Further Video Analysis + Research

After analysing Eminem's Stan, I proceeded to look at further songs. I looked at the type of music and artists that I am interested in as that is the genre of music I would like to make a video to. The artists I looked at were Irish band, The Script, and Plan B. The Plan B video I chose to analyse and look at was one produced by a student form a previous year. The video was one that received a high mark and I wanted to see how they managed to do this by looking at different aspects of the video and compare it with the original. The video made by the students is below.




As you can see, the video is Chase & Status ft. Plan B End Credits. The original can be found here. I noticed a number of things with the video which could be useful for me to use in my own video in order to gain the high marks:

• The video was similar to the original
• Low key lighting has been used - lots of oranges and warmer colours
• Camera lens = fish eye. This gives a good effect rather than just using a standard lens
• Consistent cut on main guitar strum
• Consistent cutting to first shot (keeps cutting to him laying on the floor)
• Some narrative, some performance
  
• Filmed at night
• Lots of overlays used
• Same sort of setting throughout
• Cuts to the beat near the climax of the song.
• Mise-en-scene fits with genre of music

Another video I looked at was The Script's Breakeven (below)



Here are some things I took note of when looking at this video:

• Some narrative, some performance
  
• Desaturated
  
• Slow motion (under cranking)
• Main focal character is foregrounded and in focus, the background is out of focus
• A mixture of outside and inside settings
• Cuts are not consistent with the beat as it is more of a story like video
• Some parts are in colour - flashbacks? Look like they are filmed on home video camera

The next video I looked at was The Script's For The First Time (below)



Here are some of the things that I liked when looking at this video:

• Mini story. The video opens with a girl writing to her mum and dad - could easily be mistaken for a film?
• Desaturated bits of the artist
  
• Some singing along with the song
• Some narrative, some performance
  
• Effective lens flares used/taken advantage of from the sun
• Close ups of the artist performing
• Warm colours in intimate scenes
• Overlays used consistently
• Some of the video cuts when a new line of the song is sung, and some to the beat
  

As you can see from the analysis above I have highlighted two attributes that kept popping up throughout the videos. The main bits highlighted which I would consider to include into my video is the desaturated parts, and also, how some bits are in narrative and some are in performance. These attributes look effective within the videos as they break up the video so as the narrative part does not get too boring, and the performance part is added to show the artist and further promote the song.