Music Video Analysis

Brooke Patrick

Visually the music video take a literal interpretation of some of the lyrics. An example of this is the constant fog within the video which relates to the lyrics “We feel nothing so jump into the fog”. Another literal interpretation that can be seen in this video is the fact that the setting of the video is filmed in a hotel, relating to the lyrics “What a great achievement it was, to get a hotel room this late”. This demonstrates one of the key conventions that Andrew Goodwin talks about within music videos – a relationship between the lyrics and the video.

JUMP INTO THE FOGA colour that appears quite often in this music video is red, the colour gives a sense of passion to the music videos to exaggerate the bands love for making and selling music. This colour mainly crops up during when the band themselves are being filmed, the colour along with them physically playing their instruments in the video intensifies their passion. It is also a common convention for Indie bands to use bold eye catching colours in their music videos

One of the main conventions of Indie rock Music videos and also one of the other conventions that Andrew Goodwin mentions is having the band playing in the video, the wombats do this in this music video. This shows the audience that the band are able to play their instruments and gives a sense of realism

It also shows the males in this video as doing something- Majorie Ferguson looked at how males were represented within the media, with research he concluded that men are portrayed as being something e.g. comical or doing something, in this music videos case playing instruments.

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Another study that was carried out was done by Laura Mulvey who spoke about the ‘Male Gaze’. Her study spoke about how women in the media were subject to two modes of treatment:- Presented for the pleasure of

men- Presented overly sexualisedMulvey said that quite often images of women will be focused on certain part of their body e.g. legs, cleavage.In this music video this theory is portrayed, shots of this woman’s legs, this is an example of sexualising women for the pleasure of the male audience this technique is used to catch the attention of men.

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Goodwin also says that close ups are often used in music videos, this is due to demands of the record label.In this music video, a large amount of close ups can be found throughout, the video keeps to this conventions consistently. This technique is often demanded and used so that the celebrity status of the band members are heightened which up the bands popularity. When people think of the wombats, they don’t just think of the band they think about the individuals e.g. the lead singer Matthew Murphy

JUMP INTO THE FOG