Lifehouse-Broken analysis

The video starts with lead singer Jason Wade in the driver’s seat of a car, with the other members of the band in the car with him. The traffic is at a stand still in a tunnel, as a swarm of people have abandoned their vehicles and are walking through a tunnel. Wade and the band members get out of the car, and begin walking in the opposite direction of the crowd to the other side of the tunnel. Wade pushes through the people, who are in a rush to get to the entrance of the tunnel, while Wade is constantly focused on his destination to get to the other end. When he reaches the tunnel's end, he sees the wreckage of a car crash with fire-fighters and paramedics cleaning up the mess. Wade then sees a girl observing what appears to be herself, dead inside one of the crashed car. He then looks to the left, and sees an old man observing himself, dead on the ground. As Wade looks into the car in front of him, he sees himself, also seemingly dead. Upon this, he frantically runs back into the tunnel towards his car. He sees himself in the car with the band members; however everyone seems to be frozen as he bangs on the windows. Suddenly he's inside the car again, and a police officer comes to the window to motion him to continue driving, since he is stopped in the middle of the tunnel for no apparent reason. The video then ends, giving the impression that Wade was having a premonition the whole time about a car crash he might cause.
The full video is narrative based showing no performance at all. However, in the story Wade is singing throughout it. This allows people to be focused on the story and the lyrics to find a link between them.

At the beginning of the video the camera simply cuts between each member of the band in the car and also to different people that are walking in the tunnel. Once he gets out of the car he looks down the tunnel; to show this the camera does a high angle shot to show the full length of the tunnel. Once he starts walking the camera pans along with the lead singer mostly, and also among the people doing a point of view shot, as if the camera was Wade. This is carried on for most of the video till he gets to the end of the tunnel. Once he reaches the end, there is an establishing shot to show the full scene; this consists of ambulances, fire engines and two cars that have obviously crashed into each other. When he looks at the people (ghosts) on either side of him, the camera zooms into an extreme close up of the each of their faces to show their emotions and then pans round to follow their eye view to see themselves inside the cars. It then pans back to Wade and does exactly the same as he looks into the car and sees himself. It then goes back to panning along the tunnel as he runs back to his car to warn himself. Once he gets to the car the camera stays still cutting from different angles until the car moves off out of the picture.

The single cover for this song doesn’t reflect in any way with the video, and in fact it is quite simple, however is still effective. It has the name of the band across the top, using the same font and style that is used on all their other products. It then has the band taking a central position on the cover, using a low angle shot, almost to make them look powerful. It then quite simply has the name of the song in the bottom corner. The reason this is effective is because it has nothing around the cover to take away the attention from the band, therefore peoples main focus should remain on the band, which I think is what they are trying to get because of the use of the low angle shot.

The poster again reflects in no way with either the video or the single cover. It also doesn’t match the song as the song is slow, almost rock ballad like, and this poster shows the band pulling stereotypical rock poses; jumping in the air with guitars in hand. On the other hand it does fit in with the genre of the band as they are an alternative/rock band therefore would be expected to be performing like this. One thing that is the same however is the band name; as mentioned above, the style and font carries on throughout all merchandise.

I think that the target audience would be extremely more ranged as most of there songs, ‘Broken’ included, is a soft rock song which I believe would have a wide audience. Therefore, no age limit or gender can be predicted.

