I am going to analyse the above video by Danish Band, Junior Senior. The video was an animation and was created by a London based art collective group Shynola, who used low resolution pixel art which was produced using Deluxe Paint. The genre of this particular soundtrack is House. The video itself manages to keep itself relative to the genre, like most videos done in "House", it is very fast paced and each image stays with the beat.
The video is done in a early gaming style animation that is done using big blocks of pixel art, with only primary colours being used in the animation, with no shading. The cinematography in this video is very basic, although computer generated, it’s shot as if from a single steady camera view with just basic zooms etc.
In this video there are a lot of interesting transitions from one scene to another, for example near the beginning they have scenes in the video transitioning from the two members of the band dancing to then having single shots of each member. The pace of the scenes is deliberately timed with pace of the music, for example, at around the 00:25 second mark on the video, the toast popping up is exactly in time with the beat. The editing of the video is discontinuous with lots of different scene changes, which sometimes bare no relation to what was being shown. As well as this, the whole of the video is done in a special effect to resemble early video gaming graphics.
Throughout the whole animation, the images match the lyrics. Some examples of this is when the word “yeah” is spread across the toast at the exact time the lyrics say “yeah” This is done at around 29 second mark. Another example is at most times when the lyrics say “move your feet” the visuals on the video are feet moving. A final of example of the lyrics being illustrated via the animation is when the chorus of “everybody” comes on, the background has the words “everybody” which are moving, as well as stickmen dancing.
Right the way through the video, it is continually cutting to the beat of the music, an example of this is in the beginning of the video when the squirrel is banging at a nut, it goes exactly in turn with the beat of the music. Another example is when you see the squirrel getting ready to ride the house at around the 1 minute mark, the beat of the music and the squirrels movements synchronise.
The general idea of the video is to create a fun party atmosphere which coincides with the feel of the music. Initially in the video we only see an childish basic representations of the artists(00:13 seconds), but then later in the video (2mins 8 seconds) we see more photo realistic images, but the general style of the video is with basic cartoon representations which are not even much of a caricature.
The band have made another video in a stylistically similar manor, this video being “Take My Time” which was made 3 years later than “Move your feet”. There are no previous video by this artist before the “Move your feet” video, so this video sets the stylisation they are using to brand there product.
Due to the video being an animation, there is no real sex appeal being used as a selling point for the band, although there is a scene in which sex is implied by the images on the screen. In line with the primitive style there are no scenes within scenes, with only a basic representation being shown at one time. The video also shows no signs of intertexuality and is fully performance based.
Overall, I feel that the music video promotes the band and the song very well, it keeps in time with the beat and is quite fast paced, as is the song, as well as this it manages to keep the feel of the song while still making the video keep interesting and makes you want to see more of the bands work. I feel this song does very well in fulfilling the expectations of the bands target audience, which I would presume to be teenagers and adults. Altogether, this video makes good use of animation and does very well in timing each scene to the beat of the song, it manages to thoroughly match the lyrics and the video together without repeating images to often and creates a party atmosphere for itself.
The second video I am going to analyse is the above video by English band Coldplay. The video is an stop animation, which means an object is moved in small movements between each individual photographed frames. The genre of this soundtrack is Alternative Rock.
The video is done in the style of stop animation with the lead vocalist Chris Martin against the ground on which chalk drawings are highly animated. For cinematography, the basic premise of the stop motion technique used in the video is very simple, by taking single shots, adjusting the scene minutely and then taking another shot, so that when viewed at normal speed it appears to be a smooth transition from one scene to another. This technique does however take a lot of time to do, and is quite intricate to make the end result appear smoothly. The only special effects in this video are those that can be achieved by the chalk drawings.
Throughout the song, the lyrics and the visuals do not really show any relation to each other, with the exception of when the lyrics say “everyone was for fighting, wouldn’t wanna waste a thing” while on the video the squirrel is shooting arrows at Chris Martin, but other than this, the visuals on the video bare no relation to anything the lyrics say for the most part. As well as this, the video for “Strawberry Swing” does not keep in beat with the actual music at all, and does not change with the pace of the music either.
Due to the fact Coldplay are such a well known, well established band, it seems as though there has been no real effort in creating a certain image for the band, and in addition to this, the video does not relate in any way to any pervious ones by the band, and does not in any way reference to the notion of looking. The video also seemingly pays homage to other videos done in similar ways, such as “Take On Me” by A-Ha as well as “Sledge Hammer” by Peter Gabriel.
Overall, I don’t think the promo really promotes the band much at all, as it only really show the one member of the band throughout the video, however the song is better promoted as it takes more of a predominant role in the promo. I think the video does well in fulfilling the expectations of the bands target audience, which I would say to be people of 16 years and older. Altogether the video is very creative, and although doesn’t exactly match the visuals with the lyrics, it still manages to fit in with the overall feel of the music.
References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Move_Your_Feet
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shynola
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_music#UK:_late_1980s_.E2.80.93_early_1990s
http://www.contactmusic.com/videos.nsf/stream/junior-senior-take-my-time-music-video
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junior_Senior
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strawberry_Swing
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_animation
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