What
captivated me first about this music video is that it has a modern
grime interpretation of traditional fairy tales. The fairy tales have been taken
into account but refurbished into their own, to attract a younger audience; for
example, the idea of Rapunzel’s tower, has been placed within blocks of flats in
east London. Costumes, Locations and Characters in traditional fairy tales have
been considered, but upgraded to a more modern and urban feel. This could
suggest to the audience that fairy tales can be seen in daily life, it just
takes imagination. At a young age I always found ‘The wall’ by Pink Floyd, a very interesting, but disturbing music video. What mesmerised me about it was the fact that animation had been linked in with normal filming, which makes this music video unique and much different to others. It targets school children; as the idea of teachers being evil villains can be relate able to some, also targeting them by suggesting that the school is a prison, much like how some school children feel.
Arctic Monkeys - When the sun goes down, has a very interesting and eye opening music video. It focuses on the idea of prostitution and pimps. The man in this video is represented as the girls pimp, harmful aggressive and arrogant. The phrase at the beginning of the video, 'right beside us are the ones hidden by the night', this suggests to the audience that anyone around us could be an escort, they keep it hidden and subtle, meaning that no one should be judged or treated differently because of their employment. The target audience for this music video are a much older audience, as some aspects of the video are hard hitting and emotionally realistic.
Once coming across this music video, I felt that it was very captivating and unusual. The video opens with a motivational speaker discussing, what seems, that change is inevitable and you need to move outside your comfort zone. The audience is led in worship by a typical American TV style minister. The repeated phrase 'When the fire starts to burn, and it starts to spread' could suggest that once a situation starts, it grows and becomes worse, for example in the video the minister begins to sing and dance in a possessed fashion, as the song grows his followers begin to dance in the same way. Also as the song progresses more weird and unusual things begin to occur; the man being turned into a black cat and one man beating up the other.
Mumford and Sons - hopeless wanderer
White lies - bigger than us
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktoaj1IpTbw
I like your choice of music videos, particularly outstanding is the Pink Floyd iconic music video from the film The Wall. This film caused quite a stir in 1979 - it's interesting how old style traditional education is represented and this is what the present government want to return to!!!!
ReplyDeleteThe first music video you selected is more main stream with rather tired representations of gender, particularly objectification of the artist in her underwear! Nevertheless you accurately spotted the fairy tale reference.
The Arctic Monkeys music video When the Sun Goes Down is splendidly shot and performed with an interesting form of story telling. The camera movements and action are gripping, and in particular the casting Stephen Graham as the pimp. If viewers have seen the feature film This is England (released the same time as this Arctic Monkey's track) they will associate the actor with the racist thug Combo in the film.
You could do a case study on this music video and its use of the generic conventions of British social realist films such as This is England and Fish Tank. Also a useful music video for your unit on Media and Collective Identify because of the use of British cultural references and representation of youth.
Keep up your research Zoe - I could advise you on constructing a case study as discussed above.