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.

Alice in wonderland

The clip taken from the film Alice in Wonderland is of the mad hatters tea party. At this moment, Alice has just arrived in her wonderland. At the ‘tea party’ Alice is joined by the mad hatter and an animated mouse, rabbit and a cat. In the clip the use of mise en scene creates a sense of chaos. The dinner party is set outside a rundown house. There is pathetic fallacy as the weather is foggy and dull symbolising both Alice and the audiences’ confusion and the dark tone of the storyline. Their tea party is held on a broken dinner table covered with a dirty table cloth, symbolising the hard times that have caused things to become dirty and broken. Spread over the dinner table is broken tea cups and plates, giving the audience a sense of disorder and chaos that Alice is feeling. Throughout the shots there are clocks and pocket watches placed both on the characters and on the table around Alice, symbolising to the audience the idea that time plays an important role and that it may be running out. There is also a massive contrast in colours with very vibrant colours of the clothes and hair colour of the characters against a washed out dull background filled with mist and fog creating a sense of fantasy and mystery. 

The sense of chaos and confusion is also shown through the use of camera. It uses suggestive framing with only one character in the shot isolating them from each other. This puts the audience in the position of Alice, both alone and confused. As the scene develops the shots zoom closer and closer on the characters creating a sense of paranoia amongst the audience which links with the storyline as the evil soldiers draw closer in search of Alice. This is alongside lots of fast pace of editing which puts you in the position of Alice with a lot of confusion and disorientation. 

Throughout the scene the characters dialogue is very odd and confusing. The mad hatter and his friends chant words like ‘futtawhacker’ and sentences such as ‘any idea why a raven is like a writing desk’ which again creates the sense of confusion among the audience putting them in Alice’s position. The use of mise en scene and framing will be the main things inspiring the music video as they fit with the theme and will be seen prominently throughout.

30 seconds to mars - The Kill

30 seconds to mars are a very mainstream artist and while they are working in a different genre to us this video has several elements we may borrow.

The video is structured as narrative with some performance elements (though this overlaps later in the video) and is an intertextual reference to Stanley Kubrick's The Shining. As such it contains psychological horror overtones conveyed in the mise en scene, editing and use of camera.
The video opens with an establishing low-angle shot of a bleak, intimidating country resort and one of the band members comments that it will be completely empty for several days. This immediately foreshadows a horror-inspired narrative. Jump cuts between several corridors in the hotel provide an intense sense of isolation with an unknown figure seen moving in several shots out of the frame, as if trying to hide from the viewer - conveying a fear of the unknown to the viewer yet at the same time creating curiosity.

The narrative is structured around the band members going through what the antagonist of The Shining (Jack) does - becoming insane after the ghosts in the hotel convince him he is one of them. This is related to the song's lyrics regarding personality conflicts, and this narrative is most importantly highlighted by the mise en scene - the band members are initially dressed casually in black and jeans and this is juxtaposed by the "ghostly" band members wearing tuxedos along with the other actors, putting them at opposition while the target audience of the band are most likely to identify with the casually dressed actors.

The editing and use of camera in the video is effective in confusing the viewer and creating the horror-movie atmosphere. An extremely fast pace of editing in which flashes of corpses or old-fashioned characters occur is used synchronously with the pace of the guitar and drumming, and is juxtaposed by the slower sections in the video where the viewer is given far more time to make sense of what is on the screen. This is something we intend to use in our video often, contrasting the upbeat sections of the song with the darker, faster sections by using synchronous editing and suggestive mise en scene corresponding with the song. The use of camera is varied similarly - shots with the "normal" band members are similar to shots of a protagonist in a film, closer together or point of view to create sympathy between the viewer and character while on the other hand shots of the mysterious antagonistic characters are long shots which are generally shorter and often intimidate the viewer - for example extreme closeups of the antagonistic frontman in which he breaks the fourth wall not only draws your attention to them, but it appears that he is opposing or talking to the viewer instead of the protagonist. This is discomforting for the viewer as it blurs the line between the narrative of the video and reality.

