The genre of this song is ‘dubstep’. We chose this song because it is the same genre that we want to do our main project on as we wanted an upbeat song but one that had lyrics so we could relate the words with the action. This song, however, doesn’t really relate to each other apart from when the words “get ready” have been repeated and at the beginning of arcade games it says get ready before you start the game; this is a narrative and not a performance.
They used different types of shots because of this the camera shots, which are clear to see during the music video for example a mid shot is used to show the main character is more significant to the video than the other people. Give the audience more of the subject with out showing full display of a full subject. Is used to show more emotion and capture intensity in greater depth. There is also a close up of the game screen when he’s playing so we can see and understand what is going on; also in this part there’s a close up of his face so we can see the determination and concentration in his face; like in Goodwin’s theory. At the beginning there is an establishing shot to set the scene and location of the video, then they follow the main character to show that throughout the video we need to be focused on him and by using a tracking shot it shows this well.
During the video there are various props and costumes used to emphasize not only the purpose of the video but also the overall tone of music in the genre, which we have chosen. The costume worn by the main character of the video is quite normal and quite simple the purpose of this is that the stereotype of somebody who listens to dubstep is a quite normal and plain. For example the jeans and t-shirt combination is a very normal way to dress for the stereotypical teenager/young adult. Also during the video there are various uses of props. For example the way in which an arcade game has been programmed specifically for this video will have significance throughout the video this is because as the proper part of this track starts i.e. the dubstep, the game properly becomes active and the character starts to play it. Also this fits in really well with the location choice of the video starts in an arcade then he enters a storage facility where he goes through doors down corridors and finds the game and plays it. They have used these locations because at first it’s a public place where young people go to hang out then because he’s in an empty place where it looks like not many people go it’s more private and it makes the viewer wonder why and where he is going.
The editing in this has fast cut rates to keep the continuity going and because of the fast pace in the beat it has to match with the cut speed otherwise it wouldn’t work. It also shows how time has passed, not how much but because he’s in different places in every cut it shows he’s playing games and is travelling around the arcade. They have also used some special effects such as a shaky jilt when the sifi cyber people are in the shot maybe to show they’re not human or natural so as a viewer we have to keep an eye on them throughout the video. Another thing is they have another shaky edit when the game screen comes up and if you put the two together it makes the whole video look like an arcade game that’s old and jolts a bit sometimes.
The lighting in this music video is dark especially in the cellar part, as it’s supposed to look a bit mysterious. However the light is mainly made by the lights from the names of the games or the games themselves. When in the dark corridors there are ceiling lights but then the game the boy ends up playing has been lit up by a green glow from behind it to highlight that he must play it and the importance of it. As the game screen is making most of the light the characters face has been lit to show we still have to focus on him and he’s important and hasn’t realized he’s in a dark basement as he’s engrossed in the game.
Craig Davis had a criteria of how to analyze a music video to do this he came up with various categories in which to successfully analyze music videos in the category of illustration our video would be a narrative this is because the video tells the story because there is no lip synching involved in the video which disenables the lyrics to tell the story of the video. The next category is amplification our video has some relevance to the song for example the song says ‘are you ready’ and in the arcade game which appears in the music video it says in the text which appears on the game screen ‘are you ready’. However, the video and the lyrics don’t completely match. This is also true in Goodwin’s’ theory.
Goodwin also says that some music videos have intersexual references to films and other resources. This is relevant for this video as it has a familiarity to ‘Matrix’ as the people with the glasses on look like their from a different time like in the Matrix and also it’s similar to ‘Tron’ as there is a main game and it’s set in an arcade.
By Callum and Sam
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