Research: Review your favourite previous student video

Jem, Zakariya, Courtney, Fuzail from 283goswell on Vimeo.

I have chosen the above music video to analyse. It is an indie song and music video made by last years A2 students. The song they choose to do is ‘Undercover Martyn’ by Two Door Cinema Club.

The music video itself is quite similar to the actual music video in the sense that both involve the performers standing and playing guitars. However, the A2 students vary it by getting multiple shots of the performers in various locations wearing different costumes whilst standing in the same position and camera shot; this was a very effective technique as the way it is edited is quite fast paced and the camera moves in sync with the lyrics and music pace.

They then proceed to vary it slightly by having them standing in different positions in every shot; in one shot both performers are standing facing away from the camera so their backs are to the camera and the fast paced editing flashes quickly so they are in different positions every time, I thought this was a very good and creative idea as most Indie music videos use this technique so it came across very distinctly that this is a Indie music video and song.

I also noticed that the costumes they wear clash and contrast with the environment. An example of this is when the two boys are standing at a fountain playing their guitars but they are wearing pyjamas. This is further done in the music video as they are wearing formal suits by the water. This added quite a comedic and laidback vibe to the video, which wasn’t very flashy. It was simple but effective as they obviously put in a lot of effort which is demonstrated through their impeccable lip synching and good camera shots.

The choice of locations which from what I can see are outside a office building, a park and a roof at the canal in Angel which I really think suits the British indie genre and the selected song itself as indie music videos don’t tend to be flash like hip hop or rap videos but focuses more on the action and music rather than the location. There is no disruption within the video and the footage flowed throughout the video which made it I think flow really smoothly. I think the music video was very simple (in terms of misė en scene and location) but the editing itself adds complexity to the music video and makes it visually appealing to the viewer.

There was a good use of editing, especially when it came to matching the camera shots and pace to the actual pace of the song itself. Like Carol Vernallis described in her book Experiencing Music Videos: Aesthetics and Cultural Context, the camera tends to move in time with the music and the group did this very well. An example of this is through use of special effects; when they split the screen into four shots showing the performers at all their locations in different clothes playing the guitar the shots flashed and wiped and jumpcut in time with the beat of the music which at that point was going fairly fast: this group were not out of sync with their editing once in their music video and the outcome is that they had a good quality music video that was interesting and I believe could pass as a real music video.

The group also instilled some of the main points that Andrew Goodwin made about Narrative analysis of music videos. Goodwin points out that the singer or singers, look directly at the camera as they are trying to involve the viewer. Throughout the entire music video the two performers broke the ‘fourth wall’ by looking directly at the camera, thus creating a rapport and some form of communication with the viewer. This music video didn’t have a traditional narrative structure in the sense of ‘normality, problem and solution’. The two boys were playing their guitars and having fun there was no narrative structure, therefore this was a music video that I would classify as Disjuncture.

Albeit there being very little weak points in this music video I think the final product would have come out much better if they more of a variety of shots. They tended to use mid shot quite a lot and it would have being very interesting if a couple of aerial shots or long shots were used, especially if they used long shot because some of the locations looked very nice and it would have done them justice if they included the location more into their music video.