Friday 21 September 2012

HCT: Music Video Analysis

Yellow - Coldplay, Frost (2009)


The first video i have chosen to analyse is 'Yellow' by Coldplay. This is because firstly it is of the same genre as 'Up In Flames' as well as being by the same band. Also they use similar techniques to what we are thinking of using such as one single or minimal cuts as well as being in slow motion.
The video Is one single shot of the lead singer-Chris Martin lip syncing in slow motion to the camera In terms of audience it is a hard video to be consumed because of the minimal content. The whole video is of one single shot with no obvious progression as the video continues, meaning it may appear boring to some leading them to stop watching or disinterested. Although the video is very minimalist and the only obvious progression being the change in brightness and emotional colouring as the video continues this opens peoples perception of the video and allows it to be open to interpritation.
The instituational content of this video is interesting as the video is very diferent to the common colourfull vibrant videos the coldplay usually produce. This is largely thier meta-narrative image and best represents them as a band. It is this factor that leads us to believe that this was more of a production inspired by the record labels creativity. however when looking at slower paced music videos from Coldplay we see that they have a similar style where there is a single character which is played by Chris. He is normally shown through very slow cutting rates asewell lending this video to be more convetnional to Coldplays style. Another reason for the slow feel, and almost serious undertone of this video lies in the background meaning. The plan was to shoot the band walking along a sunny beach with lots of people lying around, but Coldplay drummer Will Champion's mother died shortly before the shoot. The film crew and extras were already hired, so with the band's blessing, Martin went by himself while the other members attended the funeral. It was raining that day, so instead of using the extras, they had Martin alone on the beach.
There are a few conventions regarding Goodwin's theory. The video is largely performance based as well as being conseptual and disjunctive. The performance given by chris is believable and as the video is one show he is constantly looking into the camera, breaking the fourth wall and reaching out to the audience enforcing notion of looking. The performance of the lip syncing by chris creates a link between lyrics and visuals helping them to permiate our minds. I believe this is both amplification of the lyrics as well as being disjunctive as the concept is very random and odd for the audience however it is refreshing and with the lyrics being sung by Chris this creates a senes of amplification.
This video could definitely be seen as a form of art because of the visuals and how they appear to the audience and not very appropriate at first glance, allowing us to think further into the meaning-exactly what art focuses on.

Love Lost - The Temper Trap (2010)


The Second video is 'Love lost' by The Temper Trap. I chose to analyse this video because of the constant tracking backwards from a persons face. This is a similar idea to ours and therefore would be good to analyse. This video is also in slow motion with the lip snycing in real time
The band isn't shown throughout the entire video meaning we cannot place a fair judgement on how they as induviduals are represented. Although the concept of the video is very interesting and intruiging. The video is of a group of children sent by thier teacher on a run. The teacher is given a short but slightly commical role as he is stereotyped. The video consists of a constant track back however there is smaller sections of video to break up the main track. This is important to consider when thinking about our track back and possible B roll to break it up to keep in intresting. The children have muddy faces and apear to be intruiging characters of all shapes, sizes and ethnicities.
The Male adult character is stereotyped as a yorkshire man with a deep powerful voice instructing the younger children where to run. He is a typical 'bossy' PE teacher and for that reason we find him comical.
There is a dominant ideology in this video as the group of young boys who would appear to part of the same class are different shapes and sizes with there being an even selection of boys from different races showing that in contemporary sociaty there is an even spread of people that are all accepted from different backgrounds.
This video would probably be consumed through music channels as well as the internet. I think predominantly the internet via facebook and YouTube. This video has the potential of being a viral marketing tool as well as a music video because of the clever concept. We are not quite sure why we like the video however we do and we want to share it with others. When viewing it we are very focused on it, as there is almost a story and some kind of narrative elements to it so we immediately get attached. There could also be an audience reading of the text in that the boys running through a course thats horrid and dirty, theres no hope,just mud. Yet they run right back to where they started at the begining of the video. Them stopping along the run is like a hiccup in a relationship, where later a group of girls come running back into the picture. Yet they weren't on the same path- the girls were on the greener side, with clean clothes and polished image whilst the boys were stuck on the muddy road. An audience member could see this a relationship and relate to it in that way.
With consideration of other videos produced by The Temper Trap, they are very conceptual and experimental. the result is always a good one with visually clever and pleasing videos. I think this is no exeption and the record would have had little input into the concept of this. 

Love and Oxygen - Str8jackets and Sam Obernik (2012)

My third video is 'Love and Oxygen' by the Str8jackets and Sam Obernik. This is a good video to analyse because it has very interesting editing techniques and titles. We are looking to do some interesting titles before the start of the song so this would be good analyse.
This video uses a large contrast between titles and background B roll footage. The titles are deliberately thick in order to be able to fill them with other visuals. This is a very artistic technique and looks good. With this technique they have been able to get two different coloured shots and layered them, creating a juxtaposition. This is an interesting technique and would be good to use for our video. The thick texts that are normally used work perfectly with Coldplay's normal big bodied text. The video would possibly be consumed by young people on YouTube and Facebook due to the content of the video in that the characters are young, possibly in their twenties and are wearing trendy colourful clothes. This means the audience would relate to the video and want to share with their friends, possibly turning it viral. As the artist is not very big in the industry and not quite pop music. The label would have had little say in the content of the video therefore leaving the artist to be creative. This shows in the video with experimental visuals and colours.
With consideration of genre and narrative and Goodwins theory, the performance of this video amplifies the lyrics. The lead singer holds the majority of the video with plenty of meat shots of her lip syncing and moving her arms to the music. This reinforces the musics bass line and creates more of a performance. As wells as this, the editing of several shapes pulsing with other visuals overlayed creates double images of the artist and increases the audiences viewing of the artist via notion of looking. There are elements of amplification of the lyrics as the artist and editing techniques pulse the bass line, however the content of the visual with the colours and smoke creates a disjunctive feel. The video could definitely be seen as an art form with the crisp layering of videos and experimental feel it gives.

3 comments:

  1. This is good analysis Henry. However to get a level 4 for this, you must edit and change the numerous typos and spelling mistakes. The formatt is a bit lumpy too and headings must be put in. You also need to develop the notion of looking idea particularly with reference to the last video, ie voyeurism.

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  2. 3 interesting relevant videos. I really like the text and graphic used on the last one. Could we perhaps incorporate this convention into the Coldplay font we plan to use?! Maybe with flames due to the title of the song...?

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  3. Henry, I like the slow motion on the first video - Yellow - too.

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