Music Video Analysis: Neon Trees - Everybody Talks

Music Video Analysis - Neon Trees: Everybody Talks

The music video for 'Everybody Talks' by Neon Trees is that of an extreme concept piece, featuring a 1950's setting and a video within a video, the piece is visually appealing whilst maintaining its complexity and is certainly not one of the more conventional 'pop music' videos. It opens with what seems like an advertisement for a film, played in parallel with what can only be imagined as a paradoxical feature of non-diegetic sound as well as diegetic sound, as we, the audience can hear it at first, but then it slowly transforms into a segment that the people in the video can hear as well. Thus, adding to the videos already complex nature. 

RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN VISUALS AND LYRICS

An interesting music video makes for an interesting relationship between the visuals and the lyrics, and 'Everybody Talks' is no exception. The relationship between the two appear to be fragmented at first, as the audience is shifted back and forth between "reality" and the music video within the music video. Wide angled mid-shots from either two settings feature the lead singer, Tyler, lip synching to the lyrics, a notable convention of music videos. However, there were also moments where him and the rest of the Neon Trees were acting throughout with the music continuing on in the background. As the actual music video progresses, we see less and less of the band singing within its "reality", and more through the dominating video. A momentary interlude was featured allowing the music video featured within the actual video to progress its narrative; all music ceased and it was reliant on the acting to further push the narrative forward. The directors cleverly introduced a way for audiences to distinguish between the "reality" and the music video by layering a worn out camera filter, with burns and scratch marks, which was heavily reminiscent of the time period during the 1950's. 

GENRE CHARACTERISTICS

From the outset, the genre of this music video was seemingly a little difficult to identify as there were hardly any codes and conventions that reinforced the pop/rock genre characteristics; but as the narrative progresses, the audience can identify subtle genre codes such as the leather jackets that the characters were wearing, typically associated with the rock genre. This was also contrasted with that of the pop genre element of the video; Tyler and the rest of the band donned extravagant clothing such as a cheetah print coat and a gold sequinned shirt. Another reinforcement of the pop genre specifically, is that there is a lot of choral inclusion within the music video. The band have displayed choreographed dance scenes, lip-synching scenes and so forth; all identified and conveyed to the audience through wide angled mid-shots, panning shots and slight overhead shots. There was a myriad of different lighting throughout this music video, most of which were evidenced by quick-cut camera shots that allowed clips of low-key lighting to transition to high-key lighting very fast. A key element of a pop music video is the high-key lighting, which albeit was prominent throughout the video, but one could also identify that considering that there was a clash of genre (i.e. pop and rock), the high-key lighting was representative of the pop elements of the video, whilst the low-key lighting was reminiscent of the rock genre.


INTERTEXUALITY

Intertextuality throughout this music video was a task to say the least, but eventually, there was something that linked to one of the most famous films of all time: Grease. Although this intertextuality wasn't a constant throughout the video, it was however featured in some of the panning shots, mid-shots and close up camera angles. Each shot identifies cars linked to the 1950's, specifically '57 Chevy's; cars of which were featured heavily within the 1978 film. Grease is a musical film that focuses on the trials and tribulations that the rival gangs, 'The T-Birds' and 'The Pink Ladies' encountered, whilst also providing the audience with an amalgamation of comedic and romantic aspects. The music video for 'Everybody Talks' actually shows what seem to be two gangs situated in their respective cars whilst watching the film at the drive-in theatre. Panning shots reveal a car filled with boys with leather jackets and greased back hair, while the camera focuses on a mid-range shot of the girls in the opposite car, thus alluding to the idea that these two "gangs" were inspired by 'The T-Birds' and 'The Pink Ladies'. Another feature that contributes to the intertextuality of Grease is that every person at the diner breaks out into song and dance, something of which was extremely prevalent within the musical film. 

PERFORMANCE, NARRATIVE AND/OR CONCEPT?

