Music through the ages- 2010-present

Cage the Elephant- Shake me Down(2011)

This music video shows the level that storytelling and narrative can reach in a music video. The video begins with an old man waking up, and as he goes through his daily motions he relives more and more of his past experiences, finding his old base he played in as a child and gradually seeing his whole life flash before his eyes, before, at the end of the video he dies. This video really does show the level of emotion that a music video can bring. The video is more like a short film than a music video, introducing cross-media synergy and showing just how far music video's have come. The video is shot with a vast variety of shots, with extremely fast cuts that synchronise with the tempo of the music at the time, and the cuts slow down as the song slows down. The mise-on-scene is also very well done, with the man dressed in typically working class clothing, and the use of the shot underneath a duvet is good for expressing the songs meaning. Overall this video is a fantastic piece of storytelling and narrative and shows just how much can be done with a music video.

Arctic Monkeys- R U Mine?(2012)

This music video is my personal favorite "one take" music video, which is shot entirely in black and white, which is a nice touch of editing. The music video begins rather ordinarily, with two members of the band singing the song in their car, but by around half-way through the video odd occurances begin to happen, such as a group of cowgirls appear in the back of the car and an invisible man holds the camera. This clearly shows just how much planning has to go into these "one take" music videos to make it work. At the end of the video the band gets out of the car and the video turns into a standard performance for the last part of the song, a nice touch as it adds that little bit more to the video. Overall this is a great example of the "One take" and shows the fun and freedom you can have when creating a music video.

Vampire Weekend- Cousins (2010)

This music video doesn't have any real narrative to it, but it uses rhythmic editing and is very artistic. The video is set in an alleyway, with a moving platform which is used by the band members to move down or up the alley as they perform some (slightly weird) actions. Whilst still keeping the performance element of the music video the video experiments with some cool editing techniques, such as the use of the faces around half-way through, where one band member will turn around and turn into another band member. The actions performed on screen also all fit with what is happening in the song, which is something I like and want to incorporate into my music video. The band also all fit into traditional stereotypes of an "indie" band. The shots in this video are not very varied, one shot of the moving car is used for most of the video but I think this adds to the video as it makes the video simple and along with the fast cuts helps to keep the video in time with the music.