Helena Beat - Video Analysis

Genre Characteristics: The artists (Foster the People) who wrote the song in my opinion are an indie pop band. Their music is slightly different to what you would usually hear along ,especially, with his voice, which is much more high pitched than other bands of the same type of genre. This is highlighted in the oddness and seeming randomness of the video. The video seems to be about nothing in particular with adults been captured and then turned into children, by children. The song's tempo is similar to that of which you would expect from the indie pop genre and is much more different than, you coud say, The Beastie Boys video tempo.

Relationship between visulas and lyrics: People have taken many different views as to what the song means with ideas such as it being about the time when you come back from a party and think 'now what?'. Really in my opinion I beleive the song is about how hard life is and how you have to get back up from it. This matches up to the visuals of the video as it shows the lead singer 'Mark Foster' recovering from what seems like a post-apocalyptic world, so obviosuly the connotation of him getting up after 'being knocked down' are there.

Relationship between music and visuals: At the very beginning of the video  many images and clips of violence and war are shown at a fast pace, these are in time with the drum beats that start of the song. Also throughout the song the shots change in time with roughly every other beat in the song. Obviously it's a link that the lead singer of the band is the main character in this video and he is singing along to the lyrics for a portion of this song. At one point when the song skips from the verse to the chorus there is a build up in the volume of the song which then erutps into a louder sound but is accompanied visually with the sight of a piano crashing down and smashing into the ground. When the drum kit is being beaten by the children with baseball bats one opf the kids is hitting the bass drum perfectly in time with the song. The bridge part of the song is where everything slows down, and then it goes back to normal when returning to the chorus. During this chorus the childen are also singing along to the song.

Star Power: The star power in this song is just that the artists themselves are in the song, the band themselves don't have anything too definitive about them compared to Bono and his glasses for instance, or Michael Jackson and the moonwalk so there isn't too much 'star power' especially as music goes Foster the People are a fairly new band, which although have their own style they don't have a definitive thing which is 'theirs'.

Notions Of Looking: In the video apart from a few shots which I will explain, there is very little of the notion of looking, the shots which are like this take place earlier on in the song before Mark Foster is captured, and they are showing us being the children that capture him, looking through the desert grass spying on him, apart from this there is very little for the notion of looking, but there is also a scene in the dark in which Mark Foster is being dragged back and beaten by the kids in the dark and the footage was taken with non-steadycam footage so it looks like you're actually part of the group of kids that are abusing him.

Intertextual References: There are several references to other forms of media such as, the Fallout series and Mad Max are respectively games and movie both set in a post apocalyptic world which is obviosuly set in this world, Lord of the Flies is based around children being in charge of themselves and the madness which stretches from this, and obviosuly a large part of this is the children in the video being charge and later the adults being turned into children. Escape from New York also follows the post-apocalyptic theme.

    
   

Album Artwork

For my Band's Artwork I will be using all of the pictures I have taken from our trip to new york and incorporate them all into the front cover and will use the lights in the pictures to create the words for the album name etc. I'm using my New York photos because the whole song is set in America so there obviousy a link, but also it's a good opportunity to simply capitalise on the trip and create something that I wouldn;t ordinairily be able to do because I have to have actually taken the picture.

How are social groups represented in the film Quadrophenia?

There are two main social groups or 'sub-cultures' in this film which are Mods and Rockers. Both of which have their own styles when it comes to clothing, and music symbols and language. For instance being a rocker is very mucg about being tough, having the fastest bike and wearing rougher looking clothing, whereas being a Mod is much more about wearing the smartest clothes, and looking very much neat and tidy.

Music is the thing that most widely splits the two groups. For instance Mods listen to bands which are more 'poppish' or indie (for their time) such as The Kinks, This is different to Rockers who just listen to music which is much more heavy and fast paced such as The Who (Obviosuly) and Led Zeppelin. A lot of the language used is specific to their own culture which authority figures could have taken as being insubordinate. even transport is a large part of the culture. For instance Mods have mopeds which they have modified to have as many mirrors on as possible and to basically look as good as possible, this is the opposite to Rockers who have simply tweaked their bikes to be as fast as possible for use in Cafe Races. In general terms Mods are all about the looks and how they appear to others whereas Rockers care much less about looks apart fom when it comes to the standard leather jacket and boots.

