The Prodigy Breathe

Textual Analysis               The Prodigy- Breathe

The lighting in this video is very suggestive as the constant flickering and “strobe-light” effect put the viewer on edge and disturbs them. This flickering combined with the un-nerving shadows the lights make creates an all-round nightmare effect (an effect that we are trying to create.) The close-up if the lead singers face is an extremely horror focusing shot. The light has been put underneath his face so the shadows make him look demonic and un-human. Also the way that the singer tilts his head and grins in to the camera makes the viewer disturbed and scared... emotions we will be hoping to create. In all of the wide-shots showing the locations, the lights are flickering and the mise-en-scene is very gritty and urban. The people appear to be in a run-down house (a key element of the horror genre) and everything is dirty and ruined. This mise-en-scene is emphasised through the post-processing of the colouring; the colours are all washed-out and dirty looking.

The costumes of the musicians/actors in this video are all very suggestive of the punk rock genre of music rather than techno. This allows them to be more linked to a demonic sense and the darkness of the costumes combined with the gritty location and flickering lights, again, created a disturbing effect of madness and insanity. Also, one of the musicians/actors in the video has make-up that highlights him being possessed- his eyes are all white and he has black lines drawn on his face and all over his body. These black lines also look like tattoos which could denote in to the punk-rock genre again. This make-up makes him look like a tribal member that has been possessed by a demon. The viewer watches his movements around the straight camera shots of him and becomes convinced that he is insane and/or possessed and this further disturbs them and shocks them.

The wide-shot of the person in the bedroom creates a surreal feel as at first it appears he is on his own just sitting on the bed. But as the shot progresses, our attention is drawn to the floor where an alligator/crocodile crawls around. Our attention is drawn to the floor through the lights as at first the floor is in darkness but as it lights up we see the alligator and we, as the viewer, our confused and disturbed at the same time. You would not normally find an alligator/crocodile in an urban, run-down house so this creates the surreal feel. In our music video, we want to do similar and create a feel of a person’s nightmares coming true and a surreal feeling.

The editing does not appear to be edited directly to the beat of the music which can create a further sense of discord as the music has a pulsing beat and the cuts sometimes are shortly after the beat which makes the viewer on edge and disturbed. The pace of editing varies with the music, on the fast parts, the editing matches and is also fast but on the slow bits of the music, the shots are also drawn out and normally contain unusual images such as the tribal person fluidly moving towards the camera or the person on the bedroom being approached by a person that looks exactly the same as him. Also there is a long drawn-out shot of a shoe flying up and hitting the ceiling. All these shots show a sense of the unreal and un-doable.

We want to use the lighting specifically from this music video as the shadows created by the position of the lights makes the people look demonic and also is effective for disturbing the viewers.