2. “There is a relationship
between the lyrics and the
visuals” laptop there issee the
In the opening scene where you
protagonist on his a short
„Facebook Chat‟ sequence where you can see
him typing a message to his friend. What is being
typed in this scene are the lyrics that are being
sung as they are being sung. This is amplifying
the lyrics as you can both see and hear them at
the same time.
A lot of the lyrics sound as though they are
supposed to be spoke in a conversation between
two people, so I thought that integrating Facebook
into the story more than just having the photos
shown on there would be a good thing to do. It
also allows for the character of John to be
introduced a bit smoother than him just appearing
next to Mike.
3. “There is a relationship
between the lyrics and the
visuals” to Hadouken‟s music video for their
This is similar
song „Bad Signal‟ seen below. Although you can‟t
see the screen, the messages that are being sent
and received have
been edited in to hover
above the phone,
letting you see what is
being said.
4. “There is a relationship
between the lyrics and the
visuals”Facebook into the video. A was not the onlythe
As previously mentioned, the chat sequence
use of integrating large portion of
video is taken up by a „slideshow-esque‟ presentation of different
girls using the Facebook picture viewer.
Throughout the two „Girls‟ scenes the girls shown are supposed
to match that of the description of the girl that is being sung
about at the time, with the last girl in each verse having a small
animation on top of there respective picture to further amplify the
using of this technique. For example, one person seen in the the
middle of the verse is Megan, who likes the older men – So we
used a photo of a girl with her arm around an older man. For the
girls at the end of each verse - such as Laura, who likes the lads
and has three kids with three different lads – we have a photo
representing the lyrics (for Laura we used 3 photos of her with a
„lad‟ to show that she likes them) and an accompanying
animation (for Laura, we had the 3 „kids‟ that are sung about pop
up in front of the photo on display).
5. “There is a relationship between the
music and the visuals”
There are a couple of examples within the video of there being a relationship
between music and the visuals such as the slow-motion sequence towards
the end of the film matching the mellow, calm feel in the breakdown of the
song, how there are colour temperature changes throughout the whole video
to indicate mood changes or that something significant has happened
without dialogue. Another such relationship is shown below in the collage; on
each pulse of the music the camera zooms in slightly until the mid shot of the
actor has become a close-up and then then it cuts back to a mid-shot as he
gets slapped, still in time with the music
6. “There is a relationship between the
music and the visuals”
An example of a
music video where A good example of a
the visuals match the colour change, similar
music would be to what I did, can be
Chemical Brothers – found in the film hard
Star Guitar. As the candy. It‟s not a music
train goes along video by any means,
there are certain
objects that appear but the colour change
in type with certain effect is very similar to
sounds, for instance, the one I used – as
the two posts in the the mood changed,
screenshot here both the colour changed to
appear when a „clap‟
sound is heard. match
7. “Record companies demand a lot of
close-ups of the main artist or vocalist”
Throughout the video there are many clos-ups of the main actors.
Many shots of „John‟ are close ups as he is meant to almost be seen
as a narrator to the story of the video. By having a close-up of him, it
singles him out making it feel as though he is talking directly to you
and not even being heard by „Mike‟. This is shown, in particular, by the
opening scene where John seemingly appears from nowhere and
begins talking to the camera giving some backstory on Mike‟s situation
without him even realizing he is there until he turns to face him.
8. “Record companies demand a lot of
close-ups of the main artist or vocalist”
Another major point in the video where close-ups are frequently used is in the
„breakdown‟ sequence towards the end. The whole thing was filmed at a higher frame
rate and using almost only close-ups and extreme close ups. This was done to make it
feel like you were actually there, focusing in on what Mike was looking at to an
extreme – showing just how closely Mike was paying attention.
Another reason for using the close-ups in this scene was so that your eyes couldn‟t
wander. Having the scene in slow-motion could have meant that you got bored of
seeing not much happen slower than usual. So by having a shallow depth of field
(blurred out background) and by using lots of close-ups, you are forced to look at what
you are supposed to look at and think about it‟s importance.
9. “Voyeurism is present”
There is a very heavy use of voyeurism in the video;
the fact that a large part of the video is inside a
troubled teen‟s bedroom, the fact that you are looking
in directly at his private conversations with another
person, the use of Facebook – showing that you can
log in and view all these personal pictures of people
you may not even know and the final sequence where
you follow Mike on a private date with a girl.
Close-ups help to emphasize the use of voyeurism by
making it feel like you‟re not just watching something
on from afar with a vague idea of what is going on, but
rather, you are right there in the action, acting almost
as if you are the very person there – seeing it from their
perspective.
10. “There are likely to be intertextual
references”
The digipack design that we
created features a central
face (Mike) with girls
surrounding him looking away
on a black background. This
is similar to the video for
Bohemian Rhapsody by
Queen, and where we got
some inspiration for our
design.
11. “There are likely to be intertextual
references”
On one of the inside faces of the digipack, there is a blue
glowing fireball. This is a sprite of a „hadouken‟ fireball from
the game Street Fighter – The game from which the band got
it‟s name. I thought it was fitting to place it on the digipack
because it is almost like an in-joke; some people would see it
and then dismiss it, while
other people would see it and
think “Oh! That‟s from that
game!” and then perhaps make
the connection between the
game and the band‟s name.
