Emily Grimshaw

A2 Media Studies: Advanced Portfolio

Tom Odell is a British singer-songwriter who in 2012 made a music video for his single Another Love which follows an Enigmatic narrative structure, depicting the break-up of his relationship. Tom is oblivious to what is happening around him in the video and uses direct address throughout whilst looking at the camera; this makes it a performance music video. The other character in the video is Tom’s girlfriend who is represented as caring and loving

and neglected in their relationship. She is a conventional character in music videos because girls are often portrayed as being infatuated with the singer, she is good looking and her style and revealing clothing are stereotypical in music videos. The portrayal of his character isn’t stereotypical as Tom is represented as

the ‘bad’ character due to his lack of interest in the relationship. This is obvious when his girlfriend is trying to hug and kiss him and he is ignoring her, as the narrative progresses his girlfriend becomes more annoyed and finally leaves him because she is still constantly ignored.

The narrative is structured in time order and shows how the couple’s relationship progresses over a year. The video uses just one shot of the singer in an arm chair, his girlfriend is extremely affectionate at the beginning of the video but when she is ignored she becomes to get increasingly annoyed and when Tom doesn’t seem fazed at all by this she begins to throw objects around in the flat and finally leaves him. The video begins and ends with the same close up shot of Tom’s face; this indicates to the audience that the events with his relationship in the video have had an impact on him. It is apparent that Todorovs narrative theory has been inspirational in the video because it follows a similar narrative structure. Equilibrium is seen in the beginning of the video because we originally believe that the couple are happy together due how loving the girlfriend is towards the singer and as the narrative develops we see that she is being neglected in the relationship and this is where disruption to the equilibrium is seen. However the video differs to Todorovs structure as the disruption never gets resolved. Levi’s Strauss theory of Binary Oppositions can be seen clearly in the video as both characters are made to appear as juxtaposition. Toms character is motionless and barely interacting with anything that’s happening in the video whereas his girlfriend is desperately trying to get his attention.

Emily Grimshaw

In terms of mise-en-scene the video is set in a flat, the video shows the same setting throughout the video. We can see a large arm chair that the singer is sat in; there is also a large fireplace behind with a table and a mirror on either side. The mirror is cleverly used in the video because as the camera pans

out we can see the reflection of the girlfriend on the other side of the room, this makes the video more interesting for the audience. The setting also changes slightly throughout the video, as the movement of time shows props fade in and out.

Iconography can be seen with the flowers that are used as a prop on a table beside the singer. This instantly gives connotations of love however the flowers gradually die throughout the video which suggests the relationship is going bad over time, this use of flowers is extremely conventional in pop videos. Other props such as suitcase, bookshelves and books are seen fading in and out of the flat, this suggests that the girlfriend has moved in and therefore the relationship is getting more serious, this also reinforces the idea that the video is showing the couple living together over a long period of time.

The costume used in the video is mainly dark; a lot of the palette used for decoration in the flat is also in dark tones however the lighting used is high key, this gives a cold feeling to the video which reflects through the couples disintegrating relationship. Low key lighting is used at the beginning and end of the video on a close up of Toms face. The colour of the lighting changes slightly to suggest the difference in seasons, for example the lighting changes to a dull yellow which gives the impression of winter, as the lighting changes so does some of the set and props in alignment to his girlfriends moods. In terms of camera shots, a tracking shot is used throughout and slowly pans in and out of a close up of the singers face to then a long shot to make the change of setting is visible. The close up on Toms face fits the theme of the song as the lyrics are quite emotional and this camera shot allows the viewer to see the emotions on his face therefore making the video feel more personal.