Analysis of student music video

Analysis of past student music video

Genre

The genres for this piece are indie, electronic and pop. The reason for having more than one genre for this music video is due to the fact that the video has connotations of all three genres therefore you cannot just say it has one. The video has a constant repetitive beat throughout and doesn’t go any faster or slower which is good as it shows consistency.

Narrative
within this music video I believe the narrative is evident which is good as it means that people can straight away identify what is going on and what might happen later on in the music video. However, this could also be a negative as some people like to be surprised by narrative of music videos. To start with straight away you can identify that there is two teenage males in a field drinking underage. Then, we see the same males running after a male where they pin him up against a wall and beat him up until he is left on the floor helpless. Moreover, throughout the music video, we see constantly see short clips of another male training in a gym and practicing on a boxing bag which I believe is because he wants to make himself stronger so he can stand up to the bullies. Then towards the end of the video we see the guy who is always beaten up stand up for himself and pins one of the bullies into the corner where he puts his fist to his face however he doesn’t hit him. This shows the comparison between the two characters and how they act. Although the storyline is rather basic, it clearly shows that a lot of thought has gone into it through camera shots, acting, locations, clothing etc. this is what makes it a very good student music video.

Technical codes
In this student music video, there are a number of camera shots and editing techniques that are clearly well thought out. The first one that interested me was the editing at the start where there was use of a time lapse. The camera was steadily filming the sky for a number of hours and then when they edited it they made it go faster so it looked like a lapse in time which was very effective as it showed an array of colours. Moreover, towards the middle of the clip there was a close up of the guy who gets beaten up; this close up was to show the wounds of the victim and to make the audience feel sorry for him. The second camera shot that was effective was at the same time when the guy was getting beaten up. There was use of a low angle on the offender to show the dominance he has over the victim and to make people scared of him.

 

 

 

Representation
The most evident representation in this student music video is the idea that teenagers and people of youth are making stupid decisions and that they are thugs and all they do is commit crime, although that is the stereotype for youths in today’s society that does not portray a true image of everyone because not all young people are like that. Moreover, the part where the young males knew they made a stupid decision was when their body language was very hunched over and their hands were on their head. At that point they understood what they did was wrong and wanted to make emends however it might have been too late because the victim was scarred.

Audience

I would say the audience for this piece would be in males in-between 15 – 20, the stage between being too old to be a teenager but too young to be an adult. I believe this is the age for this audience as towards and the middle of the piece we see one of the characters messing about on what looks like a bike/toy for children. This connotes that the actor is rather childish and because he’s doing things like what teenagers do the audience can relate which suggests that’s the target audience. The audience can access this video most likely through YouTube as this way is easier and doesn’t cost to access the site.

 

Visual codes

The video is set in a number of different locations, the first one we see is in a field where one of the actors is drinking and the second location is a gym where throughout the video we see the actor who gets bullied training on the boxing bag. For the majority of the music video we see two parts of the storyline, the boy who constantly gets beaten up is always seen in the gym working hard and his body composition is upright whereas the bullies are always hunched over with their hands on their head. This could be then showing remorse for what they did and feeling guilty. Furthermore, at the start we see typography which says ‘stuck – canopy climbers’, this is obviously stating the name of the song and the band. This is quite simplistic and looks good as its professional and goes well with the rustic background.