As the aforementioned point briefly explains, this music video is remarkably complex in terms of it's execution. The video exhibits most features of a performance piece, follows a narrative of "boy in love with girl, girl plays hard to get" whilst also remaining solidly in its complexity as a conceptually driven piece. Although, having said this, the music video doesn't really mirror anything to do with the lyrics of the song, therefore reinforcing the stronger sense of a conceptual piece as nothing in the lyrics suggests that the video should be filmed a 1950's drive-through diner/theatre, or have anything to do with "Zombie Bikers from Hell". All in all, the video is heavily influenced by a conceptual idea whilst also continuing a thread of whimsical performance by each and every band member, as well as the other characters featured in the video.

LINEAR OR CLOSED NARRATIVE? 

There is a strong sense of narrative within this music video as briefly mentioned above. However, what could be considered unusual within this music video, is the directors choice to have the audience jump between "reality" and the short film that features. Because of this, it is easy to distinguish that the narrative, yet again, is of paradoxical nature. The narrative is simple, "boy falls in love, girl is difficult and unwavering in her flirtatious attitudes towards him". The reason why it is paradoxical is because it would seem to contradict a strict linear narrative, but it in fact does follow a singular narrative, the audience is just involved with a secondary narrative running alongside the main one, which makes the music video that much more complex. 

LOOKING/MODE OF ADDRESS

Throughout the video, there are a whole range of close up shots that focus predominantly on the lead singer, Tyler. Through these different camera shots, a host of them are where he directly addresses the camera, leading to believe that there is no disconnect between him and the audience, but instead reinforces a strong relationship between him and the music, in the sense that he uses eye contact to sway audiences into truly being involved with the song. As for the female protagonist, there are yet again, a myriad of close up camera shots, yet she rarely addresses the camera as most of the time she hides behind sunglasses. This could allude to her character being of ambiguous nature as she conceals most of her face throughout the entirety of the video, also adding to her mysterious yet flirtatious appeal to the lead singer. 

STAR TREATMENT

The entire video centralises itself around the entire band, with everyone being in equal status to one another. Aside from the wide angled mid-shots that successfully capture the whole band, these shots are accompanied by different levels of lighting, ranging from low-key to high-key. The idea of extreme close up shots of each member reinforce the emotion of the band; happy and joyous. This is again, mainly accompanied by high-key lighting to further reinforce the "happy-go-lucky"allure of this up-beat pop/rock song.

MIS-EN-SCENE

The overarching influence of this music video was a concept heavily influenced by the 1950's; a stimulus that could be considered unusual in this highly modernised 21st Century. Released in 2012, 'Everybody Talks' pays homage to a quirky relationship, with the mis-en-scene used to later reflect this. Camera angles throughout this entire video didn't seem to have much variation, with them only remaining on a levelled position, there was no room for empowerment or disempowerment of any of the band or other characters. A notable feature throughout is the vibrancy of the colours accompanied by the high-key lighting. The neon signs of the diner give the audience crisp visuals of the surrounding setting whilst perhaps contributing to a deeper, subliminal message of a fresh new relationship about to begin. There is also a secondary message throughout the video, perhaps a little more philosophical than concerning a relationship.  It is that "not everything is as it seems", this is reinforced through the minor special effects utilised within the video of when the female protagonist lures her victims into a secluded area and then continues to scare them. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5G9tIe84lE

Seven Nation Army - The White Stripes: REMAKE

Seven Nation Army - The White Stripes: REMAKE

THE INITIAL PROCESS & SET UP

As a cohort, we took advantage of the Creative Arts Evening in order to recreate the music video for 'Seven Nation Army' performed by The White Stripes. We recruited musical talent from a Year 8 band and asked them to perform the song in front of a set up that we constructed ourselves, using a sheet of green fabric to replicate a green screen, multiple lights and microphones. 

