F*cked Up World analysis

I will be analysing the video F*cked up world by The Pretty Reckless. They are a Rock band turning Metal who have stuck to the conventions of their genres. In this

video I will explain how they do this.

• The opening shot is of the band sitting around a campfire, we then hear the drums start to play and the camera pans over to the drum kit being played.

• We then pan across the set and see behind the scenes before we get to the set.

Almost at the very beginning of the video the front woman of the band Taylor Momsen is in the centre of the frame surrounded by the rest of the band. She is the star image of the band and is on the front of many

of the album covers unaccompanied.

As the lyrics start we see them written on boards that girls are holding in the video. The words mirror what the singer is singing. This is a visual correlation between the visuals and the song.

Another example of lyric to video correlation is when the words “no mountain made of money” are sung we see two women are sitting on a what would be called a mountain of money. The set of three images corresponds with the lyrics, sex, love and gunfire.

The mise en scene of the video contains a lot of references to the lyrics. It is a video with a lot of sexual references, and references to a ‘F*cked up world’. In the rock genre there is a theme of commenting on society and how there is something inherently wrong with it. Its almost a commentary about Michael Shores ideas that music videos mostly contain adolescent male fantasies. With soft-core pornography and clichéd images of wealth and power.

• Mise en scene.Setting, costume, props, lighting, colour, framing, body language.

• How they use the mise en scene

• Camera,editing, concept, theory, Andrew Goodwin, sven Carlson, michael shore.

I’m On A Boat – The Lonely Island

A performance video where we see the artist singing and dancing in the video. The Lonely Island are commercial exhibitionists. They sell their image and I use the images that other artists have to attract more attention to themselves. In the case of this video they have featured the artist T-Pain who is a famous rapper known for his iconic image and synthesised voice.

In the first image we see the artists immediately which shows that they are commercial exhibitionists. The artists that will be performing in the video are then named so we know who they are. You also see them in normal attire at the beginning, then when they are on the boat they almost change personas as well as their outfits to give them more of an image.

The video describes the exact situation they are in which is, on a boat. There is no story to the video, the mise on scene is the topic of the video. There are many moments of direct mode of address when the artist is looking into the camera at the audience and singing at them. The camera is always focused on the artists and there isn’t a camera shot without at least one of them in the frame.

They also use pop culture references to show off their status. The lyrics ‘on a boat like Leo’ Paired with this image. Is a reference to the famous scene from the movie Titanic where Leonardo Di Caprio stands on the helm of the Titanic.

(Ariana Grande Cover)

The first shot is a close up of the beatboxer, as he makes the beat the camera cuts quickly in time with the beat to different angles of him. This introduces his role in

the video.

As the new parts are introduced they appear on the screen so we know who is singing. This shows us the members of the band sequentially and creates a musical persona for those singers based on their part. Each shot is also cuts to every beat of the song making the visuals reflect the sound very well.

We then see the croup in its entirety, they are surrounded by white and all we can see are the singers. In the mise en scene of this image we notice there are no

instruments, all of the music is coming from the singers which increases our focus on them.

On the left we can see a still from the Pentatonix cover of Problem, and on the right is a still from the original video. You can clearly see that the Pentatonix are

referencing the original video and showing the relation visually, also the lyrics being said at the time of both these shots are the same. This is almost as if the Pentatonix

are comparing themselves to the celebrities they are covering.

Chandelier - Sia

In the opening of the video we get many indoor establishing shots of where we assume the video will take place, at this time all we can hear is a low droning buzz as the camera cuts between shots.

When the music starts we see a girl in a doorway. We can now tell that this video is a conceptual video. The girl is wearing a wig that looks like the artists distinctive hair. The actions of the girl also represent the lyrics and the beat as she starts dancing. For example when the singer sings “ Down” the girl jumps down from the doorway and we have a close up of her feet.

A quick representation of the artist in the painting. From here we follow the dancer with very long shots tracking shots. In the entirety of the video there are only 19 cuts between shots. Most of which occur when at a close up to the girls face where the emotions are amplified by quicker cuts that make the facial expressions seem weirder and more contorted.

Ylvis – I will never be a star (Bjarte Ylvisåker)

• In the opening shots we see a young man looking at his phone, on the phone is the famous Ylvisvideo What does the fox say. The song lyrics are subtitled at the bottom of the screen while he sings.

• We start to realise this is a narrative story of the brother who was left out of the group and didn’t get any fame. This video is his resentment towards that.

The music then suddenly changes from a quiet, mainly lyrical song to louder more dance style song as synthesisers and drumbeats are brought in. We see there is a comic aspect to the video as the younger brother is singing he will never be a star, while taking up a pose we see in many famous music videos.

• The artist and video would be categorised as a televised bard in this case. There is a narrative and he describes how he would never be a star because he has stage fright. The artist is in always in the frame showing that he is also a commercial exhibitionist. Though he doesn’t have to sell his image due to the viral popularity of the band.