Textual analysis of 3 music videos

Forms and Conventions
The first video is quite a traditional band and therefore you expect quite a normal and safe video such as a lot of band shots and a big feature of the lead singer. We see this in a lot of band videos and even other videos of this band. The band decides to use a puppet for the entire video. This is quite surprising for a band such as this. The video is showing an aftermath of a car crash with a puppet taking place for a human.

The second video starts off as with what appears to be a recording studio and then develops as the video continues. We see a focus of the boy and the girl and then the development of the rest of the ban for example the orchestra playing violins etc in the background. the video then appears to to be on a stage. The lights begin to change and the camera zooms out from the stage showing the actually performing live to a large theater. the band use a really interesting technique where they focus on someone in the crowd who turns out to be the lead singer who is the only person signing in a completely static audience.

The third is a strange video as it does not seem to match either the speed or tempo of the song. We see various extreme sport such as canyoning and also things like firing fireworkds off the back of a truck. The band is very alternative and indie so we expect something quite strange, making you think and make you question the idea. This however is quite simple and is just some young people enjoying themselves.

Representation

You could argue that the 1st video is exhibitionism are invited to look at the character, not in a sexual way however you are still shown the character at a very dramatic and personal time. The character has invited you in not to be attracted to them but instead to feel sorry for them.

It is hard to find any strong representation in this video the lead singer is not really sexualised or exhibiting herself as she is just performing a regular gig. You could argue that there is a hint of male gaze the woman is shown constantly throughout the video and being an attractive woman we see a lot of panning shots of her which can represent male gaze.

In the final video, Left Hand Free we see a demonstration of both male and female gaze. We see a lot of both sex's in swimwear as they do not know we are looking at them and they are sexualised we can clearly see that they have been sexualised by the video director.

Audience

The band fans will be interested and then again quite surprised by the video. The average band age fan is probably around 30 this means that perhaps the video will not be especially popular. This age market will not be too bothered about music videos and choose t listen to their music on ipods for example it seems a bit of a waste of their time to watch and find the video. It will be more important to the audience for the audio to be better than having an especially good music video. This is a result of being proper music fans and not listening to high budget mainstream music.

The band have recently become popular and have been quite well advertised due to having a lot of money put behind the album this is quite surprising for this type of band as it is not a particularly mainstream or generated sound. It is very much focused around the voice of the lead singer. The audience targeted by this video would be indie music fans. i like the video due to the technique of turning what looks like a studio recording to what looks like a west-end theater. Fans of this new band will be very impressed by the video, i would imagine.

Alt-J have become very popular amongst music fans with having a lot of success with their first album "An Awesome Wave" and recently releasing their new album "This Is All Yours" . The band will of created a strong fan base which will generate success for the new album this audience of Alt-J fans and indie/alternative music fans.

Institution

They are all popular videos which means they will have a varied but relatively large budget. They are difficult for various reasons. The Interpol video would have been difficult to film as it is all animation so would have taken a lot of shots and re-filming in order to complete it. Animations take a long time to complete so therefor will cost a lot of money as it is quite a desired skill to have to have strong animation for the film. London Grammar's video would only have been expensive to create that theater and live feeling for the song. For them to do this would also have been an editing dilemma. The stage is set and looks expensive so the facilities are most probably quite expensive. However as I previously explained the band got a strong financial backing which means that they can afford to be quite extravagant in their music video production and create interesting videos such as this. The Alt-J video is most probably the lowest cost production. The equipment required is not of any great expense and in essence the video is just some young people having a good time in water and driving cars. Nothing of which is of real high risk or great cost to the band.