Initially, we asked the band to perform twice; once to record the audio, and second to record the visuals that were accompanied by the audio that we had just recorded. Considering that we had recorded the audio, we were then able to ask the band to perform individual shots lip-syncing to the song. To effectively re-create the video, we used a myriad of shots ranging from profile shots, mid-shots and wide angled shots, much to simulate the shots featured in the actual music video. Whilst changing the angle of the shots, we also had to consider the lighting position as to draw exact influence from the video; for example, for a profile shot of the lead vocalist, we situated the light in front of the performer so that the features on his face would be illuminated, casting shadows behind him. The lighting featured for the profile shot was low-key lighting, whereas the rest of the band were filmed predominantly in high-key lighting also to capture all expressions of the band members. In order to capture the right shot, there was a lot of messing around in terms of positioning the camera in order to fit each band member in frame; this process was imperative as it would make pre-production editing a lot easier.

PRACTICE & POST PRODUCTION EDITING

Once we had all of the footage that we needed in order to successfully and confidently re-create the music video for 'Seven Nation Army', we each took to 'Final Cut' (an editing software) and aptly prepared short clips in the style of the original music video. In order to re-create the video perfectly, we each went through a step-by-step process outlining the steps of editing ranging from 'keying', 'masking' to colour correction and alteration. The first steps were to overlay the video clip with a 'keyer'; a tool that selects and erases a large area of colour, which in this case, was the green screen. This process was important as it was used to isolate the band members, allowing us to transfer any image to the back of the video and in keeping with the theme of the original 'Seven Nation Army' video, we transferred different colour '.png' triangles onto the background. The reason why the triangle image had to be a '.png' file was because a file with this format, is saved with a transparent background, making post-production editing easier. Once we had 'keyed' the video clip, it was important to undertake a 'view' check in order to make sure that once the 'keyer mask' was applied, the edges surrounding the band member was as slick as it could be, and if not, we could alter it to make the clip sharper.


The second step, which in my opinion was the most important, was to adhere to the colour correcting by adding a 'Threshold' mask over the video clips. This mask allowed me to drastically change the colour in order to suit the original video colouration. In this editing step, there were two colours that we had to take into consideration, the 'light colour' and the 'dark colour', both of which essentially acted as the 'highlights' and 'lowlights/shadows'. The original colouration of the video exhibited a cyan hue, something that was easy to achieve using Final Cut. With this in mind, it was important to select a cyan colour for the highlights whilst also selecting a darker blue colour for the lowlights/shadows. With the correct colouration adhered to, I then went into change the intensity, threshold and smoothness of the mask; creating a sleeker appearance and suiting nicely to the original video.

Once the 'Threshold' mask had been applied, it was now time to move onto the 'colour mask [ing]' process. This process allowed me to target any feature that I wanted to change, keep or isolate its colour; in this case, it was the tie. Adding a colour mask to the tie allowed me to keep the original red colour, this creative technique of stark colour contrast (i.e. the cyan colouring with a bold red) was featured within the original White Stripes music video.

FINAL THOUGHTS AND IMPROVEMENTS

If I could suggest a minor, personal improvement, it would be to explore alternative ways in which I could really capture the grittiness of the original music video. Some of the clips were a little too soft with the cyan hue smoothing out the musicians far too much, so for future improvement, it would be to experiment with the harshness of the Threshold mask in order to capture the refined lines of the face, exaggerating them to fulfil a dramatic effect.

A further note, if I had the opportunity to do anything differently, I would play around with the lighting that we used to illuminate the faces of each musician, particularly the lead singer. I felt as if the lighting that we used for the singer was too bright, therefore hindering my ability to capture harsh grittiness/dark lines during the post-editing process. With this in mind, I would have had a light that was illuminated from the bottom, therefore exaggerating his facial features and casting harsh shadows, whilst also utilising a singular side light (situated either left or right).

Overall, my clips came out exactly the way that I had envisioned them. They were precise, re-worked when I didn't feel like it was good enough, and a lot of effort was put into ensuring that the clips mirrored the way that the directors, Alex and Martin, had created such a complex but visually stunning concept music video.