AS: Music Video Analysis

1. Leave Before the Lights Come On- The Arctic Monkeys (2006) -  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEukS2YN9B8

Representation:

This video focuses on gender representation and the female is represented as vulnerable and mentally unstable. In contrast, the male is seen to be a hero because he’s there by chance at the time that the woman is thinking about taking her life. Through persuasion, he seems to convince her not to, making him appear heroic. As a result, the woman appears reliant on the man. 

In the rest of the video, the woman is shown to become attached to the man and it seems she wont leave him alone, portraying the woman as a child, Goffman called this ritualization of subordination. At the end, she goes back to the location at the start and kicks her shoe off the roof again. Another man is walking by, giving the video an enigmatic end because the audience are left wondering if she is mentally unstable or she is just looking for a man. 

The dominant value in society is that women are reliant upon men, this is portrayed especially through media forms and advertising and when looking at the ideological discourse in the video it is clear that the women is represented as being reliant upon the man to save her life, as she is portrayed as irresponsible and someone who it seems cannot be trusted.

Narrative:

In the video, there is a relationship between music and visuals. This is because the line “This is a good idea, you wouldn't do it if it wasn't” is accompanied by the woman standing on the roof of a building contemplating suicide. This is known as an illustrative relationship because the lyrics have a literal meaning in relation to the events in the music video. Doing this means that the video comes across with a stronger storyline and has more of an impact upon the viewers.

However there is no relationship between the sound and the visuals. The music doesn't coincide with events on screen. A pattern between the music and features of a music video such as the cutting rate cannot be found and therefore, the relationship is disjunctive.

2. I Will Wait - Mumford and Sons (2012)  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kS8RTRi7HA

Audience:

Having been released this year, this video is able to benefit from the current growth and expansion of social networking and web 2.0 - which allows it to open up to an audience on an extremely large scale. Therefore, this video is likely to be consumed through music channels such as MTV as well as the two methods mentioned earlier and this procedure has now become commonplace for music videos. Sites such as YouTube allow an artist or a band to increase the selling content of their track.

The video is likely to be for more ambient viewers due to the lack of events in the video and the relaxing nature of the song.. This means people are more likely to have the music video on whilst doing something else because they're not drawn into a strong narrative like other music videos and are not confronted with strong and fast paced music to accompany it - these sorts of videos would be known as more focused viewing for an audience.

Institution:

For this video, it is the likely that the record label would choose to play this video over TV perhaps through advertising or on a trailer for a TV series. This is because although the music is not very imposing or aggressive it is still easily recognisable and a powerful piece of music.

The lyrics are the most 'powerful' aspect of the video because they're connoting that the individual singing is expressing his desire to wait for his true love - a familiar scenario that is prominent in a number of media texts - especially TV dramas that are built around a love story. Similarly, it could also be used for a film trailer, or as an end piece of music in a film, because the song has a strong underlying message and a familiar theme.

These potential uses of the track are enhanced by the fact that the band is well-known and renowned for strong and powerful and moving songs that are based upon the idea of love, and the implications surrounding it.

3. Esacapee - Architeture in Helsinki - (2012)- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EoLsS2tRC0

Genre:

This video has identifiable aspects of the Goodwin model, for example, there is an illustrative relationship between music and visuals. This is because the line "I'm escaping, you're escaping" is accompanied by a shot of a young boy supposedly escaping on a bicycle with balloons on the back. Furthermore, the line "I need to flick the switch and show you how to hide" is followed by a close up of a man driving around suburban streets looking for who we assume is the boy who has escaped in the video.

As well as this, the video has an element of performance from the band juxtaposed in along with the narrative. Goodwin identified this as being common because he said that the demands of the record label will include the need for lots of close-ups of the artist. Shots such as these are known as 'meat shots' and help to promote the band, as well as maintaining focus on the narrative in order to develop recognisable style.

I believe that this video can be considered as art. This is because it presents a challenging storyline of a young boy who is seen to be 'escaping' therefore the video seems to challenge the ideology that young children should remain safe and dependent rather than the rebellious young boy shown in this video.

Media Language:

The video has a purpose of demonstrating how a young boy is presumably bored and wants to 'escape' and does so by taking a bike and riding away. The social message that is portrayed in this video is that young children can get bored easily in a daily routine and sometimes they want to do something different and became rebellious and escape from authority.

In order to portray this message, the video gives prevalance to the young boy so that the audience are positioned with him on his escape journey. The cuts are mixed between the boy and the band in order to give the band some prevalance as well in order to keep the image of the band prevalant in the video.

The most notable aspect of mise-en-scene in the video is the balloons on the back of the bike, that symoblise freedom for the boy on his escape. In contrast the man pursuing him is in a harsh and large vehicle, compared with the vulnerable boy on just his bike, reflecting the way in which the grown man has authority over the younger boy.

Camera shots include various pans follwoing the boy on his bike, and close up 'meat' shots of the band playing. The pans for the boy on his bike help to show him riding into the distance and convey a sense of never ending freedom, and then when the video cuts back to the close ups of the band abruptly it helps to cut in and out of the storytline - almost as if the audience are checking back on the boy on his journey as he goes along.