Analysing Music Video: Bastille-Pompeii

Analysing Music Videos with 'Goodwin's Theory of Music Videos':

 

Bastille- Pompeii

Directed By: Jesse John Jenkins

Genre: Indie Pop/Rock

 

 

 

Characteristics of Indie Pop/Rock shown in the video:

.Appears to be low budget- filmed in run down buildings and streets.

.The concept is quite weird (the eyes growing bigger) which is typical of 'indie' music video because their style is to be different.

 

 

 

What is the relationship between lyrics and visuals?

.At the beginning of the song the lyrics "I was left to my own devices/ Many days fell away with nothing to show" are illustrated through the artist being in an abandoned building not doing anything.

 

The "Many days" is illustrated through the shot when then the artist is coming down the stairs and the setting changes, showing the passing of time.

 

.One of the main themes of the song is "eyes" which is amplified by the characters in the video, eyes growing bigger and grotesque.

 .However the visuals of the eyes growing contradicts the lyrics of "But if you close your eyes,/Does it almost feel like nothing changed at all?" as everything is changing for the artist when all of the people around him, and eventually himself, change into these weird big-eyed people

 .The line "How am I going to be an optimist about this?" is reflected in the increasing panic of the artist which is shown throughout the video by him running away from the people and reaches its height at the end with him taking out his frustration on the car.

 

What is the relationship between music and visuals?
.Throughout this video the visual is cut to the beat out the music, such as, when the verse first starts the scene cuts to the artist singing to make sure that we associate his voice with his face and realise the the character in the video is the actual artist.
.Another example of the visual being cut with the beat is at the beginning whenever the artist puts emphasis on a note the scene cuts to another.
.The video also changes pace with the music, such as, at beginning of the video there is just background sound and there is a slow zoom towards the artist. When the intro music (Eh-eh Eh-O...) starts, the pace starts to quicken however there are still long shots which follow his actions instead of cutting to new scenes. However the speed of the cuts then speeds up when the verse starts.
.When the artist runs into the arcade and sees the two girls the drums start to play faster, which coupled with the visual of the girls about to turn around creates a feeling of suspense.

Are there close-ups of the artist and star image motifs?
. There are lots of close-ups used of the artist throughout the video, which allows the audience to identify the voice with a face and allows us to feel connected to the artist.

. Through the mise-en-scene we can tell that a casual/rough image of the artist is being portrayed to the audience.
-The clothing that the artist wears is one of the ways this image is shown as he wears just a t-shirt, leather jacket and jeans however he is also shown in a slightly stylistic way through the styling of his hair which is very modern.
-The setting used portrays the 'rough' side of the artist's image as the video is set in a run down part of town which I have mentioned above.
.The camera work also helps to emphasise the 'rough' image as a 'shaky' camera technique is used throughout parts of the video to make it look rushed and low budget. It also helps to carry through the panic shown by the artist which, again, allows the audience to connect/empathise to him. 
.This video also carries on the artist's image from their previous video 'Overjoyed', which also has quite dark and rough atmosphere (see below). However this video was purely narrative based so we never see the artist, compared to 'Pompeii' where the artist is the narrative allowing the video to build on the artist style through his clothing.

Is there reference to the notion of looking?
.There is no voyeurism dispalayed in this video, showing that they want the audience to focus on the artist and not the sexual representation of women throughout the song.
.There is one occasion in the video where there are references to 'looking'. This is when the artist looks into his car mirror and we see what he is seeing of himself, this is used to allow the audience to connect with him and for a moment feel like he would in the situation which allows us to empathise with him.

Are there intertextual references?
As I touched on before, there is intertextual references between this video and the artist's previous and later videos in terms of mise-en-scene. By doing this allows the audience to gain a clear insight in the artist's style and genre and come to recognise them for it.

What is the 'type' of music video?
This music video is a mixture of narrative and performance based. There is more narrative with only roughly 20 seconds of performance elements throughout the 3:52min song. This means that the audience can focus on what's being told through the song/video however they are always reminded/brought back to the artist with the performance based elements.

Audience Research- What Do People Want/ Expect From Indie Music Videos?

Audience Research:

  

 

 

What types of costume would you expect to see in an Indie music video?

 

"Casual", "Scruffy, laid-back", "Bright", "Natural", "Normal, every-day" "Unique"

Based on this reaction from my audience research I will give the band a not too stylised look in order for their audience to relate to them.

 

What types of props would you expect to see in an Indie music video?

 

"Instruments", "Lots of broken records", "Paint" "Natural settings", "Flowers", "Quirky things"

This shows that I need to make my video as quirky as I can as this fits in with the Indie genre and that it is important to show the instruments that the band will use as this was repeated often throughout my questionnaire results. 

 

 

 

From my audience research I found that most of my target audience prefer a combination of music video types- when asked what combination all said that they liked to see a mixture of narrative and performance. I agree with my target audience, I believe that the most effective music video for me to make would be a narrative/ performance video because it will engage the audience more and shouldn't get boring because there will always be shots throughout the video that flick between performance and narrative.

 

When asked what percentage of narrative to performance would they expect to se in a music video the genders varied slightly. A higher percentage of males expected to see 80% narrative to 20% performance, whereas there was an equal split between 80/0 and 70/30 within the female audiences. I think in my music video based on these answers I will use roughly 70% narrative to 30% performance because although my target audience is both male and female I think that this is a better ratio because you get enough of the narrative to connect with the story and enough of the performance side in order to connect with the artist.

There is a clear gender split when asked what gender the audience wants the actor of the narrative to be. Females thought male and males thought female- as these figures are not 100% (not all males and females showed these views) I think it will be alright to choose any gender for the narrative actor although I am likely to use a female because that is what is easily accessible to me and I think it would allow me more reign on the visual e.g. long hair flowing, more attention to clothing.

The most common choice for the age of the narrative actor was 21-25, this is understandable as my target audience I aged 16-21- they are likely to want to look at someone who is older to them to look up/ aspire to.

Types of Music Videos

There are three different types of music videos which all have individual impacts on their audiences...

1. Performance based -Feature the artist/s performing 'live' throughout the video.
                                    -Usually consist of closer shot types and more intimate camera 
                                     work to centre the artist.
Examples...

 

 

 

My thoughts... I think performance elements are important in a music video however I believe that just performance can become quite boring after a while if there is not lots of interesting visuals, therefore I am unlikely to use a performance based music video for my own

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2. Narrative Based -A music video that uses actors and the artist/s to tell a story.
                                  -The story can be linked to the song's lyrics, but not always.
                            -Usually contains performance elements.

Examples...

My thoughts... I really like narractive based music videos as I think they sometimes convey a different meaning to the song that you may not have thought about before. However I think that it is important for there to be performance aspects to show the band either that they are involved or the videocuts to studio footage.

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3.Concept based-The video is usually based around a certain concept or idea.
                         -They may or may not feature the artist in some way.
                         -They are normally very original/unique.

Examples...

My thoughts... I think concept video are really original and cool, however they require a lot a lot of thought and , usually choreography, which I don't hink I would be able to carry out in the time we have been given to make our music vidoes.

The Purpose of Music Videos