Textual Analysis
In this textual analysis I am going to be analysing a music
video by the artist Sbtrkt called ‘Wildfire’. This song is a hybrid of two genres,
alternative pop and dubstep, and I have been able to recognise this due to
certain codes and conventions which have been used throughout the music video.
The music video for this track is concept based as there is no story line however,
is set behind an idea. The target audience for this song would be older
teenagers and young adults, due to the visuals on screen during the music video
and the contemporary genre.
There are many different types of camera work used
throughout the ‘Wildfire’ video, but mainly extreme close ups. We see a lot of
extreme close ups of the characters body parts, for example her eyes and
forehead with sweat dripping down, her hands grabbing onto the bed sheets and
her hair flying around in the wind. All of these create confusion for the
audience and leaving them wanting to watch more in order to find out what is
happening to her. There are also many medium shots of the girls sitting on the
bed moving in the wind. These camera techniques are typical for an alternative
pop/dubstep music video, and so they conform to the codes and conventions for
the genre. Another typical code and convention of this genre is the music and
visuals being parallel. ‘Wildfire’ shows this when the music and tempo speeds
up, so does what is happening on screen.
The editing used in this music video by Sbtrkt works well
with the music and the visuals. An example of this is how the cuts are parallel
with the music. As the tempo gets faster, the length of the shots also become
shorter, and longer when the tempo slows down. This conforms to the codes and
conventions of alternative pop and dubstep music videos. When an extreme close
up is on screen, long shot duration is usually used to show detail of what’s on
screen as it is usually an enigma for the rest of the narrative. An example of
this is when there is an extreme close up of the female characters face with
sweat dripping down her forehead. A blurred effect has been used throughout the
music video, especially on an extreme close up and when there is only one
object in focus on screen.
The location of the music video challenges the usual codes and
conventions of alternative pop and dubstep as it is filmed in a bedroom,
whereas stereo-typically it would be filmed in a club or a dirty, dark urban
location. The lighting in the room is low key, and so this matches the atmosphere
of the video and what is happening on screen. This conforms to the usual dark
colour palette in other music videos of the same genre. The movement of the
character is very slow and bizarre, with her grabbing and grasping onto bed
sheets and the carpet etc, until the tempo speeds up and so does the character,
when she starts to make bigger movements as if she was getting sucked up by the
fan.
Andrew Goodwin argues that music videos are associated with
7 areas, and I am going to explain and relate some of them to the ‘Wildfire’
video. Goodwin believes that there should be constant references between the
lyrics and visuals on screen, but this video challenges this as there is no
relationship between the lyrics and what is happening on screen. He also
suggests that there should be a relationship between the music and visuals, and
this video conforms to this as when the music gets faster, so does the visuals
on screen. I think that there notions of looking in this video, as the female
character in the video may be seen as sexually appealing in what she is
wearing, and so may be represented as an object. The ‘Wildfire’ music video is
concept based, as there is no story line for the audience to follow as the
visuals do not match the lyrics. The conceptual idea for the music video is
somewhat about the female character being intoxicated or on narcotics. This may
be from the way in which she is moving in a strange, disorientated way and the
way in which her eyes are rolled back into her head for some of the video. It
seems to the audience that maybe she is hallucinating, as we can see that she
keeps looking at the fan, and it gives off the impression she is being
controlled by it by her body language and movement. We can recognise this type
of music video as there is no obvious story line like a narrative music video,
and it is not performance based as the artist himself is not performing, and
the codes and conventions are very different to those in a conceptual music
video.
In conclusion, it is evident that camera work has had a
major part in constructing the genre through using many extreme close ups of
the character and their body parts, as this is a very typical code and
convention for a music video within this genre. The editing has also played a
big part in constructing the genre as it also conforms to the codes and
conventions of a alternative pop music video, especially the length of the
shots in comparison to the tempo of the music.
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