Music Video Analysis / What is a music video

Purpose of a music video

The purpose of a music video is to sell an artists song. It is made to invoke a reaction to the audience, making them remember the video and the song like in 'Bitter Sweet Symphony' by The Verve; consists of a man not caring about anything or anyone else, barging his way through people on a high street and knocking a woman over in one scene, this would make the audience shocked and interested as its a sort of rebellion and different. It gives the audience a better understanding of the song and lyrics, for example the video may be a narrative which relates to the lyrics and gives a visualization of them. Another main point of music videos are marketing. Promoting the artist and products are something which is used in music videos a lot. For example in this video they hold up a disk at the beginning with the band name 'Nero' and the song name at the bottom 'must be the feeling', they then go to playing the disk and the music starts.

Black Eyes Peas 'Where is the Love' Logo

A music Video is the visualization aspect of music, it can compliment the song, represent a certain idea or concept which is Goodwins theory, for example the concept of Love and unity, like in Black Eyed Peas song 'Where is the Love' this video promotes the idea that we should all get along and love each other and ourselves. The music videos also convey certain generics and conventions within them, different genres would have certain  characteristics which would usually set them apart from different genres. For example in a dance video we would usually see a performance, of people dancing, usually in a night club or anywhere, it usually converges both performance and narrative. An example of the convergence would be Calvin Harris's song 'Sweet Nothing' it consists of a woman singing the lyrics in a club, with the narrative of what appears to be someone important to him being beat up and owing people money. And for other genres it would be different, like in a rap video we see materialistic things, the misenscene which includes props would be flashed around on the video, like an expensive car or jewelry, Common in Rick Ross's songs, an example would be 'Stay Schemin'. 

'Sweet Nothing' cuts between Narrative and Performance

Rick Ross and two expensive cars, rap conventions

Nero

The purpose of this video is to compliment Nero’s song Must Be the Feeling. Nero’s style of videos is usually futuristic or involves some virtual aspect; it also contains some sort of, person or group which is involved in some sort of authority. In this video the cast which is two men, Daniel Stephens and Joseph Ray the members of Nero. They seem to run an anarchist group, which their purpose is to display their brand Nero and their song to the public through billboards and main ways of advertisement, however the city that there in seems to be run by a strict government regime, which has a no tolerance to any behavior they see to be not acceptable, and this authority tries to stop Nero as they rebel against them. The style of the video is a sort of rebel style, as the two men which seem to be Nero are against the government security and are breaking rules. The setting of the video is a city; it has a dark isolated feel however it is set in the future. Futuristic iconography items like electronic glasses which have mini TV screens as the lenses, GPS systems that track someone’s every move and futuristic concept looking motorcycles. This is not conventional in dance videos as they usually contain a performance, however Nero's videos are mainly a narrative and usually contain some sort of electronic or futuristic theme.

As I said before, Nero is a rebellion, and the car they drive denies the modern times they are in. The DeTomaso Pantera GT5 is a classic Italian sports car produced in the 1970’s, and it denies the modern setting in the video. The modern times can relate to the audience as the modern era (Teens) are the audiences which are mostly attracted to this band. Andrew Goodwin’s theory of music videos having ‘the notion of looking’ in them is displayed in this video. The low angle close up of a CCTV camera moving from left to right supports the looking theory. The setting of the video is a ‘Big Brother world’ a city dominated by a strict regime who are always observing, another example, the medium shot of a man in a futuristic suit who seems to be working for the regime which is looking down at Nero from a building supports the theory.

Throughout the video there are many examples of Andrew Goodwin’s theory of ‘The notion of looking’.  An example would be the low angle, close up of a CCTV camera, which is panning from left to right. The low angle shot, looking up at the camera could connote the cameras power, as the authority condescend Nero and the city, as they watch them. Another example is when the ‘Authority’ has spotted Nero through their binoculars. And this is part of the narrative, as the authority is trying to capture Nero.

Within the video there are two different groups of people, you have Nero, which are the rebellion and then the ‘authority’. The authority as I said before is strict and inquisitive and a close up of a poster, which says ‘the authority are watching you’, proves this. That would appeal to an audience as it is a interesting introduction to the narrative in the video, making the audience want to watch the video and see what happens. The poster is another example of Goodwin’s theory; the ‘notion of looking’ as there is also a robot’s face on the poster with red beaming eyes, as an extreme close up displays. The two groups have different colours, which display their personality or how other people perceive them. The rebellion have a blue colour, which comes up a few times in their electronic glasses, the colour blue is seen as a delicate colour, holding a innocent vibe; this can connote that Nero is the protagonist in the video. The authority have a red colour, this can be seen as evil as it connotes the devil, blood and death, suggesting they are the antagonists. Even though it seems that Nero is committing a crime in the authority’s eyes, the video is trying to make them look like the antagonists and that Nero is doing a good thing, by using colours to reflect their status, which is the misenscene in the video. This would appeal to Nero's audience as they would be teens and young adults, and stereo types of young people are that the are nihilistic and rebel, relating to the narrative, and making them interested to watch.

However the video and the setting could be a world which is just a game, Nero goes out and catches the authority’s attention, and then when the car and motorbikes make contact, they switch places, like a cat and mouse tag game. The audience can relate, as they are mostly teens, a stereo type of teens is being ‘nihilistic’ (Ann Gould) and the video being ‘game’ can relate to their life, as they just play along with it and don’t care about most important things. At the end of the video, Nero and an authority member who is on a motorbike crash head to head with each other due to a brake failure. The crash makes them both disappear. After the crash, Nero and the original ‘authority’ has switched places, with the authority agent in the car, Nero are the authority now chasing the agent, this could suggest that Nero is the authority, or they are both equal, and connote catch them, or it could suggest that Nero has the same power as the authority however they are not the authority, so they have the power of music.