Music videos - Initial research

In today's lesson we looked further into music videos and conducted more research into three different types of music video; illustrative, hybrid and disjuncture.
Here are some initial ideas and notes from the three videos we watched and began to analyse.

The first video is 'One direction - Steal My Girl'


Summary

For this video we discovered that there was many long shots which show the band and the people in masses to connote the band are united and strong. There are also a lot of close ups of the band individually, this is because with a pop genre and particularly with boy bands its not so much the music that sells the song/artist it is the appearance of the band that encourages people to buy and watch it. As boy bands have crazy fan bases it is essential to show all the members together but also individually as the fans are likely to have a 'favourite' member of one direction and so the use of camera is significant in creating a relationship between the audience and the band. This is portrayed also through the use of cross-cutting between the band individually and together. This music video is  a disjuncture as the lyrics are quite sad about someone stealing his girl which you would associate with jealousy and anger but the video is happy and lively which contrasts the lyrics.

The next video we looked at was 'Ed Sheeran - The A Team'


Summary

This video is very much illustrative and has a strong story/narrative behind the song which is presented in the music video and is relevant to the song. There are not many shots of the artists which shows they are not important and do not sell their music on their appearance but on their music and this is powerful as it shows the message behind the song is more important than the artist which says a lot about the artist. There are lots of close up of the main character which creates a connection between the audience and the girl in the video as we sympathise for her due to the close and uncomfortable shots of her crying and even prostituting herself to finance her addiction. There are many time lapses in the song which shows she is the focus of the song and video and are many straight cuts to create verisimilitude. It is clear the video is message driven and has a lot of intimacy and is quite dark which is typical of an indie artist.

Finally is 'The Editors - Smokers Outside The Hospital Doors'


Summary

This video is a hybrid and has a very even mix of narrative and performance, the narrative side is mostly hand held which signifies rough and unsteady which can resemble the girls mental health. There are medium close ups and close ups of the band performing with their instruments which connotes them as talented and dedicated. There are elements of a montage sequence with lots of straight cuts. Due to the narrative side of the video, there may be personal messages throughout the video that relate to the band which maybe only their fan base will understand.