Monday, 10 July 2017

Research: Chained music video textual analysis

Chained by The XX textual analysis

link to video here 

Institution
The XX are an English indie pop band with four members: Romy Medley Croft who plays guitar and vocals, Oliver Sim does bass and vocals, Jamie Smith does the production, beats and mixing
The song chained is featured on the album Coexist and is about a relationship coming to peaceful yet but still sad end. The song has a slow tempo and is part of a very relaxing album, which deals with themes such as heartbreak, intimacy and loneliness. The album was released in 2012 and it was the band second release. It went to number one in the album charts in its first week in the uk.
The XX are signed too 2 record labels: Young Turks and XL Records. Young Turks is Independent, and is owned by Beggars Group. XL Recordings is an English independent record label owned by Richard Russell. It originated as a 1989 offshoot of Beggars Banquet Records and is part of the Beggars Group of labels.

Audience
The primary target audience of this video would be both men and women aged 15-30 that are interested in indie music and pop music and maybe some forms of electronica. 

Narrative
The narrative of the video is fairly loose but there is a basic structure. The video focuses on the three members of the band diving and sinking in the water. The video is less of an advertisement for the band that focuses on the star image of the band and more of a set of aesthetically pleasing visuals that amplify the lyrics. The lack of narrative in this video links to Carol Vernallis’ theory that music videos should not have a complete and structured narrative like a film would have. They should have a looser narrative with room for the interpretation of the audience so that the video is able to enhance the music and not distract the audience from it.

The narrative of the video is not geared towards the male gaze and the band is not represented in a voyeuristic way this challenges Goodwin's theory concerning voyeurism . This is typical of the indie genre, which tends to focus more on the music and maybe a more aesthetically pleasing video rather than the objectification of both women, and in some cases, men. However there are exceptions to this.

Editing 

The video is edited to be in time with some of the beats of the song and the pace of editing somewhat speeds up when the tempo of the song starts to speed up slightly or when there is a build up in the song. These things link to Andrew Goodwin’s theory that there is a connection between the visuals and the beats of the song and the idea of ‘thought beats’ and seeing the sound. The editing does not completely fit with all the beats to the song however. As a whole the pace of editing throughout the video is fairly slow and slow motion is used a lot. This creates a dramatic looking video and fits with the artistic and moody tones that are often present in the indie genre.












What I have taken away from this video
In my own video I intend to use some elements that are featured in this video such as the super slow motion under water shots, varied shot types and composition and the grey blue colour pallet. As well as this I intend to use a simple narrative structure as this video does. However I would like to include more shots of the band lip syncing and playing their instruments which would adhere to Andrew Goodwin's star theory and demands of the record label more closely. 


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