Project 4

Two music videos

The Guillemots – Falling out of reach



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-jZwnj22Rk

This music video is from the band The Guillemots, for their single “Falling out of reach”. The Guillemots are an indie/alternative style band.
The music video features Sir Ian McKellen, he is playing a tired, aging bureaucrat working a very repetitive job, who takes a moment from his work to sit there and realise how much he is living a non-life. Throughout the video he sees himself present, but really not quite there in various situations.
There is a shot of him still sitting in his office chair in the middle of a subway station, watching everyone pass him in fast motion while he still moves slowly. The next shot is of him sitting in what you can assume is or used to be his home, still sitting in his office chair clutching a wooden horse ornament. Men suddenly appear and start carrying off all his possessions again in fast motion while he is still slow, and he suddenly tries to stop them leaving with his things but isn’t fast enough.
In the next shots it just looks like he’s floating through everyday life, but in a way he’s not really there, then he’s lying on the floor and people start picking him up.
Only then is there the scene with the band performing the song in the house of the man, they are just doing a simple performance using a basic set with their instruments. At the end of the video the man straightens his tie, he looks confused, but as though he’s seeing things with a bit more perspective.

I really like this video because I feel that it’s got a really good message behind it, that you shouldn’t let life just pass by, by overworking and getting over tired by something that shouldn’t consume your whole self, and that its okay to rest when your feeling drained.

Alot of the camera shots were medium shots, medium close-ups and close ups. I think this is to help portray the emotion in the man’s face as he’s going through all of these different feelings. There are a couple of long shots where they are showing the man in a location, I think this is just simply to show where he is. The shots of the band playing were mainly medium long shots, to get a good view of their faces and instruments and the emotion on their own faces.


Feist - 1234



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9D0aTSkslWY

This music video is from Feist, is a singer/songwriter named Leslie Feist, for the single “1234”. Her music is mainly pop/indie genre.
This music video looks like it’s quite basic. It’s set in what would be quite a dim warehouse, but is brightened up because Feist is wearing a blue sparkly all-in-one suit. The lighting also makes the place look more bright, it looks like the light is coming from a bit of wall just between the wall and the floor, illuminating the shiny floor and the people in their sparkling costumes. All of the dancers are wearing very brightly coloured outfits. The performance is quite active; the dancers are always dancing throughout the song to a very well structured, choreographed routine, Feist is also involved in the majority of the routine, with some individual parts, for example dancers lifting her up while she is singing and doing her other parts.

Throughout the whole song Feist is singing whilst dancing, there isn’t an individual singing performance.
When you watch this music video it seems like there isn’t much meaning to it because the choreographing performance is more eye-catching than the actual singing. The song is about old teenage loves and the boys changing their hearts only now, and instead of making it a more sad song and video, the singer has opted to make it a more uplifting, optimistic sounding song, and to give it a matching style video.

It’s definitely more of a fun video instead of a deep meaningful video which is what most people probably would have done.
In the video they only use one camera throughout the whole thing. The closest shot the camera gets is a medium shot of Feist singing at the very beginning, then throughout after that it is mostly long shots and very long shots, this is just because of all the dancing though. The same camera all the way through just moves around alot to different angles, for example they use a high angle shot when she has been lifted up and the also use a low angle shot at one point. The camera is moving around all the way through the video apart from at the very start and at the very end.