Analysis of music Videos

Always Where I Need To Be- The kooks

The location of the filming was in New York and recognizable place like, Central Park and Coney Island. The song was also a background so for a popular football game. The song was the main single from there second studio album.

We see how the band and the song relate to the genre with aspects of the video and performers in the video. In the video we see the performers in indie style clothing such as skinny jeans and colored hoodies. We can also tell by the song and style the video has be filmed. With no story line and quick pace editing we can tell that this fits in to the indie genre.

The video grips the audience attention by the set and location, in some shots they are on top of high buildings looking over New York City. Also the fast pace shots draw the audience in because it make the video look more interesting.

This particular video is a conceptual video which basically mean that there is no set story line, but it keeps the audience drawn by the combination of band performance and different locations. There is a part of the video with a auditions which make the audience want to watch on to find out what the auditions are for.

The way in that the video was filmed was with lots of fast pace shots which change locations and highlight the band performance. Thought there is a lot of medium shots with show band and locations. There is also a lot of pans which show band, these pans are normally handheld to it makes you feel like you are one of the band members.

This video works well at promoting as a product because it is a well produced video, there are lots of signifier that highlight the genre. And we see that the lead singer is the main centre of attention with lots of close up shots.

Run- Snow Patrol

Snow patrol realised “Run” in February 2004, it was the second single they realised for their third recorded album “final straw”. This song was the band first real taste of mainstream success, reaching 5 in the UK single chart. The music video was directed by Paul Gore and was first aired in 2003. The video is set in Essex countryside between dusk and dawn.

The music video starts with Gary Lightbody pushing a rusty old motorbike trough a dusty path, we see him abandonment his motorcycle, this could be a reflection on what happened to him. At the start of the video as he walks further down the dust road it gets dark and angles in onto Gary’s face as she starts to sing. After he abandons the bike we see the camera move from a tracking shot, into a handheld shot which follow him off the path in to a pitch black field, this show that he wants to get as far as possible from his problem.

During the chorus of the video we see that Andrew Godwin theory take place in where the visuals link in with the lyrics and music. As the lyrics “light up, light up” are sung we see the ignition of a red flare, which changes a dark dingy sit lit up by this chiaroscuro light source. As the pass of the music slows down he extinguishes the flare and goes back to being a dark hand held shot of him walking through the field back to being alone.

Near the end of the video we see him standing in the middle of a large field surrounded by people with flares, this could mean that he is confused. That each person is a solution to his problem but he hasn’t got any idea on what person/solution he should choose.

At the end of the video we see that his abandoned motorcycle is set on fire and thrown into a river this could indicate that he has given up and that he had the final straw which is the title of the album.

Milburn – What Will We Do (When the Money Goes)

This song is by an indie rock band from Sheffield that was released in early autumn of 2007. This was the first single that was released from their second album.

The clothing the band wear in the video indicate what genre of music this band is in. The style and the colours of the clothes are a signifier for this particular genre. Also the types of instruments the band use reflect the genre these types of instrument would not be a typical instrument you would in other genres like heavy metal bands.

There are two themes in this video; there is the band performance of the song. The other is a story line of a mime artist who robs a bank with his acting skills we see him enter a bank and rob them whilst using no tools/weapons (props). We follow the narrative through the music video, with interval of band performance.

The way in which the video keeps the audiences attention is by a moving the camera, main pans but this keeps interest by no having allot of static shot. Also it makes it easy to follow the story line by the changing of colour between the narrative and band performance. We also see Goodwin’s utopian theory come into play when the visuals of the song linking with the lyrics. The title of the song also link with the visuals in the video.

Though out the video we see various different shots from close up of performers playing instruments, to establishing shots of the reaction of customers in the bank. We also see different angle in the music video such as high angle shots of the mime artist outside the bank. As for the camera movement there is a very small amount of static shots, there are various amounts of different camera movements, but the majority of these movements are tracking the actors.

This video work well as a commercial product because we see that the band is well represented throughout the video. Not like other music videos we don’t se a main focus on the lead vocalist; we see a fair representing of each band member. Different from other videos we don’t see one of the band performers or lead singer take the acting role for the narrative.