Go Audio-She Left Me analysis

At the start of the video, you see what looks like a break up between two teenagers, which is then confirmed when the song starts playing 7 seconds into the video. The girl is shown to be the better looking between the two, to make it more realistic that she’s the one that left him. The male is seen throughout the video doing two player activities by himself, such as, table tennis, frisbee, dancing etc. By the end of the video, he falls for another girl, someone who looks more of his type. The performance side of the video looks like it is being done in a bedroom. The meaning behind the lyrics is that he got dumped by his girlfriend but he doesn’t want to tell his friends that. The video fits in well with this as he wouldn’t want to tell his friends that his girlfriend left him for his ego! Assuming that his friends have never met this girl, as he seems to be shown alone a lot, it would make sense for him to find a new one so that his friends doesn’t think he has been dumped. This is exactly what the video has done!
The performance side of the video is being done in small space, possibly a garage or a bedroom. The performance could be a story in itself as it looks like they are an up and coming band. Typically, small time bands are always shown practicing in their garage. In this case they look like they’ve just wrote a song about something that has happened; which is his girlfriend leaving him. The structure of the video is divided into two parts; story and performance, as mentioned above. The video mostly shows the performance side with every so often cutting over to the story for 2-3 seconds and then back again. The edits in this video are simply cuts to and from each part of the video. However, there is a lot of different shots, ranging from close-ups, usually of the lead singer and sometimes at a certain instrument when that instrument is the most prominent sound in the song. Long shots are also used so that the whole band can be seen playing. Shots used to tell the story range from long shots, showing him playing activities by himself, to high angle shots, which portray the male as weak and powerless at that precise moment in time. As I mentioned earlier, the band looks like they may be playing in a bedroom, and as a typical teenagers bedroom would be messy, this is what they have done. The room is quite dark, looking like the walls are painted black, with sufficient lighting to see the band. This fits in the bands genre as they are a ‘pop/rock’ band, therefore slight emo features should be presented, hence the dark, black room. Posters are seen on the walls, also a teenage trait, with a lot of scrap paper on the floor, presumably being old song attempts.The album cover that features this song is quite simple. It has the name of band and album title along the top. The rest of the picture is covered in different instruments, each one a different colour, presumably the ones that are played in the band; guitar, drums, keyboard and microphone. This cover clearly shows the public what genre of band that they are, with the electric guitar and drums, a pop/rock band is shown.

The poster for this band is very simple. It has the lead singer standing at the front singing with the rest of the band playing their instruments behind him. The lead singer was obviously looking in to the camera when this was taken as he looking at you, which could be clever as it shows that he is trying to connect to people. Also, the band name is not written on anywhere on the poster, in stead the only way anyone who is unfamiliar with this band would know it’s them is by looking at the drums where it has Go:Audio written on it. This is another clever technique as it doesn’t make the poster look too structured or artificial. Instead it looks like they are just playing and a random photo was taken. Over all, I would say this is a good poster and selling point for the band as it is relaxed and when looked at deeply shows the true personality of the band as a whole as you can see they may be more interested in writing and playing the music than making money from it by the sheer simplicity of this poster.

I think this video is targeted at young adults around the age of 16+, possibly mainly males. I think this as the characters used in the video look like teenagers and the relationship story being told can be related to by teenagers also. I say that the video would mostly be targeted at males because the song is sung by males, but mostly because the song is about a male and his love life and possibly a male audience can relate to it better.

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.

Panic At The Disco-I Write Sins Not Tragedies analysis

Panic! At the Disco – I Write Sins Not Tragedies

The video for the song takes place at a strange, circus-themed wedding played by the ‘Lucent Dossier Vaudeville Cirque’. The first clip is of a wedding book, which leads us to assume that the video is about a wedding. The video then cuts between two different settings; the ring master, played by Brendon Urie and the bride and groom. It then shows you their families; her family dress and behave formally, whereas his family are lower-class entertainers and carnival folk, and end up interrupting the wedding. The ringmaster acts as narrator and disrupts the events by unravelling the affair that the bride has been having. After an argument between the two families, most probably because the disruption that has been caused, the bride runs out and is followed by one of her guests. The ringmaster leads the groom outside, where his fiancée is kissing the guest who followed her out of the church, however the bride does not seem to be very sorry for what she is doing, therefore leading the groom to become quite angry. The groom undoes his tie, looking shocked, and Urie and the groom bow to the camera. When the groom lifts his head up he has turned into the ring master, therefore we guess that the ringmaster during the video was the groom's alter ego.

The full video is based on narrative alone; even though the band are seen playing instruments and singing throughout, it is all part of the story.

