Wednesday 5 May 2010

Elliot Minor-Parrallel Worlds analysis



The video is set in what is supposed to be an ancient house, however you only see one room; the dining room. The video starts with a showing of an old, wooden, double door, and then the camera zooms into the room as the doors open simultaneously. The doors have been timed to open so that when the room is revealed the music starts. The scene then turns to a bunch of people, supposedly looking of high class, sitting around a large, medieval table. As the camera pans the room to set the scene, the music tone changes again, the band is revealed standing on the table. The people sitting around the table are unaware of the band as the band is supposed to be in a ‘parallel world’; hence the title. The first sign to the people at the table that something is not right are the lights flickering, which is timed with the lines ‘someone’s there’ and is cleverly followed by the lines, ‘stop messing with my mind’. Every so often, from the first appearance of the band, a skeletal image of the band is shown, almost like an x-ray, that has been edited on top of the band member that is playing at that moment. This helps with ‘supernatural’ image that is trying to be set. The next sign that is shown is the fire blowing out; paired with the lights still flickering the people at the table start to get very weary. The band then start moving around the room, rather than just seeing them performing the whole way through, pulling out the books from the shelves and kicking over wine glasses, sending the people into even more panic and confusion, as the guests cannot see them but know something paranormal is happening, as what else can explain random flying objects. As the video gets further into the song and the beat is picking up, the table starts to shake sending plates and food flying everywhere, causing even more panic to the diners. The diners eventually start to run out of the room one by one. At the end when the guitar solos come in and the music hits a peak, the whole room shakes and the lights explode completely.Throughout the video there are a lot of quick edits jumping from long shots to close-ups to medium shots etc. The reason for the fast edits is so that it goes with the beat of the song as it is a fast tempo song. The close-ups in the video are usually done on the band members as they play, especially the lead singer, and sometimes the camera zooms in and does a close-up on the instrument, most normally the guitars. They are also used when showing the paranormal events, for example, the camera does a close up on the lights when they start to flicker. Long shots are used to fit in the whole room. This shows the whole band playing on the table and then cuts to normally a two shot or a close up of the dinner guest’s expressions as the events unravel. The video finishes with a long shot to show the whole room, as the band finish playing and the lights explode; no guests are present as they have all fled the room. The mise-en-scene is the same throughout the video as there are no scene changes. As the room is supposed to look medieval like, candles are present on the table, chandeliers are hanging off the ceiling and on the walls, and silver cutlery is used including gravy bowls and platters that present a very large variation of food! The diner guests are either in smart suits for the males or evening gowns for the females. Completely oppositely, the whole band is dressed very casually, from leather jackets to simple t-shirts all paired with black jeans.




The cover to the album that holds ‘Parallel Worlds’ has a very miss-matched theme. As the name of the album is self titled, the only writing on it is ‘ELLIOT MINOR’ wrote in bold capital letters and in white to stand out from the dark background. The cover looks almost 3-D like as the ground of the image is done in white and black checks, thinning the further back the image goes. On the checks is what seems to be a golden organ that fits in with the theme medieval from the ‘Parallel Worlds’ video. The background of the cover is a picture of the night sky with a full moon, which also adds to the effect of spooky, surrounded by tall trees with no leaves on. Next to the organ a single old fashioned lamp post is lit up, mixing in with, again, the old style theme of the video. Also, in the very far background, you can just make a lighthouse with the light on and what looks like an old wooden ship sailing towards it.

The comparison to this poster and the video is quite evident, however, instead of the diner guests wearing suits and looking smart, know the band is. The background picture is an animated style but the big window that can be seen in the background makes it look like it is a drawing of an old building which ties in with the video. The name again is in capital letters, possibly a trade mark, and the song title is in the type of writing that could be seen more in past times; Old English. Even though the band is in suits, they still have their rock image, with the ‘punk’ hair and instruments in hand.



I think this video is mainly aimed at young adults; 16+. I think this as the majority of rock listeners are teenagers/ young adults. With the story behind the song being living in a parallel world I think it is possible for both males and females could listen to this song as both genders can feel like they are living in another world. However, as the band is all male I think that maybe, slightly more than half of the fans would be male.


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