JH
Detailed Analysis of Music Videos
Below is my detailed analysis of three music videos which I will explain as to how they may influence myself and Joe in creating our own music video.
Come by Jain
The first music video in which I will be analysing is Come by Jain. As mentioned in the brief analysis section Jain is a French songwriter whose music videos are very abstract and conceptual. Her song 'Come' and 'Makeba' follow a similar pattern both being very random based music videos, and we see the ending of 'Come' at the start of the video 'Makeba' which suggests that these two songs are related in some way.
At the start of the music video we see a close up shot of Jain wearing the same pattern clothing as the wallpaper that is in the background of the shot (shown above), this could indicate that she wants to try and fit into society however it may also link with similarity due to the fact that she is wearing the same pattern as the wallpaper. This shot allows the audience to understand who Jain is before the music video starts, I believe that we could include this type of shot in our music video as we are thinking of creating our music video based on a story line where people are not able to fit into society and I also feel as if it is good for the audience to be able to recognize early on who the artist of the song is.
The next shot that I found very interesting is the one above on the left, the chess board. This chess board looks very unusual due to the fact that one side is the normal way up however the other side is upside down, it looks as if it is some sort of mirror effect. This effect was intelligently done and makes the audience feel confused and wonder how Jain/the editor managed to create such an unusual look. Due to the fact that the audience find this shot unusual and many of my mates said that it was 'trippy' they will be intrigued to watch more to see what other effects Jain uses within her music videos making them more successful.
The middle photo is a shot that I found very strange, we see a cup on a table that looks abnormally large as well as Jain who appears to look very small. Jain then jumps in the cup of tea which causes the tea to splash out the cup. I am not sure how they managed to create such an effect however I feel as if this is very effective and it made my mind hurt when trying to think about how they filmed/edited this.
The shot on the right shows two versions of Jain, this could imply as if she has two separate personalities which creates a sense of dualism. Dualism is shown throughout this music video, it was seen earlier on in the video when we saw two Jain's playing chess against each other and we see it again now when they are playing hide and seek with each other. This could demonstrate how she only has herself to play with due to society not accepting her for who she is.
These three shots above follow each other in the music video. It shows three of Jain and each Jain has a different pair of glasses on. At first we see the middle Jain lift up her glasses and when she does this the shot goes into a dark tint as if we are watching the music video through sunglasses. We then see the Jain on the left lift up her glasses and the shot becomes blurry for a few seconds until she puts her glasses back on as if we have just seen through her glasses. Finally we see the Jain on the right take off her sunglasses to which the shot becomes pink tinted and with more than one of each object due to the ghosting effect. I believe that this is a very well executed and powerful effect as it is very eye catchy and makes the audience think about why these effects have been put in place. I think that there are three different types of glasses and three Jain's in order to represent her different personalities and sides that she may have. For example, the dark tint could represent her dark side, the blurry shot may show her when she is confused potentially about why she isn't accepted in society and finally the ghosting effect with the pink tint could reflect her crazy/excited side as the effect is very bright and full on.
After looking as this trio of effects I believe that myself and Joe could do something like this when trying to show one of our characters confusion about why they are not accepted in society and their general life struggles.
The shot above is another shot that originally confused me at first, however after closely analysing it I have realised how they managed to do this. The woman on the bench is laying down on the floor with the bench tipped backwards so that it's legs are in the air and the back rest is along the floor. The other Jain is just walking normally towards the camera. I feel as if this is an influential shot as something which is very simple like this could make a huge difference in the look of the shot and I will try to include something like this shot in my final music video as I believe that it would make my music video look professional.
This is the final shot from the music video Come in which I found interesting. Here we can see multiple Jain's walking down the stairs even though the stairs are facing upwards as shown by the light at the top of the stairs and the other Jain sitting on the side of the staircase. I think that this is a very interesting shot as it creates an optical illusion due to the doubt it puts in your mind as you do not know whether they are walking up the stairs or down the stairs. We see earlier on in the video a shot of multiple Jain's walking up stairs that are facing downwards which is also very strange to watch, however I do believe that these are very effective shots as they make the audience want to watch more of the video. As much as I would like to try and include something like this within my music video I feel as if it would be very difficult as myself and Joe do not have the facilities/location like this one nor the ability to think of an optical illusion that could work as well as this one.
