The video is a series of vignettes in a child's quest at growing up and living alone. There is an element of surrealism as he essentially lives as an adult, though on screen he has the appearance of a child. To others in the universe he appears old.
A) An only child, about 10 years old, is assaulted by his father. In anger he packs a bag of clothes and runs away from home... B) Getting a desk job answering phones... C) Getting a tiny, cramped flat with no furniture and sleeping on the floor... D) Sitting on a park watching kids play - he is no longer connected to them... E) Getting his first car, driving around town, waiting for something to happen...(This scene was cut during the storyboarding process to improve shooting practicality.) F) Turning to alcohol, drinking in a bar... G) Falling asleep in the gutter, alcohol bottle in his hand... H) Turning to heroin, shoots himself up in his apartment... I) Throws up on the floor of his apartment and cries... J) Eventually realising that he doesn't want to grow up, and that adult life is horrible, he leaves adult life behind and walks out into the night... K) He arrives at his old house and sees his worried parents through the window... He decides to stay a child for as long as he can, and returns through the front door.
The main image on the official website for Florence and the Machine, recording name of artist Florence Welsh, is a photo of the artist herself. It is placed in the centre, above the fold, so that it is the first thing that a visitor to the website sees. This reinforces her star image and allows her to connect with her audience by putting a face to the music. A pair of lungs, similar to those found in the CD Cover for the album Lungs, are used as the background for the navigation menu, which highlights them and makes them recognisable, establishing a recurring motif for the artist.
The website makes use of an audio player and video player, which are both placed above the fold. The video player autoplays upon load, which massively increases view counts and engrosses the viewer. Autoplaying the video attracts attention to it and increases the visibility of the artist and her music.
The navigation menu links to sections for News, a Blog, about the artist, Media, Video, Photo Gallery, information on the live tour and community features such as a forum and membership system. These allow for great interactivity with the artist and allow for fans to be closely connected to the goings-on of Florence and the Machine, staying up-to-date and the first to know about new singles, albums, tours, etc. This improves record sales and the financial viability of the artist to the record company.
The website for artist Feist uses a large image as its centrepiece advertising the artist's newest album, The Reminder. The artist is featured in a close-up shot next to the album to establish the relationship. Below the fold, fan photos of the artist's live performances on tour advertise the tour itself and also her skills as a live performer.
The main navigation bar links to the artist's news, tour details, news articles, photos, videos, albums and online store. These pages use rich media such as audio and video to create a vivid image of the artist to intrigue the viewer and draw them into her star image.
The key image of Feist's silhouette is used four times on the landing page, once as the favicon, and also above the header image, tour archive sidebar link and the album cover itself featured in the header image. The 'rule of 3' in marketing says that you must present a key image to a viewer three times before they remember it. The use of the silhouette three times on the page and once in the favicon is consistent with this and helps create a recognisable logo for the artist.
The main image in the CD Cover for Lungs depicts the artist, Florence Welch, standing in a forest, surrounded by birds and flowers. She wears a see-through dress and a plastic representation of two lungs hang from her neck as if replacing a necklace. The lungs, representative of the album title, cover her outside body where the lungs would appear inside her body. The choice of lungs as both the album's namesake and the visual image on the CD Cover could suggest connotations of life, as breath is needed for life, or singing, as her powerful voice comes from her lungs.
The artists' recording name, Florence and the Machine, is represented in logo form in a sans-serif, hand-written font. The cursiveness of this font suggests a hand-drawn, personal touch which allows the artist to connect with the audience on a higher level.
This album cover uses a main image of a hot air balloon with an anchor for a basket, and sunshine rays eminating from it. This image is reflective of the title, We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank, suggesting inevitable death due to the heavy anchor pulling down on the hot air balloon, and the tone of the album title suggests acceptance of that. The font of the band's name, Modest Mouse, uses a Las Vegas-style serif typography, with no additional effects, gradients, shadows, glows, etc. This connotes a somber attitude that is also reflective of the album title rife with negativity.
