Analysis of Finished Video.

How does the text communicate to the audience?


Our music video contains a thriller aspect in the storyline, which was specifically created to hopefully attract our target audience of rebellious teenagers who listen to rock music. It has the typical love story where two people fall in love, however, there is a dramatic break-up. It is this dramatic break-up which causes the twist in the music video bringing in the thriller context. Most people can relate to the break down of relationships; however the twist is rather sinister. The girl is seen having a mental break down, slowly sinking into depression. She keeps believing that she is being followed by her ex-boyfriend, but in reality, he is not there. By the end of the video, the girl has sunk deep into a depressive state. The final scene is her walking on the pavement, seeing a car coming towards her on the road, and she decides to walk in front of the car. This is possibly a suicide attempt, but it is left to interpretation of the viewer/audience.
The fact that depression and suicide is portrayed in our video is highly important to the audience as statistics show that 1 in 3 people develop depression during their lifetime.


Camera Work : -


We tried to use as many different camera angles and shots as we could, to keep the storyline going and keep the audience interested. To keep the interest in the video maintained, we started the first lip-syncing scene with it being recorded on a laptop web cam. This was then played as the girl dumped the boy (who is lip-syncing) by text while sitting in front of the very same laptop. However, she is seemingly oblivious to what is going on before her.

During the mental breakdown scene with the female character, we used high-angle shots to show the vulnerability and weakness of the girl's mental state. The shots of the church were taken as a 'dutch tilt' angle. This was to emphasize the disorientation of the whole video, where the girl is later seen on her knees praying in desperation through her emotional meltdown.

Nearer the end of the video, just before the girl is seen about to walk in front of the oncoming car, there is two shots of the girl spinning around in her room. This was completed by using the technique of hand-held, so I held the camera as I spun around my room. We decided to use this shot to further emphasize the portrayal of the girl's emotional meltdown and going crazy.

Our themes portrayed in our video include mirroring and reflection. This is another reason to why we use the web cam in the opening scenes. The web cam also shows the reflection of the hand picking up the phone left on the bed, later to be seen laying on the stairs where the boy was sitting. We wanted to use it to question whether what we think we see is real, or just a figment of our imagination (as it is with the girl, and at the end with Ryan in the subway scene).



Lighting and Colour : -


The video's setting is very light, however the sky is quite grey. The light setting is a definite contrast to the mood of the song and the events which later take place within the video. We wanted this contrast due the fact of the whole video built on confusion and appearance versus reality. The reoccurring themes of instability and contradictions are reflected in the sky as it is bright yet also grey. Everything is not as it always seems.

During the editing stages, we decided to change the colour of the mental breakdown scene to have a blue haze. The blue haze is a connotation for depression and sadness. We decided that this would be the best colour to use to represent the girl's state of mind. The haziness also reflects the psychological condition, as generally, in hazy weather conditions, it is hard to see clearly and can make everything seem dream-like.

For the past scenes, where the relationship is seemingly happy and care-free between the girl and boy, we came up with the decision that it would be best to use a sepia effect. This emphasized that it took place in the past, a long time and view from the more recent scenes. It also exaggerates the distance between the happy times in the past and the melancholy, unstable times of the present.

Mise-En-Scene : -

During the planning stage of constructing our coursework, we thought long and hard on what detail we would use as part of the mise-en-scene. The mise-en-scene is an extremely important aspect of the video to consider; especially as we wanted to follow the theme of a typical thriller through the video.

Both characters are wearing black clothes. The colour black denotes death, depression and darkness. The girl is also seen the majority of the time wearing a red coat. Like the colour black, we also chose the red coat for a reason. Red denotes, blood, danger but also passion and love. All of this is included in our video, it is their broken love that sends her spiralling into an uncontrollable meltdown.

In this meltdown, the girl is seen crying, distressed and shaking. Her hands are usually holding her head in despair. Her facial expressions heighten her portrayal of distress. The use of facial expressions are also used throughout; especially in the subway where the boy walks past the girl, and he becomes extremely confused when he turns around and she is not there - only a missing poster of her. Again the same is seen when the girl believes she is being followed, but when she turns around to see, no one is there.

Make-up played a big part in filming the mental breakdown scene. The girl is just wearing eye-liner and mascara, but as the meltdown progresses, her make-up becomes smudged around her eyes.

Throughout the whole video, props are extremely important in telling the story of the song. The laptop web cam is used to show a lip-syncing scene and the boy taking the phone the girl had left behind. This phone is later seen laying on the stairs after the girl turns around to see where the boy was previously sitting. These props are the little clues used by us to develop the thriller aspect of the video we desired to have. However, we believe the most important prop is the missing poster. The missing poster pushes the story line further into a more complex manner. The time of 'last seen' is around the time which is continuously shown in shots of the church clock.

The church is an important setting for our video. Since the video is built upon contradictions, the peacefulness and faith of the church contradicts the instability, depressive and uncontrollable nature of the girl. Considering the fact that people have faith in something no one cannot see, it relates to the theme of appearance versus reality throughout our promotional video.
Also, the fact that a subway is underground further relates again to themes of the video as it is a mental breakdown the girl suffers - under the surface.



Editing : -


The whole video is built upon the idea of confusion and 'paranoia'. Developing this theme which also runs through the song, we had created a number of sequences where the girl believes she is being followed by Ryan (her ex-boyfriend). We used jump cuts to show the girl walking down the street with Ryan behind her; then transferring the shot to her turning around and no one being there. Jump cuts were the most popular editing techniques to use, as we felt it matched our fast-paced song. However, dissolve transitions were also used. These were especially used in the mental breakdown scene. It was used to emphasize the length of time in which the breakdown had occurred. It was also used to show the disappearance of the girl from her swing.

Other different editing techniques were also used to show elapsed time, including 'push' transitions. These were visually 'pushing time aside/away'. Editing techniques were also used to match events happening in the video. The flashing editing technique was used to increase the mental trauma the girl was going through when crying. Scenes were edited and cut into a fast-paced matter to match beat and timing of music.



Genre : -

We filmed our music video with the plan to base it upon the thriller genre. We tried to follow as many thriller conventions as we could within the video. These included: a complex narrative structure and a scene at the end where the protagonist is in peril (however, we have not solved this danger). Also, we developed the story line so that the title of the song reflects the psychological state of the protagonists with as many unexpected twists in the narrative as we could fit. A typical editing technique of the thriller genre that we had included are jump cuts and straight cuts to emphasize the action.



Comparing our video to Narrative Theories.

Out of the three narrative theories by Todorov, Propp and Levi-Strauss; our video can be likened more to the theory proposed by Levi-Strauss about binary oppositions. The opposition suggested by Levi-Strauss which can be related to our video is the gender stereotypes. The main stereotype constructed through our video is of how the 'typical female' is presented. The view of how women are extremely emotional is reflected in the emotional breakdown of the female character. It is the girl who is seen continuously melancholy and weak, not the male character.