GCT - Technical Shot Analysis Evaluation

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHTSxw6zN1E

Artist: The Shins
Track: Australia

As the music video has an asynchronous narrative, the opening shot serves the purpose of being establishing shot as well as showing the ending of the narrative. This shot is a long shot and therefore clearly an establishing shot as conventionally establishing shots have a larger shot size. The ultra low angle used works well in the establishing shot because it disorientates the consumer leading to a narrative fuzz which makes the consumer want to find out more and therefore grabs their interest. I Should look in to using this technique of creating a narrative fuzz when making my own music video, because our genre’s audience consists of mainly focused viewers and therefore it is essential to capture their attention. The band is also introduced through a series of secondary establishing shots, A medium long shot of the band members in first person mode of address is shown, this introduces the artist to the viewer and because of the sot size and use of first person mode of address creates a more personal and intimate relationship between the band and viewer which gives the viewer more consumer satisfaction. When the band are shown through first person mode of address a slow tracking in is used to draw the viewer in closer to the scene. Throughout the music video more lower key establishing shots are used frequently to establish a new location of the passing of time. For example, when the truck arrives at the car park a long shot of the car park is shown to establish the new location, this is also apparent when the car sales men are introduced and when the truck arrives at a field where another long shot is shown to establish that location. There is also a long shot used of the truck travelling along from the right of the screen to the left, this long shot is sandwiched between two medium close-ups and this difference in shot size commutates the passing of time. Many Jump cuts were also present to convey the passing of time as the whole narrative is condensed into the four minute of the song.

Close ups were used a lot in the music video and always showed something that was important to the narrative, they were repeated much like a ‘meat shot’ to convey to the viewer that what was shown in that shot was important to the narrative. For example when the balloons were being cut from the cars, multiple close ups of the scissors cutting the string were shown to connote the removal of all the balloons. From this I have learnt that when making our own music video we can use multiple close ups to reinforce ideas which are important to the narrative.

The video used certain camera techniques to create a relationship between two of the characters without the use of spoken words. This was done by showing a medium close up of one character and then showing a reaction medium close up shot of the other character. This technique would be very useful when trying to show the relationship between two characters in our own music video.

In the video the only times low angles are used are when the band are shown all together driving a long in the truck. This connotes that not only is the truck large but the band have authority and that we, the audience should look up to them. However sometimes the band are shown form a high angle but this is only when one member is on his own and used to connote the fact that he is staying close to the ground and hiding from the car salesmen.

At the end of the music video as the tempo of the music decreases so does the cutting rate, this clear connection between the cutting rate of the video and the tempo of the song makes the video more interesting for the consumer as it splits it up into different sections. The slowing in cutting rate also conveys the message that the track is finishing and therefore when the track finishes it is left on a smooth transition.