Case Study- Analyse a music video in relation to the concept of genre

By Jacob Harrey

Frank Carter & The Rattlesnakes: Trouble

Info on the artist: Frank Carter is a musician known for his angst attitude in the famous UK punk band ‘Gallows’, being known to start fights on stage with fans just because he could. Frank left Gallows in 2011, and changed his persona into something far more tame with his freshly formed band ‘Pure Love’. In 2014, Pure Love announced that they were going on a Hiatus, and Carter disappeared from the music scene entirely. That was until he released the EP titled Blossom out of the blue, with the band name ‘Frank Carter & The Rattlesnakes’. This EP was possibly one of the greatest punk comebacks in history, Carter sounding angrier than ever, but also maintaining his humour and wit that he gained from Pure Love during their first live show as a band (performed in Sang Bleu, the tattoo studio where Frank works in London). ‘Rotten Blossom', was later released independently by Carter in August 2015. The music video I will be analysing was created for the track ‘Trouble’, one of the songs from the debut album.

Main Events in the Music Video1. Firstly, we see Carter running through a field, possibly fleeing from

something or someone2. The audience is then shown that he has been captured by four men, and has

been placed in a car against his will3. The track begins and Carter is singing as he is tied up to a chair, with signs of

assault due to bruises and blood on his face4. It then cuts back to the car scene, showing that he managed to escape and

flee from the men5. A shot back to the chair scene reveals that the men were in fact torturing

him with blunt objects and lit cigarettes6. This back and forth editing is used for most of the video, up until the end

when one of the masked men pours petrol around Carter7. The man flicks a match towards Frank, and the screen goes black, hinting

that Carter was set on fire

Mise En Scene in the Music VideoThe video for this track was directed by Niall Coffey, who started his directing debut with company Kode Media in late 2014, creating a video for Post Hardcore band La Dispute. The Mise en scene created by Coffey in the video is very effective, the wide open fields in which Frank is running through compared to the claustrophobic car scenes create a perfect opposition for one another. This gives the audience the feeling that there is no escape for Frank, no matter how much he tries to escape. I feel that Coffey expands on this idea for the chair scene, as he has both the enclosed space due to the chair, yet also the open landscape from the large environment in which the torture scene is set.

The black sweatshirt and trousers worn by Carter in this video creates an overall dark tone to his character, and links well with death as black clothes are commonly worn at funerals to show respects to someone that has passed. This could potentially foreshadow his death at the end of the video. The handcuffs half worn by Carter shows that the four antagonists knew he would resist, and this makes him seem somewhat ferocious. The antagonists all wear black balaclavas, which is a stereotypical piece of clothing for criminals as it keeps their identities hidden. This mystery works brilliantly for Thrillers. As well as the balaclavas, the men also sport leather jackets, that occasionally come across as being the sleazy mans clothing. It is very obvious from the clothing that was chosen for these four characters, that they are meant to be portrayed as being the villains in the video.

References to Genre TheoryI felt that Coffey goes against Susan Haywards theory that states that genre conventions change according to the climate of time. I believe this because in typical Thrillers, males usually play both the protagonist and the antagonist, and this is the case for this video, The main character being a male, as well as the four antagonists. Many people such as Katie Wales and John Hartley believe that genre is an intertextual concept. This can be shown in the music video for Trouble, the slow motion effects, tilted camera angles and sporadic jump cuts demonstrate clearly the genre Niall Coffey was going for, due to similar techniques being used in such films as ‘The Third Man’ and ‘Snatch’.

Themes Created in the Music VideoIt is very blatant from this video that it takes heavy influences from the Thriller genre, the torture and the fleeing from masked mysteries being a common theme in such films as ‘Reservoir Dog’s’ and ‘Hard Candy’. But why did Carter want to shoot a music video in which he, the main protagonist, is shown to be killed by these four villains? I feel like he decided to break typical conventions of modern day Thrillers in which the protagonist is ultimately unscathed by the end of the film, and has gone back to the roots of the classic genre that show the main hero having an unexpected demise.