The layout uses the band's logo and the album title to represent the metaphorical 'ground' that the hot air balloon would soon crash down to. This connotes a state of flux, a pause in time where everything is joyful before the inevitable, horrific crash happens and the inhabitants of the "ship" die.
The colours used are dark blue, orange and a light purple. These cool, calm colours suggest the tone of the album, somber and mellow, which is indeed reflected in the choice track, Little Motel.
The music video for 9 Crimes by Damien Rice was directed by Jamie Thraves in 2006. The music is of the piano pop genre and conforms to its characteristics of a classical, all-piano arrangement but with vocals that can appeal to a mass audience, as common in the broader Pop genre.
The lyrics "leave me out with the waste" are represented in the video through the visual of additional vocalist Lisa Hannigan's head cast aside amongst waste bins in an alleyway. This surreal image later evolves as her head flies upward like a balloon and is lifted away by the wind. The lyrics "if I give my gun away when it's loaded, is that alright?" are loosely represented in the video by the young boy who, at the end of the video, uses a slingshot to burst Hannigan's 'balloon head' and she is left on the ground, her face burst apart. The lyrics "it's a small crime and I've got no excuse" could also relate to this from the perspective of the boy.
The video cuts to the beat of the music effectively throughout. During the crescendo of the music the video cuts away from the alleyway setting to the pavement of a street, where Rice pulls Hannigan's head along like a balloon on string. This is portrayed as jovial as he had earlier attempted to grab hold of her, but the wind had kept blowing her away. Pete Fraser, in the article Teaching Music Video (BFI, 2004) says that "many music videos draw upon cinema as a starting point." This is true for this video, which has a very cinematic aesthetic and is more concept-based than traditional music videos, feeling more like a short film by an experimental filmmaker than a music video.
The artist, Damien Rice, is featured in close-up shots often. He is portrayed as an ordinary person, as he is dressed in scruffy jeans and a bomber jacket, which adds to his star appeal. This is consistent with his previous videos as he wears ordinary costumes and is presented in an image of a professional, serious singer/songwriter. According to Keith Negus in the book Producing Pop, stars created from the organic ideology of creativity are approached by record labels with a naturalistic intention and a long-term plan. Rice fits into this category and is thus an organically ideological star. His music is aimed at a higher sophistication of consumer than the general pop genre.
The video is predominantly concept-based, presenting a unique and interesting visual image. The narrative-base is used much less in the boy's slingshot destruction of Hannigan's face. The artist, Damien Rice and additional vocalist, Lisa Hannigan do perform throughout the music video, lip syncing not to the camera, but to each other. In conclusion, this video is unconventional and experimental. However, it does still conform to some music video conventions, such as performance from the artist and a fractured narrative.
According to Richard Dyer in the article Stars (BFI, 1981), some of the common values of music stardom are "originality [and] creativity/talent." He also theorises that "a star is an image, not a real person, that is constructed (as any other aspect of fiction is) out of a range of materials (eg advertising, magazines etc as well as films [music])." Rice's appearance in the music video is an image created by the record company, as he is not performing live as a true human being, but instead acting. Rice fulfills these criterion and can therefore be considered, from Dyer's theorisation, a star.
The video I am analysing is Little Motel by the band Modest Mouse. The video was directed by Justin Francis in 2007. The music belongs to the Indie Rock genre, and follows its conventions such as an acoustic arrangement and an unusual and experimental sound.
