Foo Fighters - The Pretender (Sharoze's Analysis)

After watching the music video there are two words that come to mind “big” and “passionate”. Right from the off they have constructed their mise-en-scene to convey the feeling of “big” to the audience, while we are accustomed to seeing bands play on a stage, the fact that they are playing inside a massive hall represents the type of music that is being played, rock, which is known to be big and brash, which in fact relates to one of Goodwin’s views of the music video actually demonstrating the genre. The lighting is done very well, inside this video there is a clear binary opposition, you have the band and you have the police that appear later on. The band stand upon a white floor obviously signifying good, while the police appear from the darkness signifying them as the antagonists which is a role reversal from what is seen usually in real life. Then there is the big attraction of the video, the big red wall behind them, when the police burst into action and the wall explodes making the whole screen red this obviously signifies the power, passion and anger expressed within the song, once again this coincides with tone of Goodwin’s views, in this case the relationship of the music/lyrics to the visual, as the song goes quite the band stop, the calm before the storm and then the very loud part of the song begins and just as it does the red wall explodes coinciding the visuals with the music . Everything in this video is made to make the band look very powerful compared to everything else.


This also carries over and is supported in the camerawork. Throughout they constantly use low angle shots to make the band members look very powerful. Keeping with the fast paced nature of the song they also use very quick camerawork with lots of quick pans across the stage once more to show the audience how big the hall, the video and the band, basically using objective camerawork showing the audience everything from a safe angle. However they also like the audience feel uncomfortable with the intensity of the song, which is why they use subjective camerawork in which they shove the camera right into the face of the band members, while they are shouting and straight into their eyes, making the audience feel uncomfortable because nobody likes being shouted at right in their face and thus switching the audience from the safety of the objective view, to the intensity of the subjective ground level view.

What this music video does is amplify the powerful nature of the songs with a good use of visuals to support the feelings represented in the song.

Mime Costume

This is the costume that I will be using in our music video. We have the plain white masks now and all we have to do is draw the design onto it. All the other peices like the bow tie etc. I have at hand. (Ignore the iPhone)

Annotated Lyrics

After we had obtained our lyrics we set about annotating each line, so that we had an idea of what we were going to have in our music video and the type of camerawork and editing we could include.

Lyrics

Imprisoned, inside this mind
Hiding behind the empty smiles
So simple (the anguish)
As it mocks me
Crawling back into the dark

Running, always running, into the distance
Stop me before I bleed, again
The echoes of my voice
Follow me down
The shadows I cast
Follow me down

Deeper I'm falling
Into the arms of sorrow
Blindly descending
Into the arms of sorrow

There must be serenity

The echoes of my voice
Follow me down
The shadows I cast
Follow me down

Deeper I'm falling
Into the arms of sorrow
Blindly descending
Into the arms of sorrow

The demons of my own design
This horror must not remain

Deeper I'm falling
Into the arms of sorrow
Blindly descending
Into the arms of sorrow

There must be serenity

There must be deliverance

Deeper I'm falling

Blindly descending

Jordan's Moodboard

Jamie T Chaka Demus Matt Ramm Analysis

The majority of the shots in this video are hand held to give off the impression that the viewer is in the car with Jamie himself who is singing the song the whole way through. This camera used is like a first person view, yet this is only when the camera is in the car of the performer, whenever the camera shot is out of the car it is a steady cam so it is easier to understand the story line.

The story behind the video does not fit the lyrics as the lyrics are about young girls and boys in love, drinking and having a good time. Yet the story behind the video is a car chase where Jamie T has a suitcase which everyone wants, and all of the groups of people chasing him are different stereotypes. For example there are three main groups other than Jamie T and his drivers, the first being mimes. Half way through the video there is a classic scene of the mimes going to toilet on the side of the road, the clown looks like he is urinating yet when he turns around he is pretending in a comical way. This mime has a very similar costume to the mime in our music video , as our music video will be mainly based around costumes and make up this is an extremely good video to analyse due to the content in it.

The song itself has nothing to do with the video one bit, as in interviews with the artist has said that the song randomly worked as all the lyrics for this song was not strictly written for this piece. As the video shows there is no point to the story line itself, it is a random piece of artwork.

