MUSIC VIDEO ANALYSIS 2

ROYAL BLOOD – TEN TONNE SKELETON

This music video is by our chosen artist Royal Blood and I felt that this video in particular showed some conventions of the rock genre as well as being edited and formed in a similar way to how I envisage our own video to look.

The video features a blend of narrative scenes alongside live performance chorus and instrumental which is intercut between each scene using fast editing techniques and smooth transitions. It will hopefully prove in the future to be a helpful and substantial style model during the editing process.

ROYAL BLOOD – TEN TONNE SKELETON

The fast editing style and cutting rhythm of the video allows the video to fit the song’s range of tempos, e.g faster cutting during guitar solos and slower shots during riffs.This style of editing has strong links to the Rock genre, with most music videos opting to use similar techniques to reflect heavy riffs and explosive solos in video form. Throughout the video there is a mix of

both narrative sections (Woman Running etc.) and the band playing live, which is also typical to the genre. Many rock bands combine these two types of video to tell a story or to emphasise lyrics, which is seemingly hugely important in the genre considering the many bands and artists who use similar video styles.

ROYAL BLOOD – TEN TONNE SKELETONAnother genre convention shown in the video is the colours used within the video, which reflect attitudes within the genre and emphasise Royal Blood’s unique sound. There’s a majority of shades of black and grey throughout the video, as well as both band members wearing black for their signature look. It creates continuity throughout all of their videos and album art and allows them to have a slick look to them. The themes in the video also reflect this colour scheme, the lyrics echoing this “She took my heart, left me for deadAnd drank my blood” alongside visuals such as the flames and police cars. This colour scheme allows a consistent theme and style to be produced, maintaining the song’s meaning and representation throughout.

This is an aspect of this video that we will consider when creating our own as we feel that it will be important to maintain the band’s image for authenticity.

ROYAL BLOOD – TEN TONNE SKELETON

I also noticed that during the video there is a relationship between lyrics and visuals shown (Andrew Goodwin), which allows the viewer to interpret lyrics in their intended way. An example in the video is the lyrics “Crashed down in a hurricane”, which is simultaneously followed on screen by something falling or “crashing down”. Another example shows a dead body to the lyrics “Die Slowly” furthering the meaning to the audience. This relationship between the images on the screen and the lyrics sung is important as without the both being in place at the same time neither would make sense alone. This is another technique that is used in many music videos (Not limited to just the rock and indie genre) and I hope that we will use this within our video to illustrate the meanings of the lyrics clearly to the viewer.

ROYAL BLOOD – TEN TONNE SKELETON

The inclusion of live performance footage to the video emphasizes the fact that Royal Blood are a ‘real’ band unlike many current artists in the music industry, who can play instruments skilfully. This relates to Trevor Millum’s theory on the ‘Male Gaze’ who states there are five main looks: Seductive, Carefree, Practical, Comic and Catalogue. The fact that both members of the band are playing instruments means that they have concentrated expressions, which represents them as talented individuals to the audience. This representation of the band creates a sense of awe towards their skill and finesse when playing and the video helps to further this through clever editing and cuts.

I would hope to represent our band members this way during our live performance segments, to ensure they come across as talented and skilled musicians.

ROYAL BLOOD – TEN TONNE SKELETON

Overall this music video will be important in ensuring our project fits genre conventions, themes and that it looks authentic to our chosen song. I’ve found this analysis particularly helpful as it is by the same artist as our chosen band and it has allowed my ideas to further expand. It will be hugely important when editing our footage as it will be a reference point for a standard as if it were a style model for the project.

EVALUATION OF ANALYSIS