8/13/2019 Arcade Fire - Reflektor2

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By Jordan Weeks

8/13/2019 Arcade Fire - Reflektor2

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Background

Reflektor is the upcoming fourth studio album by the Canadian indierock band Arcade Fire. Arcade Fire consists of wife and husband along with four othermembers. They first originated in 2001 and have released four studio albums.

However they first became notably recognised in 2004 with the release of theircritically acclaimed debut album “Funeral”.

The band are internationally known due to their huge success when it comes down towinning awards and receiving award nominations. They won a Grammy in 2011 forAlbum of the year, 2011 Juno Award for Album of the Year, 2011 Brit Award for Best

International Album for “The Suburbs”. In 2008 they won the Meteor Music Award forBest International Album and the 2008 Juno Award for Alternative Album of the yearfor “Neon Bible”. They also received nominations for Best Alternative Music AlbumGrammy for all three studio albums and twice nominated for Polaris Music Prize in2007.

8/13/2019 Arcade Fire - Reflektor2

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Narrative, Concept or Performance?

I feel that this music video is Narrative/Concept/Performance. A narrativeconsists of the video telling the audience a story whether that be with the useof the lyrics or telling a separate story altogether. The story in this instance isthe band going out to kill or kidnap the mysterious man, probably referred toas “Reflektor” which is also the song title.

The idea of a Concept music video is one that displays an abstract idea. Theabstract idea in this instance is the character the “Reflektor”, who is afictional man composed of mirrorball pieces. His physical existence isimpossible. The “Reflektor” is arguably the main protagonist of the video andseems to possess some kind of power.

Finally, a performance video is a video where the artist or band features in the

video either dancing or singing parts or all of the song.

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Mise-en-SceneCostume – Incredibly formal clothing, smart dressed seems as if they have arranged and plannedto attend something or go somewhere, the costumes are dark which fits in with the night, theyhave huge prosthetic heads which look to be made out of papier mache, finally there is thecostume of the “Reflektor” which is entirely made up of shards of mirrors

Lighting – the lighting in this video is incredibly low –key, the “Reflektor” is the main source oflight, however the video has a grayscale, many of their lyrics refer to the lighting and basis of thenarrative “alone in the darkness, darkness of white” example of an oxymoron, some of the lyricsare in French which translate to “Between the night, night and dawn. Between the kingdom of the living and the dead” the reasoning for the french will be the factthey are French-Canadian and also as the location of the filming may be in France, the lightingseems natural as it just looks like moonlight, there is a scene around 2:49 where daylight is usedbut the grayscale effect is still present. In some of the scenes there seem to be a few street lightsor security lights. The lights from the truck also project a lot and light up some of the shots of theforest. There are strip lights in the back of the truck to highlight the band performing. Actors positioning – the size of the heads makes it look like each person is on the same level asone another so the females shown in the clip are represented as equal to the males, there are noactors just the band, the only person lower down is the drummer as he is sat down, “Reflektor” is

shown as always far away from the normal peopleMake-up – some of the characters are heavily made up as the main woman has a lot of eye makeup on and the man has eye makeup on too, you could arguably say the papier mache heads aremake-up tooProps – the main props in this are the bands instruments, disco ball air freshener, disco ballsuspended outside truck, torches, coffinSetting – most of the setting of the video is very picturesque, it includes beaches, forests and

eastern communist bloc nation settings

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Editing

Pace – some sequences of the video are upbeat with fast cuts,even though the video lasts for 7 minutes 42 the actual beat ofthe song is upbeat its just the narrative which lasts longEffects - there are no notable effects in this videoCutting – every shot used in this video has been cut to fromanother shot, there are no fancy transitionsTransitions – there are no transitions that are out of theordinary and noticeable

There has been great attention to detail with the continuityediting. Despite the fact there is not any conversation scenesthe eye lines are matching, there is a clear and accurate matchon action and they don’t “cross the line”.

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CamerasAngles – in this video a lot of wide shots have been used to show off the landscape, thelandscape is a crucial part of portraying the Reflektor’s character as the surrounding areremote and isolated, this shows the Reflektor is an outcast and not normal compared tothe rest of societyMovement – many track shots are used, and pans this often follows the main truck

Shots - the director Anton Corbijn has chosen to use quite a few different shots, thereisn’t really a huge variety of angles or close ups the main ones are when they are at thebeach, there is a lack of close ups. This is perhaps due to the fact that close ups aregenerally used to express facial expressions and intricate detail but you cannot see facialexpressions as they have the model heads on.

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Sound

Music the only sound used in this music video isthe actual music itself, there is no dialogue oratmospheric and ambient sound.