Slipknot - Dead Memories (Jordan's analysis)

The reason I chose this video to analyse is because of the masks used and the spooky aura that is created by Slipknot. Their whole identity is about being weird and eerie, so I think I could take a lot from it.

The first thing that I noticed was the colour filter used in the first part where the storyline is established. It represents a very bleak and depressing feeling that goes with the song. I think that we should use this filter on our music video because we want to give the same vibes. The rain is also a symbolic code because it represents depression and sadness.

When the singer falls into the room with the first band member, their movement, combined with the camera movement and shots, symbolise a circus or something for me because of how they move in bursts like mimes. And the flashes signify the lights of a circus. Another part of the video that follows the circus trend is the part with the mirrors, because its like a House of Mirrors in a carnival. Plus, the obvious link with the band member that is wearing a clown mask.

Throughout the music video, the band members are all wearing black clothing, aside from their masks. This makes the colours of the masks and the scenery stand out much more. The camera filters continue to change throughout the video, adding individual effects to each band member. For example, the negative filter for the band member with the long nails coming out of his mask confuses the audience, along with his static position. It gives a dangerous feeling because of the nails and I believe that it uses intertextuality from something like Pans Labyrinth with the creature with eyes on his palms which is actually very dangerous even though it doesn't move straight away.

The Mise-en-scene of the part with the clown is very different to the rest of the video. The baseball bat that he is holding represents violence and a tough persona within the band, even though the rest of the video has tried to be very eerie. Actually, however, the clown mask makes up for it because his mask's zip in the shape of a smile is seen to be in contrast with the baseball bat. Plus, the hot women in bikini's juxtapose with this violence as well.

The part where he's in the hallway with the large man is actually the guitarist that is doing the solo in the song which is why his part is then. That part of the video symbolises the futility that is described in the song. Then after that part, once again attractive women are included, probably because the main part of the audience are men and beautiful women are very appealing. Finally, the blowing out the candle at the end symbolises the end of his journey at the end.

Sharoze's Mood Board

This is the moodboard that i have constructed showing the influence and themes that we may express in our music video. As you can see there is a massive influence of dark, gritty comic-like pictures within this. These pictures represent the dark-side of the video the mime, the antagonsit. However i have also placed very bright colourful images representing the clown, the protagonist. I have annotate the images in the mood board with my indiviudal thoughts on their insspiration.

Helicopter - Bloc Party (Sharoze's Analysis)

This music video has constructed a a very gritty feel for itself through their use of camerawork, mise-en-scene and editing.

The camerawork consists of many quick shots throughout and a variety of different angles and shots. It begins with an establishing shot of a worn out hut, straight away setting the gritty tone for the rest of the video. After that there is a combination of close-ups middle shots and high angle shots of the band. All of these cause the audience to feel disoriented, this is then combined with zooms and jump cuts to increase of the pace of the song to coincide with song and once again make the whole video look a bit uneasy. During this you see the band playing which follows one of Goodwin's theories of the visuals following the audio.

The mise-en-scene of the video is constructed very well, they use a small worn out hut, something relating to a horror film to create that gritty feel for the music video. Also if you look at the location in whih the band members perform they are really ordinary, everyday places, once again giving that gritty feel to the video but also making the band look very grounded. Their is constant harsh lighting throughout the video, this gives the gritty feel look like a comic book etc making the video look very unique. It also makes it look as if you are watching it from a very old televison.

Finally there is a lot of editing in the video. The fact that the whole video is in black and white makes it look very low budget which seems like the theme they are trying to create, alongside the location etc. They also blur the screen, use fast edits and jump cuts to give it a budget, gritty look. What this does is that the audience feels like the band is about the music and not the special effects and allows the audience to concentrate on the music, rather than doing a flash video, with special effects which would distract the audience. This also shows the audience that this song and video are/could be about a very serious topic. This is something that we would like to apply to our video by trying to give it a very dark feel by possibly making the black and white.

Casting

The main characters of the music video are Matt and I mainly because we already own the props required and as a group we feel that both matt and i have a rock star image. I (Jordan) plays the Mime and have an extremely dark vibe, and Matt plays the Clown who despite being a very aggressive character, is the "hero" of the video.

