Band video analysis

Arctic Monkeys - 'Crying Lightning'

The whole video for this song is set on this one boat and it is all performance. There are a lot of visual effects used because you can tell they aren’t out at sea however it still looks realistic, with the grey colour of the cold sea and the sky is all cloudy with a sunset/sunrise.

The structure of the video is all about the performance, the live act of the band playing however I think that there is also concept based in it because it has all evolved around the one idea of the boat out at sea.

There isn’t many great shots in the video but I think the best on is when a wave hits the side of the boat and from the ripple in the water that it makes Alex turner (the singer) suddenly appears rising out the sea, this is a great shot because the whole video up until there is just the band playing so it adds something different to the video. Another great shot is when they have all rose out of the sea, a bit like ghosts as they are transparent, playing their instruments the drummer isn’t actually playing drums they are barrels which fits into the theme of out at sea, and every time he hits the drums a flash of lightning strikes.

The mise-en-scene of the video the location is all in one place, in the middle of nowhere out at sea. For the props the boat is the main one is the boat and the bands instruments but another is the lights on the boat, they aren’t on throughout the video but when Alex rises out of the sea they turn on just while he plays then they go off again.

I don’t really like this video but I do think it shows career progression of the band because it’s for the launch of their new album ‘Humbug’ and because the songs on the album are a bit different to what they normally produce then it’s a good idea to change the style of video made. Also it was directed by Richard Ayoade who directed their video for ‘Fluorescent Adolescent’ and that video was also a success.

Arctic Monkeys - 'Flourescent Adolescent'

I think this video is about growing up, you get this impression from some of the lyrics by repeating the word ‘remember’ quite a lot. In the video i think the narrative is the men are dressed as clowns just like when they were younger only they are dealing with adult things like gangs and fighting, also in the middle of the song they go back in time to show little children dressed in the same clown suits only they are happy unlike the older men.

The video is a mixture of narrative and concept based because the narrative of the song is these men ‘getting old’ and unhappy and the concept based is the fact that it’s based around a rundown building and the one idea of age. The visual effects of this video is as it’s a continuous story of events you are made to keep watching to see what will happen at the end.

There is quite a few great shots one of them being a medium/long shot of the side of a car going through cardboard boxes through a fence but when the car hits the boxes it is in slow motion so you can see the impact off the speed. Another great shot is at the end when you expect that the car will hit the man but instead he gets out a lighter and drops it and the trail of petrol on the floor blows the car up.

The mise-en-scene of this video is it is set in what looks like a rundown building or car park block which also links to the theme of age as the building old representing the men whereas at one point it would have been up and in use. The car is a major prop in the video as it is used throughout to carry out stunts along with the river. The choice of costume is strange but it fits into the narrative of the song.

I think this video is a success because it’s easy to understand the narrative because it fits in with the lyrics and also it is just a bit of a weird video which to me makes it stand out from some of their other videos.

You can see career progression in this video because as its from the second album they obviously had a bit more money compared to their first music video, i bet that you look good on the dancefloor, which was filmed on set of the mtv show ‘on the couch with Zane Low’.