At the start if the video, the camera pans from the wedding book to the vicar with the bride and groom, every so often getting interrupted by flashes of the ring master with his head down. The camera then zooms in first to the bride’s mouth and then the groom’s mouth to emphasise when they say ‘I love you’. The camera then carries on panning around the church to reveal the families; still being interrupted by flashes of the ring master. At the word ‘whore’, the camera cuts swiftly to the ring master as he lifts his head, revealing his identity. Straight after this the music picks up the beat and the ring master bursts into the church. At this moment, the camera cuts between different peoples reactions using a close up on their faces. There are then point of view shots, first from the brides and then the grooms, as the ring master gets up close, almost to whisper in their ears. When the grooms family interrupts the wedding, the camera pans around the room showing you different members of the family and what they are doing as they are all circus performers, e.g. contortionist, stilts etc. As events unravel at the end of the video, the camera simply cuts to and from different people, mostly the groom and ring master, to show the emotions on each persons face with close ups. This is specifically evident when the groom turns into the ring master, so that you can see the change that has been made. For the last few seconds of the song, the camera simply cuts from different circus acts using a flash to maybe portray a sense of photography, as each flash is signifying a photo being taken.

This is the single cover for ‘I Write Sins Not Tragedies’. Comparing it to the other covers that I have analysed this is very different as this album does not show any of the band. However, it does fit in with the story of the video, as the video shows circus performers; the cover has a fun, jokey look to it, with what looks like a funhouse windmill that you would find at an amusement park/ circus and a moon that has a face on it. The name of the band and the single is very, ordinarily, placed at the top. This cover also has an advisory logo in the bottom corner, which shows the genre of the band, as these logos are more commonly used with rock genre bands as they are more prone to explicit language; along with rap music.

The poster for this song relates more to the video than the actual single cover does. This is shown through the circus performers that are in the picture. However, there is still a strong link between this poster and the single cover; for example, only one member of the band is present and he is still not the main focus, like the cover where no band members are present. Also, the font and style of the band name is exactly the same in both the poster and the cover. This shows unity between all three aspects; poster, cover and video.

As the band is an all male band I would say that the majority of listeners would be male, however, as the video has a unisex cast and is about marriage, this could possibly draw in more female viewers/listeners. I would also say that the target age would be around late teens to mid twenties as well. I say this as again it is about marriage attracting an older target audience, but the genre and style of music, and the fact that the couple getting married are young, would attract older teenagers.