The other main casting in the band is the drummer who is included in the storyline as a pimp, and is dressed as a circus ringmaster. His name is Alfie Peake and we picked him because of his physique mainly, we wanted him to look intimidating Plus, Drummers are generally quite muscular so it makes sense. Alfie also is able to look very menacing which is what we want to make the video seem eerie.

The majority of our casting, however, is the Ringmaster's prostitutes. We are trying to get about 10 women that are about 17 years old because their height will be important so the Ringmaster looks bigger. They aren't just normal prostitutes though, they are Puppet Prostitutes, to signify their futility and how powerless the female. They will be good looking girls as well which is important for aesthetic appreciation.

Finally, the clowns girlfriend/wife needs to be a girl the same age that has a bold style, and stands out because they need to be able to suit the make up. The woman will also need to be a very committed actor as they have to be comfortable with doing very sexual scenes. And of course, she has to be beautiful.

Location Scouting (Day 1)

In today's lesson we decided to carry out some risk assessments and recces on certain locations that we could turn into or use as a set for part of our production. We only carried out recces on locations within our school site, such as various boiler rooms and certain parts of roof space.
However after analysing other students music videos we want to branch out from using school locations,we feel that the use of school locations unless intended to be a school locations can only ever be school locations. we were able to find aspects of our school that could be potential sets on the other hand we have agreed to look elsewhere before making final decisions on locations.

we have uploaded with this Post pictures of one boiler room located under our school. we are taking this location in consideration because its original layout and dingy lighting would be very easy to transform into an effective setting for either a 'Solo' location for a band member, whilst taking into consideration the mise en scen required in the transformation we decided that if we were to use the boiler rooms we wouldn't really add to the scenery but change the levels of lighting and would most definitely create some form of chiaroscuro lighting.

How our music video relates to the "Andrew Goodwin analysis"

"Music videos demonstrate genre characteristics"

Killswitch Engage's genre (according to Wikipedia) is called "Melodic Metal-core" which is a hybrid genre. It's really hard to describe, but I think it's a combination of thrash metal with very, very heavy Guitar Riffs, which symbolize anger, and slow and heartfelt melodies that are used to describe emotions like sadness and sorrow. So, our video depicts both of these aspects as our video is about our main character dealing with these feelings, anger and depression.

"There is a relationship between lyrics and visuals"

'Imprisoned inside this mind, hiding behind these empty smiles' are the first lines of the song, and immediately relate to the Circus theme ('Smiles') and how the main character is feeling ('Imprisoned inside this mind'). The other lyric that is relates to the video perfectly is a repeating one that goes 'The shadows I cast, follow me down' which is describing a metaphor for the Mime that is ruining the Clown's life. Other lyrics that are metaphor's for the Mime include 'Deeper I'm falling into the Arms of Sorrow.' which is very similar to the one I mentioned before.

"There is a relationship between music and visuals"

The performance parts of the video will relate to the style of music perfectly. How Killswitch Engage preform (i.e. Headbanging) will be what our actors will be doing so the audience can relate to the band as well. Plus, the parts of the song, like chorus and the interlude, will be relating with what's going in the video. This is hard to explain, but I basically mean that each part of the storyline is split into parts which will be in separate parts of the track. For example, the first chorus and introduction will be showing how the clown starts his path to destruction.

"The demands of the record label will include the need for lots of close-ups of the artist and the artist may develop motifs which recur across their work"

I think the main motif of the music video is the Mime's mask because if we were a real band I think the guitarist would actually wear his costume pertinently for his image, like Wes Borland of Limp Bizkit or the whole of Slipknot. We will focus on Close-ups throughout the preforming part of the video, and parts of the storyline. Especially at the begginning of it where the first shot is a twisting Zoom-out of the clown waking up. We will also watch some more music video's specifically looking for actions that band members do to the camera while preforming to include (i.e. Pointing at the camera)

"There is a frequently reference to notion of looking (screens within screens, telescopes, etc) and particularly voyeuristic treatment of the female body."

