Arctic Monkeys - Brianstorm
Album - Favourite Worst Nightmare
Release Date - 2nd April 2007 (Song) 17th March 2007 (Video)
Director - Huse Monfaradi
I have chose to analyse this music video as it is a video from my favourite band and whilst it was a modern day video, it was filmed just as the band released their second album so as you can imagine, the budget for making it was not too big. However, as a music video it still has all the basic 4 categories, Mise en Scene, Editing, Sound and camera angles. It also still adheres to the codes and conventions of a music video.
Video Type - Performance/Abstract and a bit of narrative
Mise en scene.
The main thing you notice about the video is it combines all three of the "Video Types". It starts off with the band in a large, dimly lit room standing around until the first note on guitar is played. As soon as this happens, on screen, images start to flash up and you can see the outline of a few female dancers standing completely still but at the same time, ready to move in time with the music. When the music kicks in, the dancers start to dance and a huge screen of lights starts to flash whilst the rest of the room remains dimly lit. It is almost as if, the girls and the lights will only start when the band is playing and they are oblivious to it going on behind them. Due to this happening, we get a feel that the video has a bit of an abstract mixed with performance style in it. We then see some narrative as after, Alex Turner the lead singer, saying certain words in the song, images flash up on screen, for example;
"Brian" is met by an image of a man on holiday with a tropical drink.
"Thunder" is met by two moving images of thunder in a dark sky.
"Are you puttin' us under" is met by a small black and white video of what looks to be and old doctor or magician, trying to hypnotise somebody.
Between the parts of the songs where images are displayed, the only other things we see are the band performing and the girls dancing in front of the lights.
Editing
The video was filmed in two parts, The Performance of the band, and The Performance of the dancers. After filming, the editors took both parts that had been filmed and mixed and mashed them together with jump cuts separating them. The only other thing they did was to add in the images and videos which were represented by the lyrics. In terms of editing this may be a simple video but where it is simple here, a lot of work was put in in other parts.
Sound
As it was a performance video, a master track was laid over the video whilst the band would have sung or lip synced the performance. This is common now a days with bands and artists as they want the video to have their best performance on so it will sell more records and by having a master track over the video, they can do this. Even with the extra videos added into the actual video, there were no other sound clips to talk about.
Camera Angles
Again, a relatively simple video in terms of camera angles. By this i am talking about how in every shot, whether it be of the band or the dancers, the camera is always at the same height, just moved around from position to position. Due to it being moved around, we have a varied number of shots which helps the video in terms of professionalism. The establishing shot is a long shot of the 4 band members, standing under some dimly lit light and from then on in, the angles change so frequently, which is good as it represents the speed of the song. We some some medium shots of the band, some close ups of them from behind, and towards the end, a close up of Alex, the lead singer, finishing the song.
To conclude, i feel this is a very effective music video for this day and age and i also like it because of how it combines all three types of video, Performance, Narrative in terms of things showing up on the screen and it is also Abstract with the lights and images.
Music Video Two:
The Beatles - Strawberry Fields (Forever)
Album - (A Side) Penny Lane
Release Date - 17th February
Director - Peter Goldman
I have chosen this video to analyse as it is not a modern music video but it shows how even before bands had huge budgets for videos, good pieces could be made whilst still following the codes and conventions of a music video that bands and artists follow to this day.
Type of video - Performance with hints of abstract
Mise en scene
The video starts with film of the band walking through "Strawberry Fields" and finding instruments scattered round. The video starts in the day time but then as night starts to fall, the video changes. Throughout this video it is just a huge experiment of effects and camera angles. We see the band being filmed by a separate camera at one stage and this was for a documentary just after the band announced they could no longer tour so instead would make music videos.
The band in this video are wearing what looks to be soldiers uniforms.
Camera Angles
The range of camera angles in the video is much greater than that of most other music videos at the time. The first thing we notice here is the camera after panning down from a tree, stays still and lets the band do the work. 4 or 5 shots in a row are the band running from a position toward the camera. As night starts to fall, the camera starts to pan left and right in almost 360 degrees to show the whole band. Then gradually as the song continues, various shots of the individual band members faces appear, and then it will cut back to the performance which was very unusual at the time. Then again as the video goes on, we start to see extreme close ups of the band whilst the song continues. Towards the end of the video, we see some more medium long shots and then we finish with the band walking away with a dog into a long establishing shot.
Editing
Editing played a huge roll in this video as i feel the band were trying to find the next big thing so with what at the time was an experimental song, they gave it an experimental video. Mostly in the video there is the effect of colour changes ranging from yellow to the blue on the faces of the band when words are sung, to fluorescent colours when they are performing. I feel this would have indicated some sort of hallucination due to the amount of drugs the band were supposedly taking. We see a lot of shots that are played in reverse which was a theme for conspiracy theorists who believed some of the Beatles songs played backwards would reveal secret messages so they would have been adding subliminal messages into the video as well as the song as towards the end, John is supposedly saying, "I killed Paul" when the song is played backwards.
