The two videos, one by Lostprophets and the other by Seether, although both of the rock genre and do follow some of the typical conventions, do have their differences when it comes to analysing them to the six stage analysis of music videos.
Both videos have a strong influence on promoting the artist, mostly the lead singer although the band are included too. Seethers' Fake It, has the band on a number of fake sets, and the video includes lots of close ups on the lead singers face and has the band included within the videos narrative. This helps promote the artist and make their faces known to the audience so that they know who is singing the song. Compared to Fake It, Last Train Home does not promote the lead singer over the band as much, and unlike Seether, the band are not part of the videos main narrative, but are included in a side narrative with the band performing on the back of a lorry going down streets with everyone following them and chanting to the music. This follows the generic conventions of rock videos as the band are usually shown performing in front of an audience, and this also adds a touch of voyeurism to the video as the band are being watched from houses and the streets by onlookers.
Last Train Home has a lot of links between music and visuals. As Lostprophets are a rock band, in terms of Mise-en-scene, all the extras within the video are wearing stereotypical rock clothing like black hoodies, jeans and studded bracelets. Also every time the drums or guitars start to build up and go really loud, like in the chorus, you get a lot of close ups on them and the person playing them. The link between music and visuals is also apparent in seethers Fake It. Because of the rock genre, there is a heavy emphasis on the bands instruments. There are lots of close ups on the guitarists and the drummers, and also lots of close ups on the lead singers guitar, keeping the lead singer as the main focus of the band.
There is a obvious link between lyrics and visuals for Seethers' Fake It. The song talks about faking what you don't have, and the video shows the band on a fake set of a private jet among others, and this obvious link helps to bring the lyrics to life, and help give understanding to the song. This link can also be seen in Lostprophets Last train home. When they say 'and we sing...' the whole band, and the onlookers sing along too, and this adds to the feeling of togetherness that the lyrics are trying to give out.
One of the sets to Seether's Fake it is dark snowy woods, this set is similar to one from the music video to 'Wonderboy' by Tenacious D. Also the set on a plane with all the dancing women smothering themselves over the band is similar to the idea of the mile high club, and could may well be a reference to this idea. Also towards the end of the video one of the women are filming her and the lead singer on a phone, which appears to be a Nokia. This is a bit of promotion for the phones brand. There are also references to the use of Photoshop in the video, as he says ' I can fake it with the best of anyone' and they are healing the women's face and adding a tanned look to her face. Furthermore towards the end of the video, you see a clapper board come down in front of the camera which has the artists name, name of the song, and the director of the video on it.
There is also lots of voyeurism in Fake it as the band are on set the camera pans out and you can see that these sets are fake, and that the band are being filmed by a camera crew within the music video. So they are being filmed within a film as such.
The narrative to Lostprophets Last train home includes none of the band members, which is sometimes typical within this genre of music. The story behind the narrative has many meanings, and could be interpreted in a number of different ways and leaves the audience to think about it themselves.
No comments:
Post a Comment