Commission placement - contextual influence

Music video analysis:

'A narrative music video tells a story, logically or sequentially through a chain of events that are put together to run parallel to each other.' - (2014)

 For my music video analysis, I took a look at three different narrative music videos to help me create an idea or structure about the video I had to make.

For my first analysis, I decided to pick my first video as 'Lost in the Echo' by Linkin Park. This was the video I picked as the way in which it was filmed was similar to the video I was making, in the way that it focused on performance or a story and didn't include the band singing or performing themselves.


Screenshot from the video

The video itself tells the story of a 'post-apocolyptic world' where 'photos don't exist anymore' (Wallace, 2012) a lone man with a briefcase walks through ruined buildings and distributes photos to numerous people within those buildings. The video then shows each of the people picking up a photograph of a lost loved one, which, as they look up, reveals the loved one to be standing there. The photograph fades away and the holder of the photo crumbles to dust.

The story fits well with the lyrics of the song as it talks about 'So, one last lie I can see through. This time, I finally let you go, go, go', this could be representing that the photographs are just a lie of what the others want to be real and once the holder's understand that, they are able to 'let go' of what has happened to their loved ones, turning to dust as they do so.

When watching this video, I also noticed that the story wasn't as 'straight-forward' as some other narrative videos may be, as it doesn't explicitly show or tell why the holder's crumbled to dust after the pictures faded, nor why they faded in the first place. However, I believe this is what make's Linkin Park's narrative videos special as, much like a lot of their songs, the true meaning can be interpreted or anyway the viewer sees it.

This is something that I wanted to capture with the video I was making as the way the lyrics of the song were structured gave the song an 'open-ended' interpretations (defined as something that 'does not have a planned ending, so it may develop in several ways').

2nd Music Video analysis:

For my second analysis I looked at 'Every Breaking Wave' by U2, another narrative video.


Screenshot from the video

The video tells the story of a romance set in the 19080's, that is slowly ruined and 'suffocated' by an increasing 'all-pervasive conflict' where 'all of the frenzy, fear and the horror of living through those times is conveyed in a series of stunning set-pieces'. (Knight, 2015)

I chose this video as its story was told in a gritty way. What was also good about the video, is that it didn't use brightly saturated colours in post to highlight any costumes, however, the characters would dressed in eye-catching costumes to make them stand out amongst the colour scheme of the background. 

I wanted to adapt something similar to this into my video by having the background be quite dreary in the scenes where she is dead, however, if she was wearing a bright/highly coloured outfit she would stand out and be the centre of attention in those scenes.

3rd music video analysis:

For my final video analysis I picked 'Not Dead Yet' by Jen Ledger. While this video did have a narrative, it also had a performance throughout from the artist. However, I still picked this video as the narrative it is portraying is clear and present throughout, even when she is performing with the band.

Image result for ledger not dead yet

Screenshot from video

This video shows the story of a boxer (Ledger) losing against an opponent, hence the bruise marks on her face throughout the video. However, as the title of the song 'Not Dead Yet' she gets back up and defeats her opponent. The video showing Ledger breaking out of an empty house coincides with lyrics like 'I'm not dead yet', although in the boxing match she doesn't die, it could have a double meaning and shows us that even though you may get defeated you can get back up and fight again.

Showing this through the video, Ledger also spoke about wanting to 'represent what it feels like when people are in that place where it seems life won’t give them a chance to breathe.' and she said herself that “That’s why I start off the video where I’m already beaten, bloody and bruised, because I wanted to kind of show the view of what I was feeling when I wrote the song.” (Evans Price, 2018)

This is part of how a narrative video often works, with lyrics being represented on-screen through performance. This is something I want to implement into my video by representing certain lyrics through the video but in ways that could be left to interpretation, similar to how the 'Not Dead Yet' video does it. 

Bibliography:

Wallace, L. (2012) New Linkin Park Video Implants Your Friends' Faces Into Post-Apocalyptic Memories. At: https://www.wired.com/2012/08/linkin-park-personalized-video/ (Accessed on 9 January 2020)

(2014) How to make a narrative music video : The fundamentals. At: https://www.epikmusicvideos.com/blog/72-how-to-make-a-narrative-music-video-the-fundamentals.html (Accessed on 9 January 2020)

Knight, D. (2015). U2 'Every Breaking Wave' by Aoife McArdle | Videos | Promonews. [online] Promonewstv. Available at: https://www.promonews.tv/videos/2015/02/13/u2-every-breaking-wave-aoife-mcardle/31850 [Accessed 10 Jan. 2020].


Evans Price, D. (2018). Jen Ledger Overcomes the Odds in 'Not Dead Yet' Video: Exclusive. [online] Billboard. Available at: https://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/rock/8470330/jen-ledger-not-dead-yet-video [Accessed 10 Jan. 2020].

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