The video draws upon the lyrics to create strong relationships and links. As an example, the visuals include a literal interpretation of the lyrics "I hope that you like it in your little motel", by the mother putting her son to bed in a motel room. "I hope that the suite sleeps and suits you well" is also literally interpreted in the visuals by opening with a shot of the child (at this point in the video, presumably) sleeping softly in the suite (he is later revealed to have died). The repeated lyrics in the chorus, "That's what I'm waiting for", are represented in the visuals through the mother's waiting at the child's hospital bedside for him to succumb to his illness or ailment, patiently watching him and the EKG. In an article by Steve Archer, How to Study Music Videos, he says "Narrative and performance songs rarely tell complete narratives." Pete Fraser also offers a similar sentiment in the article Teaching Music Video (BFI, 2004) in which he says "Narrative in songs is rarely complete, more often fragmentary, as in poetry." This is true for this video, which offers a small fracture of a narrative, but does not explain further, such as why the child was in hospital and what his condition was when his mother removed him from the hospital and took him to a motel room. These narrative points are left ambiguous and for the audience to decide.
The lyrics "the remainders of a shooting star landed directly on our broke-down little car" are vividly represented in the video via a shot of the car's bonnet and the lights of Las Vegas reflecting upon it. This creates an image, as seen above, that could be interpreted as shooting stars landing upon a little car. The lyrics continue to read, "before then we had made a wish that we would be missed if one or another just did not exist." This has a strong relationship to the visual of the mother carrying her dead son, who is clearly "missed" by the grieving mother's body language and expressions.
The video (even though it is shot in reverse) is cut to the beat of the music effectively. Solo instrumental pieces in the music are reflected in the video by cutting away from the two characters of the mother and child to close-up shots of the blinking lights of Las Vegas.
The video changes pace with the music, especially once the video reaches the point in the narrative when the mother runs out of the hospital with her child in her arms, as seen in the image above. Due to the reverse nature of the edit, this happens at the beginning of the narrative, but is shown in the last few moments of the video. The music intensifies for the final chorus, with cymbal clashes and drum beats matching cuts in the edit. The visuals are faster now, with the woman running down the hospital corridor faster than previously seen, when she had been slowly travelling through Las Vegas in a slight slow motion effect. The frantic rushing through the hospital, with her child in her arms, is a strong contrast to the beginning of the video (end of the narrative) where she, in her grief, calmly and peacefully tucks her son into bed in a motel room, now dead.
The piano beats used in the opening of the song relate strongly to the visual of the twinkling lights of Las Vegas. The lights flicker on and off quickly, and the staccato sound reflects this. The flashback sequence in the video to a home movie of the mother and child playing on a park are accompanied in the music by an ethereal, dreamy sound that works well.
In an intertextual reference, the owner of the motel plays Windows Solitaire on his computer, connoting the dullness and uneventfulness of most peoples' lives in contrast to the mother who is dealing with grief for the loss her son. The video contains no performance from the artist. It is half narrative based and half concept based. The narrative enigma of the mother carrying her child through Las Vegas is intriguing to the audience, and the concept of telling the story in reverse (with the shock twist happening at the end of the video, but the beginning of the narrative) is innovative and only successfully executed a few times before (Coldplay, The Scientist).
In conclusion, this video is uncharacteristic of conventional music videos as it feels more like a short film than an exhibition of the artist. It is experimental and the narrative is intriguing.
Lindy Heymann Active between 1992 and 2006, Heymann has directed many music videos. Her most recent works have been The Stands - 'Do It Like You Do', Thirteen Senses - 'Salt Wound Routine', L'il Luv - 'Little Love' and Supafly - 'Let's Get Down'. She graduated University with a BA in Fine Art / Film, and was quickly after hired to direct her first documentary, "3 Hours in High Heels is Heaven". It was broadcast on Channel 4.
Jake Wynne Wynne began directing in 1998 when he teamed up with friend Jim Canty to form a directing partnership called 'Jake & Jim'. He has since moved on from music video directing to feature length film directing. Wynne has directed music videos for The Stereophonics, Observer, Faithless and many more artists.
Justin Francis Francis is a director and photographer from New York. He won an award for "Outstanding Video" for the music video for Alicia Keys' "Unbreakable". During his career he has directed music videos for artists the likes of Modest Mouse, Eminem, The Black Eyed Peas, The Cure, 50 Cent and others.
