Music Video Analysis; Andrew Goodwin’s TheoryBy Mitchell Hall

Bring Me To Life was a 2003 single for American Nu Metal band Evanescence. The single was later released on the bands debut studio album “Fallen”. The single was included in the soundtrack to Marvels ‘Daredevil’ movie and from this it gained huge successes such as being nominated as ‘Best Hard Rock Song’ at the Grammy's

“Music videos demonstrate genre characteristics” ‘Bring me to life’ conforms to Goodwin’s first idea that music videos demonstrate genre characteristics as the

stereotypical Rock/Metal video would have a mix of performance and narrative scenes. The narrative based scenes are denoted at the beginning of the music video when female vocalist and protagonist Amy Lee is lying in bed whilst the vocals are played over the scene. The performance based shots are used when the male members of the band take over the vocals and are denoted on a separate floor of the apartment performing the song, the two separate scenes can be seen in the pictures below…

• A further characteristic of the rock/metal genre which is represented in this video is the fact that the protagonist is wearing makeup which gives them a pale complexion as well as having dark eye shadow around their eyes, this makes the audience identify the female protagonist as fairly weak and possibly even depressed. This fits the ‘gothic’ stereotype of the genre and also as a result means that Blumler and Katz’s uses and gratifications theory is apparent as the target audience would be able to identify with either the female protagonist or the male vocalist.

• A final genre characteristic represented is the symbolic code of dark lighting which is stereotypical of numerous metal videos and connotes the dark nature and intention of the lyrics being used throughout the video.

“There is a relationship between the lyrics and the visuals”

Evanescence’s ‘Bring me to life’ is a mix of performance and narrative shots, there are many scenes in which the lyrics link in with the visuals and one reason for this is the fact that the lyrics are synchronous and are performed by both the female protagonist and the band during performance and narrative shots. One example of where the lyrical meaning links in with the visuals is connoted through the line “Save me from the nothing I’ve become” where the shot denotes the protagonist about to commit suicide, however the male protagonist, Paul McCoy, grabs hold of the female and attempts to save her.

Another lyric which links with the visuals in the last line of the song ‘Bring me to life’ where the female character is in the eyes of the audience, brought back to life, as after she had fallen the audience would have believed her to be dead, however this makes the lyrics of the entire song a foreshadowing of what could happen to the female character if she doesn't’t receive help from someone.

“There is a relationship between the music and the visuals”

The pace and tempo of the music in the music video is completely synchronous throughout. When the music is usually slow paced while the female protagonist is creeping along the ledge, however when the shot changes to a scene involving the male band the music is much more faced paced and this is further connoted by the faced paced editing techniques that have been used. The key relationship between the music and the visuals is signified through the idea of movement as when the music is slow the characters move slow and when it is quick the characters move quick, an example of this would be the faced paced music during the scene where female vocalist Amy Lee is falling. This technique helps to create ambience and also will entertain the audience as they learn to expect something to happen when the music starts playing at a higher tempo.

When music is slow paced.

When music is fast paced.

“The demands of the record label will include the need for lots of close-ups of the artist and the artist may

develop motifs across their work’”

This point applies to vocalist Amy Lee due to many reasons, one of which being the choice of mise-en-scene used in the video. The setting of a run down hotel/apartment room symbolises her stereotypical emotions of being run down and also links in with the genre as in many ways it can apply a dark emotional theme and is a setting often used in rock videos. This connotes that her motifs aren’t just represented through her but they are also represented by the use of settings.

The point is further justified by the fact that there are various close ups of the artist, the first of which is when she is lying in bed just about to wake up. These close-ups allow the audience a closer look at her makeup which is quite pale which yet again links back to the stereotypical gothic target audience. Close ups of Amy Lee’s face can also act as a piece of inter-textual reference and also as self promotion, as the cover for the album ‘fallen’ is just a pale picture of the female’s face so when the audience see her face it will remind them of the album. As there are not many females in the world of rock/metal record labels will try extremely hard in many ways to get as many close ups as possible in order to make the female attractive to men, this means that all of the close ups of the lead singers face lead to the male gaze theory being evident in the video. Other parts of the vocalists imagery that she is known for would be her jet black hair and finally a piece of her persona is represented though the fact that she is creeping on the thin ledge, this links to the fact that with her personality she is known to be somewhat of a thrill seeker and the danger of walking along the ledge could be thrilling to her.

“There are frequent references to the notion of looking and particularly voyeuristic

treatment of the female body”

This video by Evanescence in my opinion doesn’t really carry much notion or reference to the idea of looking however there are quite a few voyeuristic treatments of the female body. The key example of this would be Amy Lee, the videos only female character, tossing and turning some what suggestively while asleep in bed. As well as this she is wearing nothing more than a night gown which often draws the audience towards her cleavage. This would link in with the male gaze theory as men would be more likely to continue watching due to the pleasure they receive from the textual imagery. Clearly the use of these techniques have been highly successful as Amy Lee has been voted the hottest women in rock numerous times.

“There is often inter-textual references”

The first obvious inter-textual reference would be that the close up of the female vocalist is similar to the album cover for the bands album ‘fallen’. This has been used as a piece of self promotion as ,not just in the music video but, whenever the audience see’s a close up of her it will make them want to listen to the album or make them think about the album as she symbolically represents it.

Another inter-textual reference is the fact that the song was on the soundtrack to Marvel’s “Daredevil” movie. In many ways this is synergetic too as when watching “Daredevil” you will hear the song and want to listen to Evanescence and when you listen to them you’ll want to watch the movie.

A further possible inter-textual reference is when the female falls, this, as well as the fact she is only wearing a nightgown, is quite similar to peter pan when she begins to fly over London in the middle of the night.

“Whether the video is primarily performance-based, narrative-based or concept-based and how element of

each is used in it.”

The music video features both performance and narrative based scenes but the narrative based scenes have of the female character are denoted for longer.

The narrative based scenes are used to put an image to the lyrics that are being performed and these lyrics are technically saying that in many ways the woman is empty and down inside and needs something to make her feel better inside such as a thrill (to be woken up) as she needs saving. As well as this the narrative-based scenes are used to represent the female often in voyeuristic ways to the audience.

The performance scenes featuring the main band are used due to the fact that the male protagonist/lead singer isn’t actually a part of the band and he was only featuring on the single, as a result of this his own personal market team would have wanted to put him in the video performing in order to represent his own target audience. Furthermore much of the narrative-based scenes are slow paced so the performance scenes are needed to change the tempo of the music video when the music is playing at a faster and louder pace.