Lost Prophets- Rooftops analysis

The video starts off with showing a close-up of each band member individually standing on what appears to be a helicopter pad whilst the instrumental part of the song is playing, with their logo on a flag behind them. 24 seconds into the video, it changes from performance based to the storyline, which is about three very unhappy and fed up teenagers. The first teenager is a girl sitting at a dining table with her parents on either side of her. All are sitting in silence. As the song gets more of a beat (the drums start playing) both parents start to argue, which is made clear as not being an unusual event. The next teenager is a male sitting in the back seat of a car getting shouted at by his father. He is shown as fed up by him resting his head on the window and looking away from his father when he is shouting, almost to say to just shut up. The clip of the second teenager is short and swiftly moves onto the third teenager which is another male. He is shown to be working in a kitchen, clearly overloaded with work as he seems to be the only one working there. However, the abuse he is receiving is not from his parents but his boss, who I can only guess is shouting at him for being too slow. One thing that all three teenagers have in common is their emo look. They are all wearing black, with dark make-up and face piercings. This look fits in well with the ‘unhappy/fed up’ theme of the song and also fits in well with the genre of the song as black is a very common convention in rock videos.After the three clips are shown, the video goes back to the performance side whilst the chorus is being sung. When another instrumental part of the song is being played each individual scenario is played again for a few seconds at a time, each showing a build up; that they are about to do something to stop the shouting. After another performance section is done on the video, the lines ‘scream your heart out’ are sung three times. Each time the line is sung one of the scenarios is shown and the teenager starts to scream. This part of the song is the climax. The song is about how people just sit back and let abuse happen, however, the climax is saying that we should stand up and let ourselves be heard. This is what the teenagers do. In the first clip, the girl screams, and the parents stop shouting as her mother is shown covering her ears and every glass on the table is shattered. In the second clip, the male in the kitchen is shown screaming and the plates break and food flies everywhere, and in the third clip, the male in the back of the car starts to scream and the windows of the car break. The video finishes with a performance clip.A lot of zooms are used in this video, to emphasise the emotion that is on every characters face, whether it be anger, frustration or unhappiness. Close-ups are used at the beginning of the video to show each individual band member, and is also used at the point of the scream to show the emotion that is trying to be portrayed. An establishing shot is used for each scenario to obviously set the scene at the beginning of each little story. Panning shots are used when the gaze of one character is followed to the other one, e.g. in the first scenario, the girl looks at the mother and instead of the camera cutting to the mother it pans from the girl to her. When changing from story to performance in the video only simple cuts are used, however when each cut is done it is done in time with the beat of the song. Finally, at the end of the video when the song is finished the video fades out from the band on the rooftop, so that for a few seconds the image is distorted and then finally changes all too black.The mise-en-scene is different depending on the part of the video. When the performance part is playing, there is simply the instruments consisting of guitar, drums and keyboard, and they are all in black and white. If it wasn’t for the background lights in the back, it could easily pass as the video being shot in black and white. As mentioned, the rest of the characters are also all wearing black. The lighting throughout the video is constantly dull, to set the tone of misery. Obviously, each scenario has its own props as well. The dinner table is set to look high class, so candles are used, the table is large, wine is present etc. The car is the only prop that is used for the second scenario. And finally, in the kitchen, obviously all the normal kitchen utensils are used; pans, plates, carving knives etc.The album that features this song is the third album produced for this band. From the first album to this one, it is evident that the style of the band has not changed, as each album front cover is mostly black and white. Throughout all three albums, each time the font of the band name has changed. In this album the name is all in capitals and takes up quite a bit of the cover. The picture in the middle is of a bird, looking quite demonised, which fits in well with the genre of rock. The title of the album, ‘Liberation Transmission’ is quite small along the bottom of the cover in what could be Old English writing. There is also a banner image between the bird and the album title that reads ‘NOBIS PRO LEMMA VOBIS’. When translated from Latin into English, it roughly comes out as, ‘for us, for them, for you’. The only colour present on the cover is red that looks as if it has been just flung on, possibly to look like blood

The poster for this album very much relates to the video ‘Rooftops’. This is evident from the skyline background which suggests that this has been shot on a rooftop. It also has the same picture in the corner, of the bird, which is on their album. The colours used are black and white which is evident on both the album cover and in the video.

Once again, I think the target audience for this band is teenagers, 16+, and for the song ‘Rooftops’ I think possibly the audience may be slightly younger as the relationship between teenagers and adults/parents that is shown in the video is common in almost all ages. I also think that, for this song, the male to female ratio on who would be more appealed to the video would be quite equal. I say this as the video includes both male and female characters and also, again, the relationships shown on the video is present for both males and females in real life.

30 Seconds To Mars- The Kill analysis

This video was based on the 1980’s film ‘The Shining’, recreating scenes to fit in with the video. This is evident throughout the video as scenes are copied from the movie to fit in with the song. When they walk into the hotel they pick up a letter that reads, ‘stay out of room 6277’. These numbers were picked because if you type them out on a telephone keypad they spell out Mars. At 0:39 the music song starts to play showing the performance side of the song. Not listening to the warning, to stay out of room 6277 they open it and this is when things start to get peculiar. At 1:25 the music stops and ‘ONE WEEK LATER’ appears on screen. Following ‘The Shining’ narrative, this is the time when everything is supposed to turn weird/creepy. Letters are seen that have been written by the lead singer saying ‘this is who I really am’ (part of the song lyrics), over and over again, linking into ‘The Shining’ when Jack Nicholson's character types up pages and pages of the same line, ‘All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy’. There are several other similarities between this video and ‘The Shining’ such as, when one of the band members encounters the woman in the bathroom of room 6277, another member is served drinks at the bar by an apparition and they both finish in an elegant ballroom. Each member experiences the effects of the room differently; however, one thing remains constant for them all; they each encounter a tuxedoed version of themselves.At the end of the video you finally realise that the few scenes of performance is of the apparitions singing in the ballroom, whilst throughout the video they have each been shown separately performing on the guitar, bass, drums or singing. You can also see that everyone else who is in the hall also has their own apparition.
The edits again are quite simple; however the shots are widely ranged. Close-ups are used when the lead singer is singing so that you just see his face and not the surroundings, so as to not give the storyline away. Zooms are used a few times to bring your focus in to something that will later be revealed in the video, for example, there is a zoom into the door 6277 which you find out is the source of everything happening. Sound effects are used whenever the music stops at several parts throughout the video. These sounds make the moment eerie and spooky. Medium shots are used when following a certain band member throughout the hotel to see what he is getting up to. Panning shots are also used for the same reason. The mise-en-scene is quite simple and is to fit in with the conventions of a hotel, or whatever point it is at the video. At the beginning the hotel is tidy and each band member looks like there from a rock band. Further through the video, the hotel looks a bit more untidy, with food wrappings, cups etc. on the floor, and at the end when they are in the ballroom, hangings are on the wall to make the place more sophisticated and all the dancers are wearing either gowns or tuxedoes.