Believer by Imagine Dragons
The second music video in which I am going to be looking at in detail is Believer by Imagine Dragons. The song is based on his experiences in 2015 with ankylosing spondylitis which is a type of arthritis in which there is a long term inflammation of the joints of the spine. The lead singer Dan Reynolds said "The meaning of the song is really reflecting on specific things in my life that were painful, whether it was anxiety and dealing with crowds, feeling overwhelmed by that or the success of the band, disease, going through depression - anything that was a source of pain in my life. And just rising above that, finding a place of perspctive where I could be appreciative of the pain in my life and make it my greatest strength.
Here is one of the first shots in the music video of Believer. This shot shows the lead singer singing however it only shows the bottom half of his face and his mouth moving which in my opinion is very effective. The red tint which we can clearly see in this shot could give off an indication that he is frustrated or angry with the situation in which he was in during his life when he was suffering from ankylosing spondylitis or it could show us that this character may be a threat later on in the music video.
These three shots are taken from different parts of the music video. We see them at different points throughout the video as we only see the guitar for example when the guitarist is playing, and the drummer when the drummer is playing etc. I believe that this technique is very interesting as it is very unusual to show the artists performing through a silhouette and with a very bright background behind them. Due to the fact that there are different colours in the background it may show that each musician has a different personality, e.g. the blue background may be very calm, however the orange background may be more dangerous and frustrated. Another point about why the backgrounds may be this colour is because of the album cover, the album cover consists of many different colours so therefore there may be a theme in which Imagine Dragons have used throughout all their music videos to show the audience that these songs belong in that album. The electric lighting that we can see in the background is also very effective as it creates the party/up beat feeling to the video, it makes the audience feel more energetic towards the song as if they were actually at a concert seeing them perform live which means that they can relate to the music video a lot more. The idea of a silhouette being used in order to show the artists performing is commonly used and in my opinion would look very good if we managed to pull it off, we saw the silhouette effect used in Daft Punk's Get Lucky where it looked just as good as it does here. A key point in which we would need to make sure we include if we were to do this is a very brightly coloured background as otherwise we would not be able to make the silhouette effect.
From these two shots we begin to understand the storyline to this music video, we see him fighting which appears to be someone who looks older than him. I think that it is him fighting himself when he is older, however I believe that Imagine Dragons have used this as a way to say that Dan Reynolds is fighting his arthritis in his spine as arthritis is commonly found in older people. We can see his face and it is full of emotion as if he is very passionate about this subject as it has made him have a lot of life problems like depression for a long time. The ankylosing spondylitis also had an affect on his performances at concerts as he struggled to move quickly due to his arthritis in his back, the shot on the right above show that he has nearly overcame the arthritis as he is moving freely and jumping in the air without showing any pain or discomfort. The shot on the left above shows the same background colours as we saw earlier, after having just seen the album cover of the album in which Believer is part of I can see that the blue, green, orange and red are the main colours throughout the album which suggests that Imagine Dragons wanted to create a theme so that people can easily associate the songs with that album. We also see a lot of smoke that has been created at the bottom of the shot on the left, this makes the audience focus more on the two performers as the smoke is sort of surrounding them as if they are trapped by it, the smoke also creates an atmosphere for the viewers to enjoy and works well in this shot. In the shot on the right we see again the red tint effect, which continues to indicate how much of a threat the lead singer is throughout this music video this is reinforced through the fact that it is a low angle of him which makes us seem as if he has a sense of superiority over the other person which could relate to how he is more superior than the ankylosing spondylitis. The key topic of this music video is based on violence and we can also see a lot of blood throughout the boxing match and this red tint effect reinforces how much blood that the viewer may see whilst watching this.
Towards the end of the music video we see a medium shot of this boy sitting down on the same chair as the man who is shown on the right above. Throughout the music video we see the boy drawing on the notepad that he is holding and at the end what he has been drawing is revealed. The two shots above are shown straight after one another with the little boy being the first shot. That shot then fades into the second one as we slowly see the little boy disappear and the older man emerge. Due to the fact that we see the older man appear from the little boys shadow it may indicate that the younger boy is the older man but only when he was younger. This could relate to the fact that he has overcame his ankylosing spondylitis and now feels like he is more of a man then he was as he has beaten his illness.
