Music Video Analysis x4

White Stripes, Seven Nation Army.

Popular band who's video despite its simplicity, caught the attention of thousands. Due to it's success, it's simplicity and the fact that I like this song... I have chosen to analyse this video.



The first noticeable thing we see in this video is it's effective and consistent editing to the beat. The drumming rhythm is very powerful. This suggests that the artist wants us to focus on the music as its main feature. This is supported further as we are constantly shown the instruments and the artists over and over again, from different angles, in different colours and even at different sizes.
A consistent colour scheme is used throughout. Black, white and red, the same colour scheme I plan to use in my artwork and a conventional colour scheme on the darker side of the rock and roll world, especially the gothic side.
The editing is very clever, the triangles coming forward change pace to match the music, speeding up and slowing down at the exact right times. This is something we must be sure to incorporate in our video.


Ghetto Gospel, 2Pac.

I have chosen to also do this video as it focuses 100% on narrative, a complete contrast to the white stripes who have effectively no narrative.



The meaning of the lyrics to this song are constantly shown through both the narrative and imagery. The narrative shows a young man growing up trapped in a rough neighbourhood with a religous mother. He seeks to escape the pressures of his peers but in the end of the narrative is killed in a drive by, a tragic ending to a sad song.
Religous imagery is used throughout the entire video. The church in the neighbourhood in focused on during several scenes and statues of Jesus/ the crucifix are often seen in the background. The lighting around the individual also suggests he is of importance or in a deeper sense~ being watched over by god.
The lyrics often match what we are seeing in the video. "Lord can you hear me speak?" is heard alongside an image of Jesus Christ. This kind of editing is something I could realistically incorporate into my video.


Green Day, When September Ends.

This video unlike the two above has a good mix of both narrative and performance.



The performance shots of the band show them elevated on platforms, this gives them a sense of importance or 'stature'. Their costumes are conventional of the Punk Genre this band is associated with, the thin ties, skinny jeans and slick excentric hair styles with the eye make-up are classic punk.
The narrative storyline involves the love life of two teenagers, one of which goes off to war leaving the other behind. The narrative at one stage inerupts the music, the song stops and an argument between the couple breaks out. This makes the audience equally focus on both the narrative and the song itself, especially how the cleverly compliment each other.
Emotion in the characters is conveyed perfectly with the use of varied shots, close-ups especially let us see the pain the girl goes through when her boyfriend goes out to war. Different camera shots were something we as a group had thougt about doing right from the start, but using them effectively in the narrative to convey emotion is something we hadn't thought about before watching this video.


Michael Jackson, Thriller.

This video was groundbreaking. It shook the world with it's extremely high budget listings, amazing dancing and revolutionary narrative style. Something as iconic as this, couldn't be overlooked.



Horror! Werewolves, dark lighting, the undead all very gothic so applying some of the things I've seen in this video to mine would be perfect!
To start off, no expense has been spared with costume, and while I don't plan to be quite as out there as Michael Jackson, applying to right costume to the right character is essential! The red and black suit MJ is sporting is conventional of the horror genre and goes fantasically with his character both in his regular form and when he's a member of the undead.
You can pause this video at any moment throughout it's 11 minute endurment and anaylse the Mise en scene and it always represents its genre and purpose perfectly! This leads me to think about what I should do with the background in my video, where should I film it? What time of day? Everything seen in my shots must suit what I am trying to achieve just like it has been done in Thriller.
The narrative of this video is unline any other I've ever seen. The music goes from being non-diagetic to a part of the actual story! Yet the narrative manages to not draw us away from the fact we are watching a music video!
The beauty of immersing the film Thriller into an 11 minutes masterpiece music video informs me of why this video was such a success. It has been imitated countless times and for good reason! If I could take away from this video the importance of mise en scene, costume and genre consistency, my video will surely have the professional look to it.