The three music videos that I have chosen to analyze are “The Cave”, by Mumford and Sons, “It Never Ends”, by Bring Me The Horizon, and “Don’t Stop Me Now”, by Queen. I selected these for two reasons; one, because the three songs are of completely different genres, so we can see a variety, and also because they are completely different music videos. One is of a live performance, one uses effects quite a lot and tells a story, and the other is much simpler, not using many effets.
“The Cave” by Mumford and Sons:
The music video for the song “The Cave” essentially consists of the band, Mumford and Sons, driving around on motorbikes, singing the song, whilst at the same time, four Asian men playing instruments along with the song and also occasionally singing. Because the songs genre almost sounds like folk, you would expect the music video to be in quite a natural setting, with lots of trees, and also with the minimum amount of technology involved. On some level, this expectation has been hit, as the majority of the music video has been set in a natural setting, for example on a beach, and also around lots of trees, but occasionally, I feel the song’s genre and the music video don’t match. You see them driving around on really quite expensive looking motorbikes that you wouldn’t really relate to the song or the genre. I think it is important for your music video to fulfill the audience’s expectations that they gained from the song.
The actual song doesn’t start right at the beginning of the video. It starts with the band members giving the four Asian men their instruments. They also speak in a foreign language, with subtitles at the bottom. This adds a special quality to the music video as not many music videos feature this type of “subtitles” effect. Later on in the video, the four Asian men take it in turns to be the main subject of the camera shot, singing the lyrics in turn. Whilst in some cases when this technique is used (of getting lots of unrelated people to sing the song), it can be viewed as a cheap, karaoke styled effect, however in this song, as it is used in moderation, it gives off a sense of love and community, which is what the genre of the song gives off as well, so this technique is used brilliantly I believe.
Many clips in this music video have been slowed down quite a bit, especially the parts where Mumford and Sons are singing on their motorbikes. Personally, I think that this makes them riding on their motorbikes look quite spiritual, and like they are traveling on a personal journey. This is also slightly mirrored in the lyrics of the song where they are talking about how to make themselves better, and also the strength that they already have. The bright sunlight that sometimes almost takes over the whole screen so you can’t see what’s happening adds to this sense of the video being quite spiritual.“It Never Ends” by Bring Me The Horizon:
The music video for the song “It Never Ends” is almost like a short silent film- apart from the singing, you can’t hear anyone speaking however text is used throughout the video to inform the audience as to what is being said. The name of the song appears at the start and end of the music video, along with subtitles as to what the characters are saying in the video. I noticed how the video for “The Cave” also uses text, especially subtitles, within it so this seems to be quite a popular and modern idea to use. The actual video itself does follow sort of story line, even though it is very confusing. This evidently reinforces the impression that the music video is almost like a short film. The fact that credits come up at the end of the video shows this too.
The music video uses quite a lot of effects throughout. When you see the ambulance drive down the road, it is clear that it has been animated and edited onto the road. This is because the ambulance is bumping all over the place, and probably spends more time off the ground than on! It almost looks like it has been made to look like it is fake on purpose. To show this idea again, you can look at the characters whilst they are being introduced into the story. They are running down the road and their name comes up next to them. Again, the effect used here also looks extremely faked- you can see clearly that the characters are not actually there, and are running in front of some sort of background or a green screen; however it is also clear that it has been done on purpose as there are many other examples of this. To me, this again gives off the impression of an old fashioned silent short film, where rubbish effects are used. Throughout the video, white cracks appear all over the screen, to also show that the video might be quite old. In some of the dramatic parts of the video, the footage is slowed down slightly. This seems to be a brilliant way to set quite a spiritual and a strong atmosphere, as “The Cave” used this effect too.
Unlike the video by Mumford and Sons, “It Never Ends” seems to be a much darker video. This is appropriate for the song as it matches the genre of the music correctly. As “The Cave” is a much more uplifting song, it has a much more uplifting video to go with it. This shows now that it is extremely important that the videos style matches the songs genre well.
“Don’t Stop Me Now” by Queen:
The music video for the song “Don’t Stop Me Now” is essentially a recording of one of their live performances, however you cannot fully tell if it is actually a live performance or if it has been made to look live, due to the fact that you cannot ever see the crowd, whereas the previous two music videos used various effects and settings, this video is a lot simpler. Like I said, it consists of a video of them performing their song; however you can tell that they are miming purely because it is quite an old video so the music videos quality isn’t going to be as good. Lighting played a big part in this video, as it helped a lot with creating the mood to go with the song. The lights were all artificial, and were from the stage that they were performing on.
I noticed that in the two previous, more modern videos, they both used, effects and words on screen, and the older video didn’t. This could be because they either didn’t want to use any in this video, or it could be because now that the technology has become available, it is wise to make the most of it. This is why two out of the two modern videos that I looked at used these ideas. I’m not saying that in every music video these should be used, but where it is appropriate, it should be.
As the songs genre is rock, you would expect that the music video would either be of something “rocky” or of a live performance. The assumption was correct. It seems that one of the most important things to think about when creating a music video is whether or not the songs genre fits with the video.
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