Craig Davis’ Approach toAnalyzing Music Videos:

Pink Floyd – Brain Damage

1. Narrative categories:

Illustration – Our video is a mixture of bothnarrative and performance. The narrative side links with the performance,Caitlin and Matt are wandering around an abandoned mill, this is the narrativeside, and Matt is also in the band which is performing the song. Matt thentakes ill because of what is happening in the narrative scenes and this ismirrored in the performance side. Matt walks out of the performance and isfound back in the warehouse with Caitlin showing her control of him.

Amplification – Our music video shows a direct link to the songstraight away, showing Caitlin dressed as a lunatic, and the lyrics of the song“The lunatic is on the grass.” The cuts of our video do go well with the beatof the poem, but it is definitely the link between scenes and the lyrics whichshow a direct parallel between both. There is also lip syncing and instrumentsbeing played to show the beat of the song and the link between the music andvideo.

Disjuncture – There are a few abstract aspects to our video, suchas Matt taking ill, and the reasons why Caitlin is inside his head, but all inall our music video shows a direct link.

2. Performance Video:

1. Conventions of the band performance: There are close ups of each member of the band to reveal each person’s true nature. There are also several cases of lip syncing to show authenticity and the way the drums are played shows a conventional style to our video. This is also seen though the strumming of the guitar to the beat of the poem, but there could have been a lot more of this to make the video more conventional.

2. Conventions of solo artist performance: The main solo character in our music video is Caitlin who is represented as a female protagonist. She haunts Matt throughout the video with her nightmarish actions and horrific make up. There are a few close ups of her facial expressions, such as the one before the second chorus where she smiles scarily at Matt. There could have been more of these though, shots with her eyes rolling to show her craziness would have worked well, but we did not do this.

3. Star Image – There is little case of star image in our music video. This may be because it is a song from the 1970s where as star image artists such as Madonna and Michael Jackson are found in 1990s music industry. Our music video is eerie and mainly narrative and performance based, with a proper story as opposed to a narrative style performance where selling points can be found.

3. Audio-VisualTechnical Codes Needed for Analyzing a Music Video:

Speed isthe Essence:

Camera Shots: We used a shaky handheld cameraa lot of the time to create an unstable effect and represent the characters anduncomfortable and desperate. Along with this we used the rig which allowed usto get unusual camera angles and shots we would not otherwise have been able toachieve.

Camera Movement: We mainly used the rig for ourperformance shots as this allowed shots we would not otherwise have been ableto record. In the warehouse used the tripod mostly as this gave us a fixedimage to work with, however, on occasions we used the camera as handheld toconnote the instability of the characters and to also get some unique anglesand shots. Nevertheless, too much of this type of camera movement can result inthe piece looking sloppy so we had to be careful.

Editing: Our editing was not too fast andthis was mainly down to the beat of the song. The Pink Floyd song was fairlydreamy and eerie and so it was hard for us to make fast cuts. We slowed a lotof shots down to fit them with the beat of the poem so watching the video oncewould allow the viewer to gain the general idea behind the video. We did fade alot of shots as we felt this was the best way to move from one scene to anotherrather than jump cutting, this was again down the dreamy tune behind the song.

Post-production digital effects: Slow motion was a big factor in fitting our shots to thestyle and beat of the song. We also used the program “Motion” to add a uniquespotlight effect to most of performance shots, making them more interesting andcentering the important characters in the music video. We added filters onFinal Cut Pro which made the shots in the warehouse and in the park moredrained and dull connoting desperation and depression. This showed how abstractCaitlin was as a character and showed her evil side.

Lighting: The only lighting we used wasthe lighting we used in Motion. This lighting was the strobe lighting effectwhich allowed us to create a shadow around each performance shot, making Mattthe important character in the shot, and the light would always be closest tohim. This fitted well with the lyrics “Dark Side of the Moon” and also kept theeerie theme of the music video consistent throughout the project.

Mis-en-scene: The only real case ofMis-en-scene in our video was the makeup we used for Caitlin to make her looklike a lunatic. Basic make-up such as eyeliner and lipstick smeared all overher face gave a good effect, making her look scary and presenting her as thefemale protagonist. The way she lulled around, groaning and pulling strangefacial expressions shows her as a lunatic, and connotes the fact she is tryingto possess Matt, control him and get inside of his head. She also messed withher hair, made it look as if it had never been touched, just to add that extraeffect; she looked like a ghoul, or something out of the film “The Grudge”.

Billy Greenall.