Music video analysis 4: Arctic Monkeys- Snap Out of It.

I watched the music video for the song 'Snap Out of It' by the Arctic Monkeys from their album 'AM'. The director of the music video was Focus Creeps.

At first when watching the video I looked for the narrative and performance split to see how balanced it was in the video. During the video the performance is shown within footage recorded in a studio when the woman watches video tapes from her past. And in the footage you see the band play the instruments of the song, in a behind the scenes format.

The multiple shots taken of the woman in video show a range of emotions from being upset and crying her eyes out to being happy and laughing. This looked really effective to show the range of emotions that are attached to a music video.

When watching the music video, it starts with a slow motion effect indicating that the video may have have other special effects and edits throughout.

What our group will take from this video we'll take the use of the shots which show a spectrum of emotions to help our protagonist, the boyfriend, to gain sympathy from the viewers of our music video. Also to show the emotions of the girlfriend and her feelings throughout the video.   

Music Video Analysis 3: Arctic Monkeys-When the Sun Goes Down

I watched the music video for the song 'When the Sun Goes Down' by the Arctic Monkeys from          their debut album 'Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not'. The Video was directed by          Paul Fraser.

    The video is only Narrative as you don't see the band at all in the video.

     In the video it's shot in a point of view perspective where it follows the narrative of the video               and it never changes view point. The movement of the camera is very fluid and at points shaky           to   match with the emotion of the scene in the music video at the current moment to add dramatic       effect.

     In terms of editing in the video there are parts in the video where it's in a time lapse especially at         the start of the video where the music is much slower and after the line 'I said he was a scum bag         don't you know'. As the tempo and music intensity increases and it jumps straight into a time               lapse in a moving vehicle.

      What we would take from this Music Video for our own for the narrative portion is the fluidity of        the use of camera movement to make the narrative more dramatic and compelling to the                      viewers.       

        

 

Music video analysis 2- Arctic Monkeys- Why'd you only call me when you're high?

I decided to analyse another Arctic Monkeys song off of the AM album as i thought it would be best to compare them both to one another, showing what the similarities and differences are. Straight away i noticed that there are similarities in the song timings as they are all roughly around 4 minutes long. The Arctic Monkeys primarily focus on performance when shooting their music videos, however, this music video is 100% narrative. And from analysing other music videos in class, we've been taught that a successful music video is 50% performance and 50% narrative. 

I noticed when watching this music video that there were a lot special effects used in the editing process. During one point the clock on the wall morphed into a smiley face. This is proving the point of the name of the song, showing the protagonist is high and imagining things. 

Special effects are used all throughout the video, but another one i took notice to is when the protagonist looked into the mirror and the person staring back is moving, giving the effect of it being all a dream and not actually real al because the protagonist is high, relating back to the title of the song. The title of the song is basically foreshadowing what is going to happen throughout the music video, meaning we know what to expect.

As the main location for this song is in a club, the background music is the actual song playing which makes it effective as we get to see the protagonist suffering through the whole video and we get to see through his perspective and what he's doing, what he is trying to achieve whilst going through the song. 

However, because this video is all narrative and no performance, there isn't any snappy shots. Therefore there are all long straight shots through this video, meaning it doesn't seem as effective. As a group, we've decided that we aren't planning on doing this, we plan to have short and snappy shots as this way it matches the beat of our chosen song.

As this music video is all narrative, it doesn't really give me much to analyse other then the special effects added through the editing process. Special effects are a great way to add different types of movement through the video, giving off the effect of the title of the song.

Music Video analysis 1 - Arctic Monkeys - Arabella

Before we create our music video, we have to do some research. So i have researched and analysed a song by our chosen band, The Arctic Monkeys. This just helps us with making our music video and gives us the little bit of inspiration we need to be able to produce the best music video we can. 

So the song i analysed was called Arabella by the Arctic Monkeys. This song is off of the AM album and is 4:11 long. Alot of the Arctic Monkeys are quite long but not alot of the songs have a music video, which meant it was a great opportunity for us to choose them as a band. 

I would say that this song was more performance than narrative as there were more snappy shots used to cut between the band to set the pace of the song. This is a really effective editing technique as it's upbeat and just a really good song overall.

As the song is in black and white, this really does make it look dark and gloomy, as that's how the Arctic Monkeys are portrayed, simply because they are a rock band. We are going to include elements of black and white into our music video to emphasise the fact that it's going to be about the protagonists past as we really do think it's an effective technique. But having the use of the black and white, it just gives the video a sense of the song and just sets the mood. 

There was also the use of the fast pace when there's the long shot between the performance of the band. I noticed that the pace speeds up when going from the drummer to the guitarist. This gives off a really nice effect as the pace of the song speeds up at this moment, making the song flow nicely. This is something that we will take into consideration when creating this music video. 

I also noticed that when one of the song lyric drags out, the frame freezes for a couple of seconds then goes back to normal. I really like this this effect as it just extends the lyric and it can clearly be shown through the video.

However, i also noticed alot of close ups with the instruments that have been used without the video. I particularly took notice to how the shot would zoom into the guitarist, freeze and then speed to the next instrument that is been playing. We have decided that we are going to copy this technique of having alot of close ups with the all the instruments yet we don't think we are going to do the freeze frame as it wouldn't match our chosen song.  





As all music videos must have a story line, there are many which are just merely 100% performance and no narrative. However, this music video, Arabella, is about 60% performance and 40% narrative. But there is a story line which is a bit hard to follow but easy once you watch it over and over. This is one of those story lines where it builds up suspense making the video seem a whole lot more realistic. We've decided as a group to have a build up of suspense towards the end of the music video, not only does it build up the suspense, but it makes the audience want to watch it to the end of the video. 



Just like every other music video in the industry, there is a technique used change the shot at the beat of the drums or the guitar. This just really helps to set the mood of the song.  We really like the idea of having the shots change in time with the song, as this is something you see in every music video out there. Its simple but yet really effective.

A really obvious part of this video that i took notice to is that the screen splits into 2 parts, not fully but it splits into the ratio of 95:5. Both the screenings show the same performance, yet it's just making it seem older than it should be, just like the use of the black and white effect.

surveymonkey: song length

On surveymonkey we asked our people what time length they would like the song the mojirity of people said they would like a longer song which is good because our chosen song of Knee Socks is 4:18 which is quite a long song.

Surveymonkey: band name

We asked people on survey monkey what would be a good name for our band.  We had four suggestions but the majority of people chose the name superego.  This is a good name for our band because the superego is a Freudian term by the psychologist Sigmund Freud.  This is good for our band as is would make them look more pretentious by using a pretentious out there psychologist who revolutionised psychology.  It is also good as the superego is part of the unconscious mind which slips up from time to time also known as a Freudian slip.  This shows that our band isn't perfect and slips up from time to time.
From non-psychologist's point of view, someone with a superego is someone who is very big-headed and up them selves.

surveymonkey: band members

We have asked the people on survey monkey how many people we should have in our band.  We have found that 4 people in band is a good amount of people which our people would like thus, we are having four people.  one singer, one bassist, one guitarist and one drummer.