3. Music Video Analysis- Nirvana - Smells Like Teen Spirit

2. Music Video Analysis- JLS - She Makes Me Wanna ft. Dev

"She Makes Me Wanna" is a single by English boy band JLS. The song was released as the album's lead single on 24 July 2011 by Epic Records. It features vocals from American recording artist Dev. The song was written by JLS, BeatGeek, Jimmy Joker, and Teddy Sky, and produced by BeatGeek, Jimmy Joker, Teddy Sky. It was shot in Miami, Florida in May 2011, and was directed by Colin Tilley. It shows JLS and Dev performing on a purpose built stage at a beach party, and is interspersed with individual shots of the band on some rocks and at night.

Boy bands are usually represented as characters for girls to swoon over. They dress in casual, trendy (popular cool) ways, keeping up to date with fashion and taking a lot of care in their general appearance. They are represented as individuals as well as a group in their music videos. However, usually through close-ups of them individually and establishing shots when they are in a group. Another way they are represented as individual is that often each member has a different bold colour which they wear. A great example of this is JLS. Part of their outfit in their music videos is of their allocated colour. Often as the band gets older they will lose these typical traits and go for darker, more neutral colours to represent how their music has matured. In the pop genre, the boy band are usually performing a dance routine whilst singing or are performing a narrative based around themselves. The main focus in pop boy band videos is the members to please the often large global female audiences. For example in this music video, they do this by showing off through their fit wet polished body, hence they are in the beach.

Mise on scene

First shot shows JLS the main artist of the video, a long establishing shot allows the viewer to see all 4 members of the band. They are on a stage which shows them performing. The audience in the video are mainly women, which relates to their target audience of young women. There bright coloured costumes are typical of a pop song, and all 4 members where similar outfits. It then fades to a shot of Dev, the other artist featured in the video. This allows the viewers to see both artists. The low angle shots allows the viewers to see the band and Dev dancing which relates to the music genre.

We can see that the audience behind them is mainly female’s due to the marketing to mainly a young female fan base. The visuals illustrate the music due to all members dancing to the song.

A bird’s eye view and long shots is used to show the band performing and establish setting. Again the location is clearly a different country which shows the typical holidays for a younger adults to go to, targeting there audience. It also shows the audience having a fun time watching the band performance which then catches the attention of the viewers, so they would also want to see them live in order to have the same amount of entertainment as the audience in the video.

Lighting

The lighting in a music video can create different views by the way the scene is lit and the angle and direction of the light, it allows the audience to recognize the genre and style of the music video and it gives the audience clues about what time of day the scene is taking place. A bright light draws the viewer’s attention, but a scene can be lit by using natural lighting i.e. from the sun or existing light sources, or by using artificial lights, just like this music video.  

The lighting in the video portrays brightness that usually be seen at a beach party. The use of natural hard lighting in the summer at a beach creates warm lighting to portray the summer warm feeling. The lighting on the band and the audience are equally bright due to an outdoor performance.

During the shots at night of the band and the audience in the video is very dimly lit showing that it is night time. The light source is mainly coming from the cars, 'high lighes' during their performamce, but also its coming from the studio lights that would be hiden behind  the cameras. The quality of the light in a scene can also hide or reveal things and influence the viewer’s reaction for example the use of lights in the video have been used very effectively, the light isn’t as focused, enhancing the artist or audience and making the background less important, but relevant at the same time to expose that it is a night beach party. Also the use of lights that are blurred and out of focus to allow the viewer to focus mainly on the artist and the performance.

Costume

In this long shot it establishes a summer party scene in the ocean, showing young adults having a good time, it relates to the song due to be being a pop song and as it is most likely to be played at parties. The costumes are mostly likely worn by a young audience as well, also due to them being summery clothes, relates to how the song could be seen as a summer anthem. It also amplifies the lyrics as it is about a girl ‘she makes me’ it could be suggesting she is the girl they are talking/ singing about. Also as it is addressed to adult girls target audience.

All members of the band including the audience wearing bright coloured costumes that is very light and less covering, which is typical for a theme for a party in the summer. There were some long shots of the main artist that was topless but wearing baggy black trousers, this connotes that they are in a warm location that is usually at the beach.

Dev in the music video is wearing an outfit that is very tacky and short which could be bought in high street shops, which again relates to the target audience and that they could also look like the artist in the video.

The female audiences are wearing beach summer clothing such as bikini or swim suits that shows most of their skin that keeps them cool under the heat and usually used for beachwear parties. This portrays that they were prepared for the live performance and the night party at the beach.

Editing

The shot types that were used in this music video (wide shots, mid-shot, medium close up, close up and extreme close up) are the basic shots we expect to see in most music videos, however there can be some more creative ways of displaying a scene through different camera angles. Camera angles play a huge part in emphasizing the artist and the band or to show emotions and expressions. Other camera angles that are simply the most common in music videos, are close ups, showing the artist lip syncing, and extreme close ups were lyrics can be linked to visuals. The camera never stays on one shot for longer than 3-5 seconds.

The use of jump cuts in this music video to expose the performance and juxtaposition between each band member and their target audience.

In the music video there were some shots that used different style techniques such as expanding time by showing the band performance in a slow action to match sound. Also there were some fading out to a fading in shots to create an illusion feeling.

