Panic! At The Disco: This Is Gospel:

Music video analysis

vThe music video starts with a long panning

shot of the singer, up his body towards his

head, when the camera reaches his head he

starts singing. This is a medium close up shot

which is used to show that he is the main

person in the video as he’s the performer. The

pan up his body gives the audience the

impress that he is unconscious (until he starts

singing) as there is a heartbeat in the

background so he can not be dead. He is

wearing a white top and black jeans which can

be seen as “basic clothing”. The setting is a

black room with a white hospital bed, this

focus the attention on the singer as it is non-

interesting, it also makes it look like a hospital.

Lyrics: In this shot he is about to sing “This is Gospel for the fallen ones” (Which is the first line of the song) – As he is on a hospital bed I think the aesthetics of the scene match the lyrics, as “fallen” can be linked with an injury.

0.06s

The singer's face is half covered by shadows suggesting that he is been kept in a dark area. The shadows in the video could have many different meanings as there is no anchorage, however it could be suggesting that he has a two sided personality. However as it is quite ambiguous, there is no set meaning, so is left up to the audience to decide.

0:11s

So far in the video the only two colours shown are black and white. These are seen as basic colours, so do not grab the audience's attention, however the medium shot, aerial camera view focuses the attention onto the singer who is staring at the camera. This builds a connection with the audience as it breaks the fourth wall, with the eye contact.

0:18s

A bright surgical style light turns on, highlighting the singer's body completely and pulls him out of the shadows. The lighting foreshadows the ending of the video as it ends with a fade to white, this is all a symbol of death, which links in with the hospital bed as hospital's can connote death for some people. At this point he has stopped singing and his eyes and mouth are closed which makes he look quite lifeless, this could be foreshadowing the end or the reinforcing the underling message of death that runs through the video.

The camera continues panning outwards until three characters appear in surgical gowns, the audience can make the deduction that they are doctors as their props are such things as: stethoscopes and scalpel. The aerial view also continues as it is useful to show the whole view of the singer, and it provides the audience with the view someone looking over would have, like a doctor, which helps submerse the audience.

0:21s

10 seconds later quite a bit of camera movement occurs, this is done as a crane shot. The different acts of the operating staff in the video are representative of the concept of an operation and the idea that despite every efforts, like the effort of doctors, there is no escaping the inevitability of death, which is the underling theme in the video and lyrics.

vThe camera moves as we see the

singer spring up from the medical

table as he sings “let me go”. The

actions in this sequence match

what he is singing which provides

coherence This also represents

the rock genre, as it is seen as a

generic convention for rock songs

to sing about freedom and

breaking away, which is shown

through both lyrics and video.

● The camera then switches to an Aerial shot,

which is used to show the singers struggle to get

away. All the time this is happening the light is

focused on the singer, this signifies his

importance to the audience. The Aerial shot is

also good because the video is very performance

based, this shot incorporates both his actions, as

there is enough room in shot to see his actions,

yet still focuses on his face.

0:43s

Even as the singer moves around frantically the camera stays in deep focus on him. Deep focus is used to keep the music video centred around the singer, so all the extras don't grab the attention away from the singer. This is a generic convention for a music video with a performance aspect as the singer is in deep focus, while singing to the camera, whereas the background is in shallow focus.

This is a concept music video, which at this point in the video is shown through the doctors. The choreography in the video makes all the doctor's movements look precise, but also like they are robots, which could be a reference to society being controlling, as this type of view is linked with the rock genre, so would be sticking to the brand identity.

1:03s

01:20sThe mise-en-scene in this scene changes when there is a transitions in location. The transition is done so it looks like the shot was taken in the same place which the editing helps do. The lighting in the two transitions helps crate this look as in the “hospital room” the light centres on the singers face and darkens around him, so only white can be seen which leads to the second part of the transition where he is standing.

This fools the audience into thinking that the shot is continuous, which it is not. This shows that despite constantly changing, the camera looks as though it is in the same place (close up).

1:32s

● In this part of the music video the camera looks as if it falls back and into another place, this transition, because of the editing, looks somewhat seamless.

● The lyrics “Led away by imperfect impostors” means being tricked by people who pretend they are saints or prefect. This could be a deeper message about religion and how it can misguide people in some cases, even until the day they die.

The mise-en-scene in this scene includes the singing wearing a suit. This is because he is being buried as he is having a funeral because he is supposedly dead. This shows the concept side of the video as it has a liner story starting from the hospital that leads on to the coffin. The black in the suit connotes death but also power, which is ironic as the singer lacks this throughout the whole video.

● The Camera in this section backs out slowly from an extreme close up. This shows the lack of space in the coffin for movement as it is confined or trapped, which is a generic convention of rock songs.

01.49s

● In this part of the sequence the actions in the video reflect the lyrics: “Don’t try to sleep through the end of the world, Bury me alive, 'Cause I won’t give up without a fight” first of all he is buried alive and then he fights to get out of the coffin.

● There is an intertextual reference of the singer being like Dracula the vampire at this point in the video. This is from his body language and the fact he comes back to life, so hard to “kill off” which happens quite a bit in the video.

As the video comes to the End, the heartbeat from the beginning make a reprise, and slowly fades like a life support machine as the heartbeats stop beating. This shows that he's now dead (and his eyes are closed), the scene then transitions by fading to white, which is associated which death, and is a symbol of death as he is “going into the light”, which was referenced near the start of of the video with the surgical lighting.

3:06s● There is a

Juxtaposition at the end as the singer gives up fighting which is a big constant to the rest of the video as that is all that he has been doing throughout the course of the video.