We have picked, in our opinion, a very attractive girl for our main female character who will be revealing some of herself (For example, her bra). It will provide attention, mainly for the male audience, but also females as they will be able to identify with the characters hopefully.

"There is often intertextual reference"

Our main intertextual reference is from a shot at the beggenning of the film 'A Clockwork Orange', where he is in the Kolokov Bar and it zooms out slowly while there is a voice-over introducing the film. Plus, there will be references to other music video's done by bands such as Jamie T and Artic Monkeys.

Avenged Sevenfold - Bat Country

"He who makes a beast out of himself, gets rid of the pain of being a man."

This is the quote that forms the basis of this music video, because the video depicts a very surreal world. It pays homage to the book/film "Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas" and the name comes from a quote in the book. The book is about people on drugs, which Avenged Sevenfold's video conveys very well. The special effects make this work, and the randomness of what is shown makes the video funny at the same time, which makes the video better on another level.

The video was the first track used of their new album, which meant the main aim of the video was to make the band look good and 'cool'. So, they key ingredients that they included were the attractive women, partying and looking like the kind of band that live by Sex, Drugs and Rock 'n' Roll. This gives the audience escapism appeal because the video can't help but make people wonder how amazing it would be to be them. The Car that is used in the video gives a of a "live life in the fast land' vibe which is appealing and vital for a rock band to have.

The dark clothing and tattoos appeal to the audience by signifying the darkness of the genre. For the audience, this provides the identification gratification because its usual for the audience to have the same fashion sense so they can relate to the band. The place where they are preforming is somewhere like a squalid house. This signifies that they are from the street and not many people admire bands that are from high places in society because not many people can relate to that, so this is important and works well.

One of the reasons the band is famous is because of the recognition of how impressive the musicians are. This is why a lot of the video is spent on the solo and dedicates that part to the lead guitarist. This part appeals to the audience that admire the band for this.

The mise-en-scene is probably the most important aspect of any music video, and this video is no exception. One item that stands out enormously is the car that they are driving in and how they drive. It looks like an old Cadillac model. This gives the effect that the band have wealth, style and are able to get their hands on rare cars, which is impressive. Also, their reckless driving represents the bands 'middle finger' to society. Their tattoos, symbolise a number of things. For example, tattoo's are quite painful to get, and the number that they have suggest that they are tough which adds to their persona. Finally, the amount of black coloured items represent darkness and evil which appeals to a large audience that follow that genre of music and dress the same way.

Biffy Clyro - Living is a Problem Because Everyone Dies

The video represents the darker side of the band, this has been represented by the dark colour's and dime lighting used. The only lights being used in this video are small orange tinted spotlights aimed at the member of the band, the light is placed at the end of a tunnel with band members closer to the camera making the tunnel seem darker deep and distant.

The costumes used are all plain coloured T shirts, shirts and trousers, all black assosiating with the darkness of the video. The only time costume changes is when the lead singer of the band has close ups of just himself without the band, in these shots he is topless, due to this the viewer can see the tattoos on his body. The other times there are close ups of the instruments, these shots have a duration of roughly two seconds each, when in comparison to the other shots last much longer, maybe double this. These shots work well as the whole video is a performance piece, with these slow motion snips of fast paced playing the tempo of the song is juxaposed with these yet it works extremely well.

Due to the content of the video this connects with the song extremely well as the song itself pourtrays the bands anger and in some ways sadness, so due to the content in this video both music and video has been accoupanied extremely well.

Why a Music Video?

We were given a choice between producing either a short film or a music video. As a group consisting of four students, we collectively decided to go down the music video route.

The reason behind this choice is is that we thought the music video would allow us to show our technical and creative abilities. where as the short films success is dictated by the actors performances and a well written story line, music videos are dictated by the themes and camera work, editing and effective mise-en-scene which we feel is more our strengths as a group of producers/directors.

We believe that the music video will allow us to explore a more innovative aspect of camera work and angles because whilst short films are shaped by their genres conventions, music videos give us the freedom to manipulate conventions. We also feel that the music videos fast paced nature will enable us to discover and possibly create new methods of filming and editing techniques such as lighting.

Finally since we produced a film opening last year we felt more passionate to try our hand at something new, in this case a music video.