Music Video Analysis

Blink 182-

The Rock Show

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7hhDINyBP0&ob=av2e

This music video opens with an explanation of what is going to happen in the video. Its an experimental video that sees the band being given $500,000 from their production company to make the video themselves. It sees them driving around Los Angeles getting up to all sorts of antics such as distributing money to people around the town, giving a homeless man a hair cut and a suit and taking him to a strip club, paying people to shave their hair, buying and releasing doves, paying strippers to clean a mans car, buying cars and a tv to destroy them, paying for a banner on a plane to advertise their album name and giving skateboarding gear to young skateboarders with a guest appearance from Jeremy Klein.
There are also performances from the band in various locations including a small studio, and a shopping centre.

The techniques are very basic as the main importance of the video was to see what the band could and would choose to do with the money. The mise en scene was not very thought out and is more spur of the moment. The costume and make up was not enhanced, it is all casual clothing that the band wore on the day and that applies to the people featured too. The character movements were reactions to the actions and activities that were taking place, they were not pre planned or structured. This reflects the fun carefree nature of the band.

The lighting is natural light which is aided during the shots of the band performing and any shots indoors by strobe lighting.
There are various locations used in this video such as a small studio, a shopping centre, a barbers shop and a strip club. None of these locations were enhanced or modified in any way so all of the props that were used throughout the filming were there previously.
The camera work is also very basic to focus on the concept of the video. A fish eye lens is used whilst the band are performing in the small studio to make the shot more interesting and focus on the band not the space. There are also lots of shots of the band followed by medium and long shots of the activity and the people involved. This helps you to identify and remind you the video is all the bands ideas. The majority of the shots are either eye level or low angle due to the lack of plans for the video however there are a few high angle shots when the band are performing in the shopping centre as they were capable of filming from the next level. Long shots are used when the band and the public are skateboarding and performing in order for the audience to understand the scale of what they are doing and the amount of people involved. Quick pans were also used to show the whole situation. The cameras proxemics were not crucial to this video which is obvious from the camera quality and this draws the audiences attention to the ideas and things activities taking place in the video.
Along with the non diegetic song there are diegetic sounds in the beginning of the video as the band are explaining what is about to happen, there is also the sound of the car driving off before the music begins. This informs the audience so that they understand that the video is just about having fun.
The editing is very simplistic to match the rest of the video and keep things coherent. Quick cuts are used to keep the pace and hide any camera jolts, making the video appear to be filmed a lot smoother.

The relationship between sound and image doesn’t appear to match considering the lyrics are telling us about ‘the girl at the rock show’ however the video does include ‘rock shows’ and there is the large majority of females involved in the filming so although they done appear to be directly correlated, they do compliment each other nicely. The majority of the filming doesn’t see lip syncing whilst the band is out spending their money. However the shots of the band performing show that even though most of the budget was blown on the band having fun, they do still match and aren’t out of time.

There is a reference to the Foo Fighters who are another rock band when the lead singer spits into the camera whilst performing in the studio much like Dave Grohl in the ‘Monkey Wrench’ video.

 I think the whole concept of this video is what makes it effective. Its entirely experimental and makes us as audience members feel like we are in the bands heads as we are witnessing what they would do with the money for a video and it turned out to be really successful. It’s just a fun, carefree video with a different spin on the norm.


Kristie Henry