Music video analysis - "When the sun goes down" arctic monkeys

Analysis
The video for the Arctic Monkeys song "when the sun goes down" is based around the life of a prostitute as is the song. The video itself is a narrative one and shows the day to day lifestyle of this prostitute and shows how she is controlled by a pimp, who is referred to in the song as 'scummy man'. When we first see her we get a mid shot of her standing in front of a tower block of urban flats, looking into the camera with a saddened expression on her face. This introduces her as someone who lives in the city and also lives in the poorer parts of the city. The weather is a dreary wet day and this sets up her life perfectly as shown in the video about how a poor life she lives.

In the next shot we see her leaning over into a car smiling whilst talking to a man. The smile could have been added to interpret her feeling that as each man she sleeps with she may be getting closer to escaping from the 'scummy man'. It also may be interpreted as her having to put on a false smile because she is so depressed knowing that she has to do what she is doing.

In one of the next shots we see her coming downstairs in a block of flats. The staircase we see her coming down is a spiralling one in which it can be interpreted to represent her life heading in a downward spiral as she become more dominated by the 'scummy man' and is pulled further into the lifestyle that she is now stuck in.

In one of the later parts of the video the women becomes a magicians apprentice and the 'scummy man' does not like the fact that she is trying to escape the lifestyle she is stuck in. He attacks the magician and takes her away but also makes her beat up the magician whilst he watches and laughs. This shows how much control he has over her and that even if she attempts to escape from this lifestyle he won't let her so there is no escape for her.

Why does love do this to me? - preliminary

For our preliminary task we had to do a quick music video for the song "why does love do this to me?" by The Exponents. We had a couple of weeks to film, edit and finish the task. We succeeded in finishing the task but unfortunately our footage was lost and we did not have the chance to redo it. Fortunately for us we still retained what we had learnt from producing all of our video. During the making of our preliminary task we used new technologies that we had never used before so we have benefited from this greatly. Firstly whilst filming we learnt a lot more of how to use the camera and get the best shots we needed for our prelim. Whilst editing we learnt how to better use Final Cut. We learnt lots of very good methods on how to edit our video to achieve what we wanted as well as all the techniques that we need to use in our final music video, E.g split screening. Even though we have nothing physical to take away from the task I feel like it has been a very valuable experience.

Planning for video - Mise en scene

Controversial music video

The Prodigy - Smack my b**** up

The music video for the Prodigy's "Smack my b**** up" is considered one of the most controversial of all time. Firstly the song itself is seen to promote domestic violence through its lyrics, which made the song itself controversial to transfer into video. The video itself depicts a person going out to a bar in which the person consumes alcohol and drugs as well as physical abuse, violence, vandalism and nudity. When it was released it was banned on most tv stations because of its controversy, which fit in with the song which was banned on many radio stations.

The video follows in first person a night out which starts slowly but quickly escalates into physical harassment of a woman, violence towards a bouncer and others as well as drug use and ends up with a full nude sex scene with a prostitute. In the final part of the video it is revealed that the person who the video has been following is a female, which was surprising because many presumed it was a man throughout because of the song.

The video was very controversial because of its content but was appreciated by a few because it raised awareness of domestic violence towards men which was a relatively unknown problem, so the controversial video had an upside.

Music video final idea

How to: Analyse

There are many elements to look for when analysing a music video.

The main 4 are: Camera, Editing, Mise en Scene and Sound

Camera - The elements of camera work that are important to us are the angle it is shot at and the movement of the camera during it. The angle of the shot is important as many different angles represent different things, for example a close up normally gives us a good representation of emotions within the music video. A establishing shot is usually to show a large area that is being used in the video to give us a perspective of where everything is. 

Editing - The pace of editing is very important in different music videos depending on the style. A narrative style music video will have fast paced editing to keep the audience entertained and the music video flowing. Slow paced editing would more commonly be used in a performance style music video to give the audience the feeling of actually being at the performance giving a less disjointed feel.

Mise en Scene - This is important when looking at the representation of the people in the music video. Are they stereotypical? Or do they break the stereotype? Costumes are very important when it comes to representation. In the rap genre girls are usually scantily clad and men are commonly represented as pimps - very rich, very well dressed and have women littered around them. 

Sound - Although most of the sound comes from the sound track of the song, in a performance style video you will quite often have the music coming from the actual video and not overlaid in post production. Also you will have the diagetic sounds of the screaming fans. Lip sync is very important for the video to flow efficiently, if the words do not match what the person is saying on screen then it makes the video look badly edited and cheap. 

Analysis

This video for Foo Fighters "learn to fly" has a great array of all aspects to pick up on whilst analysing.
Example:
Mise-en-scene
The theme of this video is a plane journey in which the pilots are drugged and fall asleep and the members of the band have to take control of the plane and land it safely. Because of this it is obvious that they use typical plane dress as pilots and as air stewards. The set used utilises the look of the inside of a plane which works well as its set on a plane. All the pieces of set and props work very well in the video.

Different types of music video: Performance, Narrative and Concept.

Performance
Performance videos are music videos in which the band or artist are performing live either to an audience or directly to the camera. Many rock and pop artists chose performance videos because they are good publicity as they include the faces of the artists or artist. Example:



Narrative
Narrative videos are music videos that follow a story line almost like a short film. The majority follow the lyrics of the video, as a visual representation of them. They tell a story as the lyrics do as well. Example:

Concept
Concept music videos are videos that follow a certain concept or trend such as a certain visual effect with no coherent story line or majority performance. Example: