The music video has a very clear narrative which is good because one of the three elements of a music video is narrative (others being concept and theory). The narrative of this music video is that a student and her teacher Mr Arnot are having a secret relationship. The teacher is married but is clearly having problems in his marriage. His wife then finds out that he is having an affair with a student and she leaves him. This narrative supports Todorovs narrative theory. The first 3 stages are in this music video. At the beginning of the music video there is Equilibrium where there is a teacher teaching his class, then there is a disruption because he forms a relationship with a student which is not allowed and is particularly bad because he is married and then there is a realisation of the disruption when a picture of the teacher and student together gets posted to Mrs Arnot the wife of the teacher and she knows he is having an affair.
At the beginning of the music video the actor who plays Mr Arnot looks older than the girl who plays the student and the storyline is quite believable but half way through the music video this storyline becomes less believable because the student and Mr Arnot look the same age and it then does not look like there is a problem because of the age anymore, the only problem is that he is cheating. This is not good because it makes the student/ teacher storyline become unbelievable. When I make my music video I will need to ensure the actors who I use in it will be of the age that the characters they play are in order to make the narrative appear realistic.
The wife has a wedding ring in her hand near the end of the music video to show that she has taken it off her finger and that she is leaving her cheating husband. This is good because it connotes that she is leaving him without even taking her ring off to show that she is leaving him. However, When Mr Arnot goes home to find his wife not there we see him holding her wedding ring and realising he has made a mistake but he does not have a wedding ring on himself. This is not good because he could be holding just any ring of hers and not a wedding ring because he does not have one which leaves the audience wondering whether they were actually married or not even though they both have the last name Arnot.
When the girl smells her clothes when she's laying in bed it has connotations of her missing Mr Arnot and missing his smell. Connotations are also used in this music video when there are flames. The flames shows that things are 'going up in flames' and not going well, everything is falling apart. There are also littoral visuals to lyrics. This is when white roses are being burnt over a fire and going black. This shows Todorovs theory too because the white roses start off happy and healthy as does the narrative in this music video and then they are held over the fire and are gradually getting more burnt and starting to die and get worse as the storyline does because it is obvious that the marriage between the teacher and his wife are falling apart and eventually come to an end like death. The shots of the roses burning are really effective and if I were top do a video I would use something that is effective as these shots in my music video.
During the music video there are some high shots over a park with one umbrella on it. I think this this is quite irrelevant to the narrative and a different shot could have been used as there is no link to an umbrella and the lyrics or narrative. Although this shot does not have much relevance to the music video the shots and use of camera are generally very good in the music video. The lighting captured by the camera is good as it is clear what is happening in every shot and it is not pixelated at all. The framing is also good. Very occasionally it appeared that there were hand held shots because the camera shakes a little for example when the camera is in a bedroom ( at 2m 5s - 2m 13s) the camera shakes.
The lip synching is good for most of the music video, especially near the end when the lyrics 'I'm not under your spell' get repeated multiple times however at the beginning even though it does look like this actress could be singing this song, she does not open her mouth very wide which sometimes makes it difficult to see the words she is lip synching. At the very end of the music video there is a 12 second stop with no music being played and just a black screen and then the artist sings the chorus and does a live performance. Although it is good to incorporate live performance into the music video because this is a music video element, the 12 second gap makes the viewer think that the music video is already finished and may turn it off before they listen to this part. If the music video wanted to have a live performance side to it I think it should be played without a 12 second break.
It is good that I did a student music video analysis because it will help me when making my own student music video. From this video I can use aspects such as making the visuals and lyrics go together and I especially like how in the music video they made black roses as the title is called. I will also make sure I have a clear narrative like this music video does. However I will ensure that my actors are the age that they are supposed to be playing as at points this music video became unrealistic. I will also ensure that my actor opens their mouth more so it is clear what words they are lip synching. I will incorporate the use of a theory such as Goodwin or Todorov as I think this works well within this music video and I will also use elements such as live performance although I will not add it in so late at the end of the music video.
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