The song I have decided to compare my music video to is the Arctic Monkeys - "Leave Before the Lights Come On"; I decided to choose this music video as it is a broken love story (much like my video storyline) that features only two characters, a man and a woman, thus exploring the usually not so perfect relationships between that of a man and a woman. The video is socio-realistic much like mine and the main connection is that of the genre of both songs/music videos - that being Indie music. As I will explain and as you may probably see, there are both key differences and comparisons between that of my music video and that of the Arctic Monkeys' one.
Here is the full video:
Here is the establishing shot of the Arctic Monkeys music video and my own and as you can see in the Arctic Monkeys video, this medium close up clearly does what it intends to - establishes the main character and scenery. In my music video establishing shot, this is similair to an extent as I start my music video with a close up of the cue cards my main character uses and thus, instead of establishing my character, I focus my attention on the cue cards and theme of the music video yet still bring my main character in. This is why my establishing shot is so very short - because I want it to be encompassed with the second shot as the establishing shot and thus, introduce both the theme and my main character. Both music videos are additionally similair as they clearly establish the main setting - outside. This is to create a socio-realistic feeling to the music videos, relating to the "grime" feel of Indie music and in turn, relate to a younger generation - the "street" generation. At a later date, my video then introduces itself through my editing in which I create a title. This is not apparent on the Arctic Monkeys video. Additionally, the biggest difference between both establishing shots is that the main character introduced in the Arctic Monkeys one is the object of the womans affections, whilst in my video, the main male desires the girl.
The representation of genders and relationships throughout both videos is key in their similarities and differences. As I have mentioned before, the desirer/desire-ee genders are different in both videos with the man desiring the woman in my video, and the woman wanting the man in the Arctic Monkeys video. The key difference in representation between both videos is the amount of seperation between the genders. In my video, I purposely made it so that there was absolutely no shot in which my characters were in together. This was to create a sense of being apart by the characters, which would ultimately emphasise the longing in which the male character feels. This is key in which I use a shot reverse shot editing technique whilst my male stands at the object ofhis affections' door. This is different initially to the Arctic Monkeys video in which the characters do interact together and are in the same shots, though towards the end this decreases more and more so when the female protagonist starts to become obsessive towards that of the male.
The individual characters are also represented with both differences and similarities. The female character in both my video and Arctic Monkeys' one is initially presented with a close up of their face in order to create a more personal feeling to their prescence. However, despite this similarity the way they are presented are different. For example, the facial expressions of my female protagonist are smiling, and I used this to link her with the fun feel of the music video. This is reflected in the Arctic Monkeys video by which the female antagonist's first initial facial expression is of melancholy, thus giving insight to the mood of their music video.
Aswell as this, my male protagonist is ultimately presented in a humourous way, whilst the male protagonist in that of the Arctic Monkeys music video is presented with a more serious tone. This is seen by both my mise-en-scene in which humourous props are used around my male character (such as the big signs) to create a comical effects, where as the lead male protagonist in the Arctic Monkeys video has nothing on him, focusing the attention more on him and his acting. Upon this, both my male and female wear more colourful and happier clothing to fit the jovial theme of my music video. This is contrasted against that of the Arctic Monkeys video in which both the male and female where clothes with shades of blue and grey, promoting melancholy.
One key difference between that of this Indie music video and my own is that I have used the repeated use of "canted angle" (camera technique) in order to create a sense something isn't quite right, allowing my audience to link this uncertainty to the stability of the relationship between both my protagonists. My female protagonist is at a canted angle on most occasions and at a later date, so is my male protagonist.
To conclude therefore, from looking at both my music video and that of the Arctic Monkeys one, it is clear that there are key elements of both music videos which are the same, namely the representation of the failure of relationships and with this, the presentation of British Youth as a side theme. However, I feel the Arctic Monkeys video pulls this off with far more precision that mine as it connects the male and female lead together, whilst mine purposely keeps both protagonists seperate to make obvious the distance of their relationship. However, in hindsight and from analysing the Arctic Monkeys video, I could have created far more intimacy amongst the characters to establish more of a romantic relationship and thus, a romantic element to my music video despite the comedic intentions present. My music video therefore does indeed both challenge and use conventions of typical music videos of the theme Indie music as it uses certain camera angles and
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