1. Music Video Analysis: Imagine Dragons- Demons

"Demons" is a song recorded by American rock band Imagine Dragons. It was produced by record producer Alex da Kid, written by Imagine Dragons and Alex da Kid, and recorded by the band. They call themselves alternative rock, but in one of the interview, they said "We don’t want to be a cliché band. We don’t want to restrict ourselves to one genre. We don’t want people to remember us from the genre. We want to let people call our songs as Imagine Dragons' type songs. So in pursuit of that, we push the boundaries of every genre and try to mix them”. This implies that the band does not like to be associated as a particular genre, however they do associate themselves as an alternative rock.

The song appears on their major-label debut extended play Continued Silence and also makes an appearance on their debut studio album Night Visions as the fourth track. "Demons" was solicited to American triple-A radio stations on January 28, 2013 and to modern rock stations on April 1 and serves as the album's overall fifth single and was released as the third single from Night Visions in the United States, and was later released to contemporary hit radio stations on 17 September 2013 as an official single. The lyrics portray the protagonist warning the significant other of his or her flaws.
Most of the music videos has a story, as Imagine Dragons’ new video for “Demons” shows, and the tales often come with very sad endings.

What the song suggests?

It's saying that we as humans tend to set expectations too high for ourselves. We all have "demons inside". We all have troubles. We all battle ourselves sometimes. We are all imperfect. We are all human, and that is enough. :) The song sounds sad, but the message is somewhat positive: embrace your qualities and imperfections, because it makes us who we are. We try to shield others from our dark side, which is fine, but we just need to know that we DO have a darker side. It's woven in our soul, because we are imperfect humans.
The clip, which starts as a standard concert video, albeit one bathed in beautiful blue light, features the “Radioactive”-band performing the heavy mid-tempo track about the demons we all have living inside us before a hometown audience in Las Vegas.

Released on May 7, 2013 and shot in Las Vegas, Nevada at the band's performance at The Joint on February 9, 2013, the video features a mix of live footage of the band and a companion narrative. Various characters with personal hardships are depicted, including a grieving daughter, an anorexic man who stares at himself in a mirror, a victim of parental abuse and a military veteran. The clip ends with a dedication to Tyler Robinson (1995-2013), a fan of the band who died at the age of 17 in March 2013 following a battle with cancer.

Mise en scene

The clip opens with a long shot set in one of Imagine Dragon’s concerts. The use of a handheld camera to film the mise-en-scene concert gives the appearance of fan footage. The tone of the music video is pretty steady, slow and full of emotions as the next shot links to this by breaking the ‘fan footage’ ideology by changing the camera to a steady cam with the use of slow motion effects. Correspondingly a close-up shot of each of the members from the band is shown, which helps to establish their emotions. They each have a serious and sorrow look on their face which again helps to establish the tone of the video.

The video is set at a concert and this is represented by the use of conventions that would be found here. Examples of this are the audience in the crowd, the lighting used, the band performance, the use of instruments and etc...

The camera zooms in from a mid-shot to an extreme close-up shot before going into the flashback of the people linked to the music video.  This is so to establish the person before showing related flashbacks. By zooming into the person, it creates an effect to the audience watching the video of entering the person’s memories.

Sound

Throughout the video the song repeatedly switched between playing as diegetic sound and non-diegetic sound. It is diegetic when the band is shown performing the song ‘live’ on stage. The band singing is also an example of synchronous sound as the singer can be seen singing the song in time with the track. The video also features the sound of the audiences cheering as a diegetic sound, this helps to create the mise-en-scene of a concert performance that is present throughout the video.   It then switches to non-diegetic during the flashback sequences when the song is played in the background but the band is not seen performing. The instruments are also another example of diegetic sound during the concert sequences as the band can be seen playing their instruments.

Lighting

The lighting in the video portrays illumination that usually be seen at a concert, as the crowd has very little lighting placed on them, in comparison to the band who have a spotlight on them, which also portrays the importance of each person, the focus of this being on the lead singer.

The lighting is also used to emphasize the depressed emotions of each of the characters because they are all portrayed under darkness. I believe the characters being in the middle of a crowd represents how each individual could be going through something related to their previous memories and that everyone has their demons.

Also this may represent that they want to conceal away their problems. The teen with his hood up, hiding most of his face, may be the best example of this as he is hiding using his hood and it feels like he is trying to not drawn attention to himself and remain isolated.

The studio lights changes from blue and dark spot light to a brighter and colourful lighting when the sound of the beat gets louder and stronger.

Costume 
The costumes throughout the video are used to represent the stereotypes of each of the people we flashback to as well as the tone of the scene. The woman in the first flashback scene typically wears a black dress to a funeral which also represents her grief over the loss. The guy who looks slim at first turns out to be somewhat of a “geek” given that he uses the traditional geeky glasses. The teenage boy originally seems like a ‘thug’ or a ‘gangster’ since he shows the stereotypical ‘hood over his head’ look giving more of a negative look towards teenagers but at the same time shows how teens are cut off and in their own world, hiding under his hood. During the flashback he wears clothes that symbolize more of a sports person rather than the thug we saw. The use of different stereotypes for the various flashback sequences again brings forward the philosophy of the song, that everyone has their demons.