comes in the form of the band singing the song on a karoke machine in a club in several shots throughout the piece. This technique of cross-cutting is one I have noticed used in a variety of music videos, whereby completely different scenes will consistently be cut to throughout the video at random intervals.
In Depth Analysis
As well as analysing the texts above in breif detail, I also carried out in depth analyses of 3 other texts, which can be viewed by clicking the buttons below.