Sound
Apart from the song its self there is nothing else in this video except after it has finished, we get a 30 second jam session where the band were quoted as saying, "we were just messing about and it was good so we threw it in".
To conclude this video, i feel it was very experimental at the time but like the band, worked out very well. It changed the music video industry with its effects and reverse songs and we still see these things today.
Music Video Three
A-Ha -Take on Me
Release date - 1985
Director - Steve Barron
At the 1986 music video awards, the video for "Take on Me" won six awards—best new artist in a music video, Best concept video, Most experimental video, Best direction, Best special effects, and Viewers choice—and was nominated for two others, Best group video and Video of the year. The video was also nominated for Favorite Pop/Rock Video at the 13th american music video awards in 1986. This just gives us a brief summary of how good the video actually was.
Mise en scene
The first thing most people notice and remember about this video is it is in a pencil sketched effect. The video starts off with a man in a black leather jacket, getting ready for a bike race. The slick black hair and leather jacket shows us what time period this video was from as the clothing used relates to what would have been worn at that time. After starting the race, the camera cuts to a close up of a woman reading the paper which tells us the man is in the paper as a story or comic. We see the woman in thew cafe and she is brought a cup of tea by the waitress. The woman then gets disturbed when the man in the comic winks at her and then offers his hand as though he wants her to take it and walk away with her into the story. We then find out that the man in the video is the lead singer and when he stands in certain places, he is a pencil sketch but at other times he is a man. During this, we see a short clip of the rest of the band members. We see the rest of the band again later and whilst there is window infront of them, they become human and in places where the window is not, they are drawings. The video later cuts back to the waitress in the shop who is angry at her customer not paying so throws the paper into the bin which makes the characters lose their story and 2 men start to chase the lead singer and his woman. They corner them so the man rips a hole in his paper for the woman to escape and in the next shot, we see her covered in dirt sitting on the cafe floor. She then picks up her paper and runs to her house to find out if the man has survived. He is seen to be dead but then out of nowhere, ends up in the girls house, flickering between pencil and human man. He stands up as a human and the two of them walk toward each other smiling.
Camera Angles
Due to half of the video being an effect, we only have a few basic camera angles. We have the first one of the woman in the cafe and when she is joined by the waitress, it transfers from a close up to a medium long shot from out the window. We then have a medium shot of the woman sitting on the floor, and then a long shot when ther man appears in her house. This shot is to show the distance between the two of them and represents how far away they are in both position, and as people.
Editing
The video uses a pencil sketch animation with live-action combination called rotoscoping, in which the live-action footage is traced-over frame by frame to give the characters realistic movements. This would take a very long time but has now been replaced by computers. Apart from the pincil sketch, the only other animation is at then end when the man is flickering between himself and his pencil self.
Sound
The only sound in this video is the master track of the song. There are no pauses for extra parts, nothing other than the band and the singing. This is a good thing as the video therefore is simpler and the editor can concentrate more on doing what he needs to to make it look good.
Music Video four
Paramore - Ignorance
Release date -August 13th 2009
Director - Honey
The music video was filmed on July 23rd, 2009 and directed by Honey. It was released to the public Thursday, August 13th, 2009 at 7:00 AM on all MTV platforms, networks, and websites.
Mise en scene
The Video is shot in two different places. The first setting is a small cramped room in which all 5 of the band members perform. The video shows the lead singer Hayley Williams being singled out and ignored by the other members of the band. She shines a light bulb at the other members and doubles it up as a microphone whilst attacking each member lyrically. For instance, she tells one of the members how "I can't excite you any more" and she sings openly to the band when she says how she is "ignored". Dut to the small, empty room, the rising tensions between the band members are emphasized. The video cuts between the band performing in the cramped roomand in a larger performance area. During the time they are in this area, the lightng is brighter so you can clearly see the expressions on the faces of the performers. Also, each member seems to play whilst Hayley dances round them singing so it shows she is being ignored.
Camera Angles
For the first setting, the camera is mainly in handheld mode because the setting would be too small for a tripod and other accesories. There are a lot of medium close ups and close ups to, again, show the expressions on the faces of the members as they are sung too. In the open area perfromance, we see a lot of the same thing but at the start, we see a very long establishing shot to show the band is in a new area. It also represents how close the band used to be and how far apart they are now.
Editing
In the first room the band plays in, we see a lot of after filmed editing. The room would need to have been lit up as the only lightbulb in it is the one Hayley uses to sing into so they would have used filters and brightness editors to make the cramped room look good. In the second performance area, we see a lot of fog and darkness so this would also have been done after filming.
Sound
Apart from the main track we only hear one other sound. It is right at the end when Hayley throws the microphone lightbulb away and it makes a screeching sound. This represents her being done with the song and maybe even the band.