All these elements combine to create an archetypal and effective horror-movie style narrative, as a music video - with synchronous editing aiding the atmosphere in particular.

The Prodigy - Take me to the Hospital

Textual Analysis               The Prodigy - Take Me To The Hospital

The music video for Take Me To The Hospital features several elements that could categorise it as a niche video, despite being a somewhat mainstream song.

The mise en scene is striking throughout the entire video, being extremely low lit and poorly colored - grey being extremely dominant. The video is also notably low quality and grainy, resulting in a gritty surrealism, immersing the viewer in the environment as the footage looks as old as the derelict hospital shown. At the same time, the actors are dressed in dark clothing - the band members are dressed in punk clothing and dance aggressively in many shots and all other characters are dressed in black overalls and wear a mask, which creates anonymity and removes identity from them - confusing and segregating the viewer as they have no protagonist-esque character to relate to in the video. Also contributing to this effect is the lighting - which is almost entirely low-key creating shadows presenting the actors as more intimidating.

Use of camera additionally adds to this - close ups of the band members are used in the opening of the song with close up shots of the environment of the abandoned hospital, which produces a sense of claustrophobia due to the frame constantly being filled and the intimacy of the shots - which are rarely long or mid shots, mostly close ups, which also emphasises unneccessary detail in the characters' actions empowering them further. Camera movement is often kinetic - shots are either tracking or handheld which enhances the energetic pace of the song and compliments the aggressive dancing of the actors, keeping the viewer on edge as they must keep up with the pace of editing and the video.

The editing in the video enhances the surrealism and creates a dislocation of time and space, with jump cuts replaying previous parts of the video, and cuts often between two of the same shot / camera angle but with actors moved or removed, mostly synchronously with the song. Additionally, the use of lip-syncing adds to the surreality as despite one person singing in the song, every band member lip-syncs to it in the video - going hand-in-hand with the song as some words are distorted. Stop-motion animation is also used synchronously at several points in the song resulting in seemingly impossible movement by the band members as they dance, all of which enhances the surreality of the video by disrupting continuity and creating a dislocation of time and space.

These textual elements all create a very surreal and dark atmosphere, which discomforts the viewer - they are essentially alone in this environment as all the characters are presented as aggressive and hostile, and there is no protagonist character in the video for them to connect with - so they are left to this surreality in an uncomfortable manner.

Crystal Castles- Untrust Us

Crystal Castles – Untrust Us

The editing used for this music video is very skilful and creative. Each shot is synchronously repeated a couple of times over and over again and sometimes the shots are mixed up.

The shots are all edited to the beat as at the start, the cuts are on the slow beat and it only cuts back to the same shot but from the beginning. We see a boy next to a window and it keeps repeating the same 2 second clip that is shown. This is conventional of techno music as editing to the beat allows the viewer to notice the music more and not focus too much on the music video.  However, this synchronous editing is paired with a disjointed editing as the shots are looped and cut together and all-in-all create a sense of discord and a broken-up narrative.

As the music video progresses, the shots are then cut to the fast beat and are paired with another shot. The first time we see this is when there is a close-up of a boy looking down which fast cuts to two teenagers in an urban setting looking down. This could be contrasting two things; the fact that the boy in the first shot is on his own and the fact that in the other shot there are two people together and also the boy is on his own in the woods whereas the two teenagers are in an urban location. This video appears to be set in an urban location which is another convention of techno/dance music as it is relating to the urban scene and hitting its target audience of teenagers.

 The shots also are framed in a suggestive way as the subject is always off centre or the camera is zoomed into an eye or the feet. This gives a mysterious twist to the shots which is a convention of techno music. The variety of shots is more pleasing for the audience and also allows the editing to the beat to be more successful.

There appears to be no narrative in this music video as the shots are all for completely different things and are mixed-up together. 

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.