And as a whole both of the social groups are shown as violent mainly due to the beach riots which occurred throughout Brighton. and if we were to sum up both of the cultures in one word it would be rebellious.

Submarine and music.

- What sort of feeling and impact can music video have and what effect could a music video-style sequence achieve in a film?
A music video has the capacity to completely change someones mood by use of music alongside the use of video. For instsance it can tell a story whoch could be happy sad funny etc. An example of a happy music video (Just becuase it's a happy song doesn't mean I'm a fan...) would be The Lazy Song by Bruno Mars.

 

And a sad video for instance could be Dry Your Eyes by The Streets.

So a film with a scene that is similar to the ideas of a music video has the the capactiy to change the feel and mood of the movie. so they are a powerful tool when dealing with the emotions of it.

- Can you think of any other films which feature extended montage sequences that are quite like music videos?

There are hundreds of films with these sorts of montages most of which are ones which show you the star of the film getting ready for the 'final showdown' with something or someone, here is a particularly well known one:

But montages don't always have to be there to get you 'pumped up' and excited for the final part of the movie but a lot of them in fact have a more calming effect and can be much sadder, for instance in Funny People, George Simmons (Adam Sandler) is fighting an illness and his emotions are being brought through by the song and whats featured in it, sadly no clip was available on YouTube.

-Ayoade's 'Vlad the Impaler', to what extent is it cinematic?

This video is cinematic as it contains images that you could and would find in an actual film, for instance the blood and 'gore' seen at several different point is much heavier than one would expect for a muci video and perhaps the most I've seen in any music video. when it comes to a story it's limited to what we see from the beginning which is Vlad creating his weapon and from then on it's the same style of footage which is him chasing people and being stabbed, and lastly him surrounded by nuns with flaming torches which we can guess he escapes from as he is running around doing his usual afterwards. Although there is more of a sense of story as Vlad the Impaler was a real person who was the individual which Bram Stoker based his Dracual character on.

-Now watch the trailer for Submarine. Do you see any similarities in terms of visual style? Can you identify any stylistic or thematic motifs across these texts?

In terms of style one of the most noticeable things about the video was it's use of many different camera qualities ands styles between shots for instace switich from a normal moderrn day camera to a 'Super 8' grainy footage camera. Although this is just in the trialer in the film if it switches it doesn so for a whole scene not just every few seconds. Another main point is that most of the trailer is shown through a typewriter, for instance all of the credits are being 'typed' and every time there is a major shot change its the top slide being pushed back to create a new line. Also it's use of colors is shown as similar to Vlad the Implaer which mainly focuses of reds, whereas the colous of red, blue and black are highlighted in the trialer with such items as Jordana's coat and the blue of the shot where oliver jumps into the swimming pool.

Intertextual References

Throughout the lyrics of the song we are trying to put froward the idea that our characters life is spinning out of control. This is highlighted through our video and the abstractness of what's going on. Yet through this there is still the idea and story that comes through of this boys life. At first he is just fine with friends but later on he starts to spill out of control. We researched into other videos and found that Foster the People's video especially represented what we are trying to create as a whole, for instance the random video clips that themselves seem to create a story of what the group does/goes through every single day.  

Editing Processes

When it comes to editing the music video there are several different types of media we are using e.g. the obvious music, along with pictures and video, compared to just the usual video format. One of the main differences is the sheer amount of cuts that have to edited to the correct size, this would usually be the same as video but since we have to use pictures to match to the beats of the song this means a huge amount of detail.

Here you can see the amount of shots, pictures and video we have to use. This equals a huge amount of layers, which often leads to trouble rendering as it takes longer but luckily I can use this time to work on my blog. An important thing to remember is that this screen capture shot represents about 1:30 of the song and it the result of about 9 weeks work. Yay...




Also having to get used to the way s in which you have to control the direction of the video and speed for instance we have a scene where flour is pushed out of the way to create the lyrics to the song.This is an effect used to try and push the point nd lyrics of the song across in as many ways as possible, Steady progess is being made...

Editing Progress

So far the editing is going well and all of the pictures are falling into place, but  have found that struggling with Final Cut Express isn't worth the effort of learning the ropes of now that I have finished the one piece of editing I needed it for (the shaking words on black background) so I have spent a great deal of time, which feels like a slight waste of time) exporting the video so it can be used with imovie which should speed up the editing process as a whole.