Initial Music Video Analysis: Kasabian - Fire
This video is almost completely narrative - performance is limited to just the vocalist - telling the singular story of a bank robbery gone wrong by the band. They ignore music video conventions by having no relationship between the lyrics and the visuals, and shooting in a continuity rather than a montage style. Also, there are almost no cutaways from the main narrative to any other location or storyline, making the promo feel more like a film or TV drama than a music video.
Through the camera movement, editing pace and use of colour, the director manages to 'split' the video into sections linked to the sections of the song (ie verse/chorus/bridge). The first verse has slowed-down footage, with a sepia, heat-haze effect applied, with lethargic camerawork and editing pace. The chorus breaks into black and white CCTV footage, with chaotic and exciting fast editing across the action of the bank robbery, despite the limitation of static cameras. These two sections are repeated for the second verse/chorus, then in the bridge it changes into blue-ish footage of the safe, enforcing the diegesis of the setting and storyline. The video ends with a 'shootout' and the getaway. Despite not following the stylistic conventions of a music video, 'Fire' still uses plenty of close ups, especially of the lead singer - enforcing his star persona.
The key memorable concept of this video is the gimmick of using instruments instead of weapons during the bank robbery. This seems entirely original and is completely effective, yet is actually a sly intertextual link to the video for 'Breaking the Law' by heavy metal band Judas Priest (link).
It is also important to recognise where this song falls in Kasabian's release history. 'Fire' was released as a comeback single from their award-winning third album. In a shot towards the end of the video, it shows that the band were not stealing money, but sheet music, fitting the idea that they are "taking back the music". The video helps to not only reestablish the band, bust also create the new image to go with their new album.
Music Video Workshop - Preliminary Task
Noah and the Whale - 'L.I.F.E.G.O.E.S.O.N.'
During planning, we turned immediately towards the quirky, low-budget style videos commonly found representing this genre. Although NATW are backed by Mercury Records (a subsidiary of UMG, giving them oppoutunities to make big-budgeted, glossy music videos), their sound reflects a large number of indie folk-rock bands currently permeating the British music scene, which we used as inspiration to create this low-budget, slightly bizarre video.Our brief was to create a "pop music promo approximately one minute in duration", also requiring a storyboard, shot list and video synopsis. We were told to include more than one location, costume changes, elements of performance and conventional camerawork to make the video. This alone showed us the level of planning, initiative and creativity required to make a music video.
The key concept around which our video revolved was the use of 'signs' for each of the letters. Taking this idea from the song lyrics (spelt out in the chorus), it is used to highlight the title of the song, making it memorable, reinforcing the catchy nature, and therefore enabling the song to sell more.
The video opens with an establishing shot of the signs hung up on a washing line, which will become the backdrop to the performance (not unlike a stage banner in live performance). We chose to vary the editing pace throughout, for the most part editing directly on the beat, emphasising the strong rhythmic element of the song. During the instrumental introduction [0:00-0:12], we have a series of fast cuts between close ups of each performer, which then slows to a long shot of the band for the first verse [0:12-0-21]. This is then split up by a cutaway to a person holding a letter sign, and other such eccentric cutaways. The pace of editing then speeds up a little as it leads into the prechorus and the chorus. Here [0:41], the main idea behind our video comes through, (and again at [0:53]) as the signs create a strong, tangible concept for the video to rest on. The video ends with two young girls holding up a hand-written page with the song title/phrase written on it, embodying the childish, fun spirit of the song.
Given more time to plan, I think we would have been able to go further with the peculiarities shown, making a more interesting, less generic video. However, I think that as a first foray into the world of music video, This attempt successfully shows our basic knowledge, and will be used in a few months time to demonstrate our development in the field.
Introduction
This is the OCR Media Studies A2 coursework blog by me, Sam Hopkins. You can find the main school blog here, and our own group blog is here.
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