Types of Music Video

Narrative Based - Tells a story:

Lady Gaga - Bad Romance

(directed by Francis Lawrence)

• There is a build up of lighting as the song starts to build up, itself.
• When there is the first verse everything is dark and when it changes to the chorus everything begins to lighten up.
• Quick cuts are used, which suits the fairly fast pace of the song.
• Fade transitions are used as a cut.
• There is editing used on the beat, this is used in a small section at the end (which really sticks out), when she is walking and there are quick cuts with a striped transition which goes along with the beat.
• A lot of the frames are of Lady Gaga singing, this is a good use of lip syncing.
• Most of the costumes and the surrounding are black and white (not an effect) this symbolises contrast and then right at the end she is in a white room with her dance group and they are wearing red. This could signify danger or fire.
• The video talks about how she wants someone but doesn't know how to get them. There is a shot of the man, which suggests that someone is him. She tries to impress him and this is shown by several televisions having amounts of money increasing and she is dancing. This shows that she is selling herself.

Florence & The Machine - You've Got The Love

(director unknown)

• At the beginning, Florence is in the camera frame and the camera starts to zoom out when the lighting becomes brighter and more light in the frame.
• There is a fade cut on the beat.
• Slow panning shots are used near the start, because this is when the song is quite slow.
• When Florence is on the half moon structure, a smoke machine is used to cover the floor and look like there is no floor. It also could represent the clouds in the sky and add height to the picture.
• Where the half moon structures are which she is on, it dark surroundings which represents the night sky, apart from the few spotlights in the background which add lighting to the frame, act like stars and they also reflect on the moon structure to make the space around her look bigger.
• As the moon spins round, it spins past the camera and acts like a wipe to cut to the next shot.
• The next shot is in a bright room, which looks spacey and never ending. Florence is also in a white dress. Her hair stands out, being ginger (this doesn't have anything to do with the frame, but it does stand out).
• The chorus is set similar to the moon scene, but more lively because there are other people in it who are dancing. A disco ball is used, which is mirrors and this goes well with the dress style of Florence.
• In the finale, there are cuts between all of the scenes of things happening.
• Lyrics - "Throw my hands up in the air." - The dancers do this, because they are below Florence on the half moon structure, it could have been planned that when their hands are thrown up, they are pointing up at her.
• Florence is above which shows she is more important than everyone else.
• At the end, there is a fade into a starry night.

Performance Based - The band is playing:

Green Day - American Idiot

(director unknown)

• Each band member is going a different pace to the other. Three camera's would have been used and filming the same short. One would be sped up, one slowed down and one kept the same.
• The camera angles are very different to normal music videos. This is because they want to be different, and this goes well with the song.
• The song is showing how through history American's have decided to do things together and not individually. It is a bit of a political based song.
• The band have decided to be more individual and do things their own way, this could also be to do with the speed of each member being different.
• The American flag behind them is a rotten green colour. This is a contrasts to the original red flag, and also states a fact that they are trying to contrast all the other American's from America.
• The flag could also be green because of the bands name - 'Green Day'.
• When thinking of the colour green, it is more of an evil colour. For example; a stereotypical witch is green and are know as being wicked.
• There is an explosion at the end, which is when all the green paint-like liquid bursts over the band playing. This adds impact to the song and makes a point.
• At the end of the song, the band smash their instruments and drop them before they leave. This gives the impression that they don't care about society.
• By the end of the song, the American flag has now been drained of all the green stripes. This shows that because the American government do things like everyone else and aren't individual, if something goes wrong it won't just be an area of America which will be affected it will be all of America.

All Time Low - Weightless

(directed by Matthew Stawski)

• Throughout the music video there are sarcastic words to describe people and band members. This is cartoon animated and makes the video less serious.
• It starts off with the band backstage and just about to go onstage.
• As they get onstage the chorus starts to kick in.
• It looks like in some small parts of the video, when the band are performing on the stage that some of them are sped up and some are normal speed and some are slowed down, (a bit like the Green Day video).
• The lighting which is used is like a concert/gig. Blue for the stage and yellow for the audience these are similar to contrasting colours which makes the video stand out a bit, and also when the camera is further away it adds depth to the frame.
• Quick cuts are used in this video, as the pace is quite fast.
• A variety of transitions are used in this video including, wipe and fade.
• When the cartoon words appears on the screen, a 'boing' sound effect is used. This makes the music video sound a bit jokey and comic-like.
• This video ends with the crowd cheering, although it does sound a bit fake.

Concept Based - No plot:

OK-Go - Here It Goes Again

(directed by Sie and the OK-Go)

• There is not really much to say about this video, because it is quite basic.
• The band members are dancing around on half a dozen treadmills. They will have needed to rehearse and rehearse this routine, because it looks quite complicated and hard on treadmills.
• At about 1 minute into the video, the man at the front on the left nearly falls off the treadmill, but makes a good recovery.
• That mistake would have ruined the whole of the video, as it has been filmed in one shot.
• The speed of the video is at a gradual pace and the band are at a gradual pace on the treadmills, if it was faster it would have been a lot harder to do.
• Everything in the video is on the beat, so more than likely the band would have had the song on in the background and then the audio of the video would have been muted in the editing.

Dizzee Rascal - Bonkers

(director unknown)

• It starts with a black background and a small blue spinning world in the middle, which as the music builds up the world gets closer. The black background is almost like the atmosphere around it.
• The world gets closer on the beat of the music.
• There are quick cuts which suit the fairly fast beat, although it doesn't sound the main rhythm doesn't sound that fast itself.
• The scenery has been made to look quite cartoon-like and at the beginning of the video, Dizzee is on a soft car with a soft watering can. This goes well with the genre of the music and the lyrics of the song, "Bonkers!".
• Dizzee Rascal is rapping in this so lip sync has been used.
• Some of the lyrics in his song, go with the video although there isn't really much of a story that goes with this video.
• Cuts to him jumping up and down on the world which is spinning. A birds eye view shot has been used, but the editing makes him centred in the world. This part of the video has been filmed from above the street and then made spherical and sped up. Dizzee was filmed with another camera and he was placed on top of this.
• This has been done very well, to make him look closer to you and gives the impression that he is more important.
• Different coloured filters are used when it cuts to him dancing around. These are put on the end of the camera and filmed normally so the colour is changed, or alternately the frame could have been recorded and then in the editing stage of the video, colour filters/tints were used to create this effect.
• The coloured filter effect goes well with the rest of the video, because it seems to be quite a colourful video where colours stand out, the colours used are quite calm and not too vibrant.
• Wiping lines is a transition which is used, it is similar to a normal wipe accept instead of one whole wipe across the frame it is cut into separate lines.
• There is a scene in this video where there are lots of people dancing, but it has been slowed down in the editing stage. This contrasts with the fast pace bass line.
• In this part, Dizzee Rascal is singing, which is where lip syncing is then used again and he is in the spotlight, and everyone else dancing around him are in the dark. This is a birds eye view shot.
• There are cuts between the previous spinning world effect, because this is repeated quite a lot, it makes the video memorable and is different to most other video's of this genre.
• Right at the end, there is a heavy bass line, but before it was day and now it is night in the video (or that is the effect that they used to show this). The people who are dancing are now in black costumes with glow in the dark skeletons on them, because they are glow in the dark they can be seen and are a bit like a neon light. This keeps the vibrancy of the shot.
• The end of the video fades out with the synth sound.