Analysis of 3 videos

Muse: Starlight:

This video uses many of the conventions that i had listed in a previous post relying on these interesting points to keep the video interesting and varied rather than just 4 minutes of band shots.

For a start it has the unsual location down. the entire video is set on a cargo ship in the middle of the ocean. The lyrics are about two people being seperated, presumably by the man being in the navy or just having a job at sea, this ties the video to the song and makes it somewhat illustrative, while still not really telling a story. Nonetheless this still conforms to the convention of an unusual setting, leading to some odd and equally interesting shot types and compositions. This is the only setting for the entire video and i think it works well in getting the feeling of isolation across, while still showing the scale of the ship itself. While there is only one setting, the video plays around with many shot types and lighting to keep it interesting.

it uses many of the conventional shot types for the same reasons too. Many low angle shots of single band members to give them importance:

and many high angle shots showing the whole band:

One thing this video does in an interesting way though, is use extreme long shots. and i mean extreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeme. For a music video a long shot this extreme is unheard of, usually because there's no need. However the long shots give a strong feeling of how small the band is in comparison to the ship.

As previously mentioned the video makes an effort to vary the setting by completely changing thecolour schemes and changing the lighting. This changes the whole ton of the video. with the boat being on the sea and the sky being blue in the middle of the day, there's a lot of blue imagery, signifying calmness. The video reflects the lull of the music and fits the same tone it gives. Once the tone of the music turns more serious, the video reflects this and the imagery becomes very dark, the day turns to night and red is used alot. and then all of a sudden the colour scheme changes back.

 

 

I think this video is good to analyse because of the interesting lighting and creative band shots. I think we would be able to imitate some of the lighting techniqus for some of the dream sequnces to distinguish them from the other shots of the band. Maybe having each person's imagination in a different filter .

Sum 41: Pain for Pleasure:

This is a very short video but has a lot of interesting shots that we can utilise. Due to it's short length it is usually played on tv as a two part video, starting with this and leading onto another Sum 41 song: 'In too Deep'.

The video is poking fun entirley at glam rock videos of the 80's. Bringing in the satirical element of the video that we want to use. The entire video has an atmosphere of fun about it and you can tell there wasn't much of a plan to filming it, but it all works because of the silly premise to begin with.

This video is good for us to analyse due to the costumes. The unbelievable stereotypical look lets the audience know that these guys are dressed like glam metal rockers instantly and it's this recognizability we want to capitlise on.

Green Day - 21 Guns:

The last video i chose to analyse was 21 guns by Greenday. This video is a lot more narrative based than the other two, providing a strong contrast. The plot of the video shows a couple confined in a room, completely silent. Outside there are police sirens and lights. During the verses the scene is completely calm and still, but during the chorus the room is lit up by gunfire, though we never see the shooter.

 

 

Band shots are shown in the midst of the narrative and have the band in the exact same setting as the couple and the bullets are flying around them too. This links the narrative to the band shots nicely and keeps the flow of the song. The video itself predominantly features close ups. This is a because it gives a feeling of claustrophobia and makes the room seem that much smaller. It also shows facial expression much more clearly than other types of shots. Since the entire video is based in the one room the proximity of the close ups enhance the feeling of how small the room is and gets that across to the audience.

The editing is to be expected in a rock video to a song like this. The verses are slow, the music is accoustic and the edits mirror this, also being slow, some shots drag out for more than a couple of seconds, which is considered very slow, especially for a Green Day video. The choruses however, have a much faster pace of editing and the shot types seems to be a lot more varied. For example in a lot of the verse shots the camerais stationary, focusing on one thing at a time, mirroring the atmosphere but during the choruses the camera performs pans and zooms and tracks objects all over the place. this would be to magnify the feeling of the room coming alive with bullet fire and makes the scene incredibly intense. This is most prominent in the shot of the couch where the camera is panning right as bullet holes appear in it.

I would say the video takes inspiration from many things and borrows some imagery from famous pieces of pop culture. The camera work in general has a gritty realism to it, very reminiscent of horror films, strangely, of note the close up of tre cool near the begining of the video (in which the camera tilts upwards) looks very similar to some of the opening shots in 'The Texas Chainsaw Massacre' while an odd comparison to make it certainly illustrates the mood of the room.

I thought this video would be good to analyse because of the variety of shot types throughout. Each shot has a very distinct meaning and gets something across to the audience. This is the kind of thing we want to be thinking about when storyboarding our video to give it more of an impact overall. The fact that this video is mostly narrative, and the ratio of narrative to band shots, is about what we want in our video.