Skrillex - First of the Year (Equinox)

This music video for First of the Year (Equinox) is a major inspiration for our editing techniques and mise en scene for our music video, and additionally is a video by the same artist.

The video is structured as a simple linear narrative in which an apparent pedophile attempts to kidnap a child but is actually lured and supernaturally attacked by the child. This incorporates themes of horror and surrealism heavily as we will do, and is supported heavily through the mise en scene and editing.

The setting throughout the whole video is a seemingly run-down urban environment which already prompts connotations of criminality and the social underbelly (in a film-noir esque manner). This low variety of colour adds to a gloomy atmosphere and sets the tone for the video from the start and throughout. Light and shadows are also used extremely suggestively in the video to emphasize this atmosphere, with several shots of the sun moving behind buildings early in the video foreshadowing the man’s fate and low-key lighting is used on both characters to represent who is the real victim and attacker (which shifts between the two throughout the video). For example, the man is only presented in light when he is being victimized by the girl, and shots of her become lower angle and intimidating compared to at the start of the video where she is innocently skipping along in high-angle mid shots. Additionally the primary “antagonist” of the video, some kind of monster the girl summons, is only presented in out-of-focus shots and only its hands come out of the shadows in the majority of the shots.

The editing is particularly effective at emphasizing the supernatural abilities of the girl and connecting the real and surreal in the video. Cuts are often synchronous, however the most prominent effect is the dislocation of time and space – where parts of the song are repeated, so they are the video (in the style of an editing glitch) and the characters’ actions such as the girl stamping her foot and twisting her hands are in synchronization with the music. This connects the actual song playing with the powers of the girl shown resulting in it having a more powerful effect on the viewer when presented with the video. This also creates a sense of melody or coordination as if it is a dance performance in what the characters are doing, which is interestingly twisted considering how violent the actions shown are (the video ends on a shot of the girl twisting her hands as if to snap the man in half).

This video inspires us for editing methods and use of camera and lighting – the synchronous editing through cuts and repeating of footage creates a unique connection between the music and the video which gives far more impact to the violent events shown in the video, which is also supported by the use of camera and lighting to create a morally ambiguous scene with horror movie overtones.