Music Video Textual Analysis

Lyrics (Chorus)

If we don't kill ourselveswe’ll be the leaders of a messed up generationIf we don't kid ourselvesWill they believe us if we tell them the reasons whydid we take it too far?Take it too farDid we chase the rabbit into wonderlandLose a hundred grandWill they understandIt was all to stay awake for the longest.

Track

The music video that I decided to do was Example- Stay Awake. The genre of the music is a mixture between Electra, Dubstep and House. The target audience for this music video is for teenagers and young adults aged 15-21. The song is about people questioning life and themselves and the new generation. It is also about people staying awake all night because of music and what it does to you. The style of music that is used is dubbed dialogue which is post recording the track in the studio and then making the actors/actresses mime the words on screen in the music video. Diegetic sound is also used and the sound can either be on screen or off screen depending on whatever its source is within the frame or outside the frame.

Video Narrative

The narrative structure of this music video is non-linear with lots of different things and scenes happening at once, so it doesn’t go with one straight and simple narrative. There is also more performance than narrative and concept. There isn’t really a theme to this video. It is mainly about teenagers/young adults having fun in different locations. There are 3 locations which are: a rave, a secret garden party/festival setting and people having a paint party where they throw paint all over each other. There are also a few other scenes of the artist singing and some people dancing in the centre of London. There is some ideology and that is the youth of today having fun whilst it lasts. The only use of representation is with the use of exhibitionism with females and that there is a lot of skin shown but in a classy way that represents the music video and the song so they get away with it.

Codes

There are a lot of close ups of the artist to show that he is the main person in this music video and that he is more superior than the others. There is a mixture of long shots and wide shots of people in the diverse settings. This happens for about 30-50 seconds, intercutting with the artist ‘singing’ the song. This gives the audience a sense of surrealism and it makes them think that they are involved in all these beautiful locations. There isn’t any use of a handheld camera although some of the shots used are a bit jolty but that is perceived as part of the music video and also because the music has Dubstep in it, when the bass is low and the music speeds up, the camera moves with the music giving it that bumpy effect.

Mise-en-scene

The music video is set in a number of different locations. There is a lot of juxtaposition in the very first two shots. There are shots of tops of buildings and there is a matched movement cut to a shot of tree tops. The connection between the lyrics and the video is different because the shots keep going back from a natural setting to the man made. There are lots of different shot reverse shot between Example in the studio and all the different locations. Most of the items used could be classed as superstition such as the cups on a piece of string. There is a shot of a man 1.05 looking into the camera which means that he’s engaging the audience in an exotic manner which could mean that he’s separating himself from society. At the beginning we see Example walking into a studio with a massive cardboard cut-out of the letter E which shows that he’s the artist and he’s the performer in this music video. There aren’t many cultural codes in this music video because it is purely just a video about having fun and how that can affect how people perceive the new generation.

Audience Readings

The preferred reading of this video was for the audience to understand the message that it’s okay for teenagers to have fun once in a while and that they can let their hair down. Overall I think this video is excellent. It has both narrative and performance and portrays a message that seems to be forgotten in this day and age. The image that this video portrays is that not everyone likes having a good time and that they are too involved in what could be perceived as brainwashing.