Micro Analysis - Music Video.

This is Bittersweet Symphoney by The Verve. Like my song it has a slow rythmical pace making it perfect for a video that invloves alot of walking.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zx3m4e45bTo

The video begins with the musical introduction playing straight away, probably due to it being so long so the camera has enough time to set the scene, zooming away from Richard Ashcroft’s (lead singer of The Verve) feet until he stands in the centre of a high-street. As the rhythm of the song picks up he begins to walk towards the camera, the camera which appears to be handheld tracks backwards away from Ashcroft maintaining an unsteady wide shot. What is particularly interesting is how the public dominate the pavement don’t appear to gather around the camera but simply continue their lives around Ashcroft as he cuts his path straight down the middle, regardless of people or trolley-bags. This is extremely evident when Ashcroft barges between two women in conversation causing them to both look back over their shoulders in surprise and anger.

The camera does change angle to be behind the singer every so often to allow the audience to view what is in front of Ashcroft but often cuts back to tracking backwards to allow for more close-ups of the singers face, the camera having jumped between wide, mid and close up shots as the audience grow more towards liking the star. My two favourite camera angles from the video are when the camera is extremely low to the floor tracking Ashcroft’s feet through the crowd as this gives a real sense of how crowded the pavement is. My second favourite shot from the video is the point of view angle, particularly when he steps over the woman’s car and she gets out to scream in his face, especially as you see her get out the car from over his shoulder and run up to him before you cut to the POV shot and she lets loose her anger.

There isn’t a great deal to be said about the editing in the video as it appears to be mostly one long take although it is broken down by the other shots such as close ups and wide, POV and close up shots which I mentioned earlier by the ordinary simple cut.