Sia chandelier

Advanced Portfolio Homework task. Submission Friday October 3rd

Task 1: Choose 1 music video

State Title/Artist/Genre/Style

Use the following boxes detailing Lacey’s Repertoire of Elements, to analyse the text:

Task 2: Now write up your analysis, using screen grabs from the video to illustrate your points. (800-

1200 words)

Task 3. Create your Advanced Portfolio Blog in blogger and email me your URL. Call the blog Your

Name: Advanced Portfolio

Genre elements Conventions Characters – representations, stereotypes, behaviour, body language, specific actors/stars

Narrative events –how is the narrative ordered and structured?

Iconography – props, symbolic codes

Setting- mise en scene

Technical and audio codes – camera use, editing, lighting, diegetic/non diegetic sound, sfx


Nina Collins

Music video- Sia Chandelier

In the music video ‘Chandelier’ there is only one character, a young

girl with a short blonde wig on and a nude coloured leotard. The

stereotype of a young girl usually is associated with the horror genre

or a very strange character in a film, this music video has the same

representation as she is acting very strange and gives the music video

an edge. The girl is clearly a dancer, shot in a

grungy, largely empty run-down apartment with

strange drawings. The girl is meant to be a young

Sia who is the singer of this song. As the song

and the lyrics about wanting to hang from the

chandelier and not being able to wait until the night, the young girl dances

throughout the apartment in a manic modern way that are both

extraordinary and disturbing. She stops to pretend to eat in a way that is

pantomime like, with a dead-eyed stare, and then continues her dance

movements throughout the apartment.

The whole narrative of the video is about addiction. It is showing the girl dancing as if she has

mental issues and from start to finish this doesn’t change. The end shot is the girl waving and

then she curtseys 3 times which is saying ‘enter the addiction if you dare’.

There is no start middle and end to this video as it is the same situation

throughout as she is on drugs or alcohol. Due to the girl being so young it

makes the video all the more controversial.

The photographs that are dotted about the abandoned apartment are a

representation of the video, there is

one image that is hand drawn by a

really young child and the others are

strange images of people, the

apartment itself is like the addict, it is

abandoned, strange, cluttered and

disorganised. Everything in the apartment is quite plane

which shows that the addict is quite small minded however

the strange images show the interesting thing in their lives

which is alcohol.

The video is filmed without edits; there are single shots that follow the girl into different rooms.

The dancing is remarkable but so is the sensation

the girl gives of just barely being in control as her

feelings begin to overwhelm her to where she is,

literally, at times crawling up the walls. It’s

haunting and eerie and compelling. Due to the

continuity editing and mainly long shots it proves

that the addicts mind is a one way system and

when they have the alcohol there is no stopping.


There is quite low key lighting which makes the video all the more eerie and strange. There is no

diegetic sound it is just the non-diegetic music. The character in the video doesn’t mime once,

this makes it very obvious that no diegetic sound was intended.

In conclusion the video is very strange and eerie. It is about an alcohol addict who is expressing

their feelings, this is shown through the props which is the apartment itself and the photos in the

apartment, also by the camera techniques, there is very little cuts and a lot of long shots. The

video has no diegetic sound which proves that the girl is nothing to do to with the singer or the

reasoning behind the video.

Software

Sia chandelier