The first current music video I have decided to take a look at is the song What I Go To School For, The song was released back in September 2002 and peaked at number 3 on the UK charts. The song itself is about a teacher that one of the band members had a crush on, and this is reflected in the simple but effective music video, set primarily in a school of course. I have chosen this song as I am looking to create a pop-rock music video and there are many aspects of this video that I can learn from, such as narrative, camera and lip-syncing.
The narrative of the music video is fitting with the lyrics of the song, and begins in a dark room during a sex education class. This is clearly a message to the viewers of what the song is going to be to do with, and plenty of shots of the teacher help us to see who the song is about. The three members of the band sing their lyrics as they act in the narrative, for example when one of them sprints to his seat at the front, the line about being sat at the front is said in the song, while he lip syncs it. The overall effect is really good to help the viewer get involved more in the song.
The chorus of the song is mainly sung in the school playground, with the band in front of a huge crowd of students at the school. This helps to keep the setting simple and fit with the song. The band and extras are all bouncing and raving which really helps to capture the energetic nature of the song.
The final section of the song involves the boys in the band visiting Miss Mackenzie's house late at night to spy on her. This is a scene that has been seen in many popular love films like Romeo and Juliet, so this acts as a play on that just with the students climbing up a tree to spy on their teacher! This adds to the slightly tongue in cheek nature of the video and sums up Busted as a band quite well, which makes this music video achieve the goal of promoting the artist.
The mise en scene of the music video is quite simple; the first half of the video is set during a typical school day so all the band and extras a wearing school uniforms. However, the band have customised uniforms that identify them as quite roguish, fitting in with their brand image and target market.The video is shot primarily during a school day, with overcast weather. This has been done to fit with the typical British weather during the school day most likely...
In terms of camera and editing, the shots used in the video include close ups, mid shots and also a few specialised shots such as a high angle shot over the crowd in the second chorus. In this section I'm going to take a look at a few shots that I liked and explain why they are effective.
Another shot that I liked was a mid shot on one of the band members lip syncing during the class. This idea was used a lot during the video where they followed the lyrics and acted them out, for example the pencil dropping shot above. I think this adds to the overall effect of the video as the audience feels like they are seeing more of a story and not just a random narrative tacked on to the performance.
A final shot that is especially good for bands is the slightly widened mid shot of the group all playing, with a large crowd behind. This shot is popular in many videos in the genre, for example also being used in Wheatus' Teenage Dirtbag. It allows the audience to see the band play and sing the song as if they were live in front of them, and shows the energetic nature of the song by having all the actors bounce up and down as if they were in the crowd at a concert. Busted opted to only use this shot during the chorus, leaving time for more unique shots and narrative opportunity throughout the rest of the video. For any band, this type of shot is a must as it is important that the viewer can see the band all playing their instruments together, unlike in the first verse where each member is solo in each shot.
MAGIC! - Rude
For my second music video analysis I have decided to review the song 'Rude' by MAGIC! The song is one of my favorites in its genre and is clearly very popular overall, recently surpassing 1 billion views on YouTube. The video is simple to understand and synergises with the lyrics and mood of the song. Below is a Prezi presentation detailing what I have found out about the song.
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