The two shots above are seen right at the end of the music video. In the shot above on the left we can see the lead singer being uppercutted and then we see his body slowly falling in slow motion as if he has been defeated. This could relate to the fact that ankylosing spondylitis has beaten him and that he is never going to fully recover from what he is currently suffering with in everyday life. The shot above on the left is the final shot that we can see; a close up of what appears to look like a logo. After having researched into what this logo is I found out that it was the album's logo. I feel that having a shot of the logo at the end of the music video is a good idea as it allows the audience to be able to categorize the music video with that specific album.
Stressed Out by Twenty One Pilots
This is the final music video in which I will be analysing. The song is about two young men who are clearly facing struggles in their lives and want to go back to living like a child, this is illustrated through many ways throughout the video. Below are the opening shots of this music video, the shot on the left is the opening shot, we can see the lead singer riding a tricycle in the middle of the road in a street which looks very quiet and isolated which creates a sense of loneliness around the main character. The shot on the right is the second shot, we then see a close up of his face which shows his emotions and allows us to see for ourselves how he looks.
We later on see the main character arrive at a house, we see him knock and as the door opens the music stops and the bands drummer comes out and they give each other a handshake. This handshake shows a sense of childhood as they had created a sequence of things they do with each other when they meet up which is something that is very common in young children's friendships. An important factor is the fact that the music stops, the director has clearly done this so that everybody's attention is solely based on that handshake. Once the handshake is over they then both go inside and when the door shuts we quickly cut to a shot of the two characters singing and the music starts again.
These next two shots are the two shots which follow on from when the door shuts, we can see the two main characters preparing themselves to begin playing/singing and then in the shot in the right we can see the two characters performing. This scene lasts for approximately 20 seconds which adds a sense of performance to the music video as the audience are able to appreciate and see the difficulty in playing an instrument and understand how talented the drummer and singer are. We can see that they are in a small room which suggests that the parents may not want them to pursue this career and therefore they may need to fund their passion themselves. On the drum we can clearly see that it says 'Twenty One Pilots' which allows the audience to realise that these are the band and increases the band awareness. I think that this would be a good idea to try and include in our music video however it may be difficult as we are thinking of using a song that is a mix of two artists.
In the two shots below we can see the two main characters sitting down by the side of the road drinking what appears to be a juice carton, something similar to a capri-sun. We then see the lead singer ask the drummer if he wants to come round his house to play, these two actions reinforce how the two characters are trying to be portrayed as childish and the video demonstrates through their actions how they both really do want to go back to their childhood. The use of a backpack on a character creates a connotation of someone being a school child which is what the director is trying to make these two characters look like.
Below this we now see both of the characters riding a tricycle when going round the lead singers house, this could show what the two used to do when they were younger and reinforces the idea of both of the characters wanting to go back to their childhood. The shot on the right is when they get back into the lead singers house, we can see that they are doing the same thing, performing, just in a different house. The lighting throughout this music video is low key which suits the genre of the song as it is not an upbeat song and therefore high key lighting would not look effective. Both the characters are wearing hats, one is wearing a beanie and the other a snap back, these two types of hat are usually worn by people who have a hip hop fashion style and therefore the hats are used well in this video as the song is of a hip hop/rock genre.
The shot below is of the two different families of the two different characters, we can see the two characters sleeping and the family members saying 'wake up you need to make money'. This suggests that these two characters aren't making any money whilst practicing for their songs so therefore the family do not have enough money as they keep on paying for their equipment. It could also indicate that the two families do not believe that their two children will make enough money pursuing a music career and therefore they're trying to say wake up in a sense of delusion. The two characters being told to wake up also illustrates a sense of childhood as almost every parent has had to wake up their child for them to go to school which reinforces the idea of them being 'stressed out' by adulthood.
In the two shots above we can see in the left one, a close up shot of the lead singer who looks as if he has became evil, through the use of red eyes. The use of red eyes has the connotation of danger and being associated with harmful things, for example, he could be turning mentally unstable which could mean he is a danger to other people. When we see this shot, the voice tone of the lead singer drops and becomes more aggressive which may suggest that he is talking back to his family in an angry way as he disagrees with the point that they are trying to make about waking up. In the shot above on the right we can see him by himself again in the middle of the road, the tricycles and the instruments are behind him which could suggest that he is trying to move on leaving them behind him and trying to get used to adulthood because of what his family have said.
Overall I think from conducting all of this detailed analysis I think that I now have more of an idea of what to include in my music video in order to make it more successful. I feel as if I have also gained more knowledge from this research aswell because I now know that I should include props that are relevant to the music genre in which the song is based around.