A Short Analysis Of A Music Video

Paramore – Misery Business

The song is basically about being free from peoples control and doing what you want, so in the video
It is mostly filmed at a high school, where a girl in a blue dress who is wearing heavy makeup looks as if she rules the school. This girl in the video will do things like pushes people to the ground, cuts off a girl's hair, etc. The actual Band ‘Paramore’ are mainly seen performing in a separate location until near the end of the video when they stop the girl in her tracks and make her feel like the small one and not the one in control.

In the Video there are many shots used in this video such as:
- Close Up – There are many close up shots of Hayley Williams who is the band lead singer, which are mainly when she is performing in a separate location to the school.
There are also close ups of the bully when she is bullying her victims to show her reactions which are smiles/laughter.
And also shots of her victim’s reactions faces which show sadness/pain/humiliation.
-Tracking – Shots are used when the bully enters the school and she is walking past all the other pupils as if she is boss
-High Angle/Low Angle – High Angle is used when the bully enters the school to make her look bigger then everyone else, and to show who is in charge.
Low Angle is used in situations when one of the pupils is in pain and made to look like the week one i.e. when the boy with the broken arm is bushed into a wall and falls on the ground.
-Pan – This is also used with the low and high angle shots method, because at the end of the video when the bully is made to look like the victim at pans up above the bully to make her look like the small and weak one.

There are many cuts and transitions used in this music video, Switching from one shot to another and switching between the two locations. Many of the cuts are used at the time of the beat to make a sort of pattern. An none of the shots used last no longer then 5 seconds, which keeps up with the fast pace of music.

Below are some shots from the music video.

Initial Planning Meeting

In our last few lessons we have been observing many different music videos of different music types. We have had a several ideas over the last three weeks, such as:

- Rhianna - Disturbia

- Lilly Allen - Smile

- Alicia Keys - No One

- Rhianna ft. Ne-Yo - Hate That I Love You

- Brandy Ft. Monica - The Boy Is Mine

All out group have analyzed these song and produced different ideas which may go well with the video.

After much consideration we have chosen to do 'Brandy Ft. Monica - The Boy Is Mine'. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Va1Y6uAgNJY)

This is because all for members can have a main role in the making:

- Alex - performer

- Kathryn - performer

- Rebecca - filming

- Eugene - filming/editing/performer

However we will all allow each to switch and try out different roles.

Also the song we have chosen has a story to follow, also it is a simple song to elaborate on, however we are not going to copy the video instead we are going to follow the story line and make more of a fun video.

We have begun giving a main idea to focus on for the video which is going to be about two girls competing together for a certain boy, so the boy is going to judge the girls like in a dating show i.e. best dresser, best cook and so on.

Plans:

idea 1- Our first idea of the opening scene was to begin the sequence with parallel cuts to kathryn and alex walking, their is a trend of fast cuts to them walking, and this technique speeds up as they get closer and closer to each other, we use a two shot to show them bump into each other. Soon after this shot we were thinking to use a transition of a blank screen with "stage one"in the center screen.

idea 2- We changed our minds over and over about how we would begin our music video, our second idea was to begin the sequence with a text to alex and kathryn from eugene asking them to meet him at the theatre, so they both set of, this is were we see the split screen of them both walking in separate locations, we thought we would use the two shot of them bumping into each other we they would push each other to see who would get to the theatre first or we thought of transition shot and POV's of them walking through the door. After this scene we thought to convey a long shot of alex and kathryn seating on two chairs with me writing "how to get me" on some type of smart board.

idea 3- Our third idea was begin the scene with eugene behind the green screen, his there in a black background and his got two thinking bubbles beside his he's head, one video has kathryn singing one of the verses from the song, then the other bubble has alex singing the second part of the verse to the song. After this scene we were thinking

The problem we had was planning the opening scene otherwise we had solid ideas of how our video would turn out.

idea 4- We are planning to use the same girl as two diffrent characters by using split screen.