The album cover portrays quite well the genre of the band. The two colours used are red and white, with small red writing for the words ‘THIRTYSECONDSTO’, and then in large font the word ‘MARS’. Instead of the name of the band being along the top like most are, this one has been put along the left hand side with opposite side featuring the album title, ‘A Beautiful Lie’, which is an oxymoron fitting in with the band genre as it sounds dark and a little twisted, and a picture of two skulls, again enhancing the fact this is a rock band.

This poster has a lot of similarities with the album cover which makes it easier to relate them. The same title is used, with ‘THIRTYSECONDSTO’ in small writing and then ‘MARS’ underneath it in a large size. The surrounding of the poster is in black which doesn’t fit in with the album cover however the middle of picture is all in red which does. The picture is also taken in a bedroom which could possibly fit in with ‘The Kill’ video because of the whole hotel theme. Altogether, the poster reflects the band genre rock as it is all dark and eerie and the band members are all in dark leather jackets looking extremely rock.

I think the target audience for this band is again teenagers, 16+. The age range could be wider than any of the new rock bands about as the band members are a lot older, however, the majority of rock listeners are young adults. Particularly for this video, I think the target audience would have to be someone who likes to watch a thriller movie; otherwise they wouldn’t get the songs storyline. Again, as it is an all male band, possibly more males would be more into this band than females.

Analysis Of Similar Genre

The veronicas- Untouched
This music video is basically about two sisters who have been played by the same guy. Both of them want him however they can’t due to what he has done to them. What makes this video different is the fact that it is two sisters singing together in synchronization. The visual effects help to express the emotions, such as the colours are dull and grim which can equal anger or sadness. The narrative is very interesting and so effective due to the situation the girls are in, it is not often that sisters are played by the same person. The structure of the video is both narrative and performance. It starts of as story as It is in a club type scene which is most likely where both girls met the same guy, it introduces you into the situation. It shows you both him and the two girls to show the audience who is involved. Then it changes to the performance part where they are in the same place but they are performing to the crowd. This is similar to Paramore as most of their videos are performance based and include a band. It is structured that the chorus is the performance part whereas the rest of it is story based showing the narrative. Again like the Paramore videos, many close ups are used for getting emotions and also to show up close objects which are important. It uses close ups of the violins at the very start, as their music is very dramatic and effective. A point of view shot is used when looking into the building which it is set, so that you are able to see what kind of atmosphere it is and what type of people judging by the clothing. A two shot of both girls is also used, and also zooming to get a closer look. The edits are jump cuts to make it dramatic and go with the music beat; they tend to disorientate the audience as they are very erratic. A strange technique that is use d but effective is like the camera lens is blinking and so you lose the picture for a second which is more realistic. The setting appears to be a club or it could be an abandoned church, which gives of a kind of underground gritty feel to it which matches the genre of music and narrative. It moves between different areas of the building, some is just a simple couch with both her and him on whereas they also have the stage theme which suits the band like Paramore. I believe the video did so well due to the way it is filmed with the effects of the camera and also the two sisters singing together. The setting also has a huge impact as it is effective for the narrative. It has intertextuality as it relates to Paramore videos. The target audience is also similar to Paramore’s, both male and females around the ages of 13-20.