Wednesday, 24 September 2014

Analysing “Mother we share” by Chvrches

The purpose of a music video is to advertise the artist’s song or a product, however it is also seen that there can be an artistic side where the artist expresses themselves within the video, but ultimately they are still promoting the artist and their image.
Mother we share was directed by S J Lee, who has previously directed Chvrches other music videos as well. It was released on 5th of August 2013. This song is from their latest album “The bones of what you believe”.  The genre is Electronic as the instruments that they play are synths.  This music video is a narrative and performance, as it has the artists playing/singing and a lonely girl wandering around New York. The performance side of it is very typical for this artist as all of their videos include them with silhouettes and different coloured lighting in the background which is mostly blur or orange, which means that it could be seen that the video is promoting the artists and their image rather than advertising products.  This video fits in with the genre because of the lighting used as it is very unusual and different, and the narrative story helps as it’s something that you would normally see on a music video like this. The narrative story of the girl I think is quite stereotypical, because they portray teenagers as lost and weak especially girls but the story is very clichéd.
From looking at the mise-en-scene within the video it is all typical for this type of genre, as this is an non mainstream to the artist. For example the costume throughout is very dark/indie as the singer wears a leather jacket and the girl stands out from the rest of the crowd. Also the makeup for the singer is specific for her because she has winged eyeliner with spikes at the end of one eye, which makes the audience know exactly who she is. The lighting of the video is very dark as when we get to the performance side of the video we can just make out their faces, also the back lighting is very colourful which makes it look very cool which is what they are known for.  The lighting creates a sad mood as it is dark, which I think is the purpose as I think they want us to feel like the girl in the narrative part. The setting for the music video is set in New York City which is very typical for this genre to be set in the city; for example Calvin Harris - Sweet Nothing ft. Florence Welch, Bastille Pompeii, and Lorde Royals these all have a similar type of narrative that goes with the performance and are part of the same genre.
The camera work that is used in this video is very similar, for example most of the shots are mid or close ups, but in the narrative there are some wide shots which juxtapose with the close ups, as the close ups are of the girl being alone and the wide shots are of groups of people, emphasising that the girl is alone. This again is used when looking at other videos in the same genre as Royals uses close ups as the performance and wide shots for the narrative. This makes this video even more stereotypical for this genre.  Also from looking at their other music videos they use a lot of mid shots and close ups, which mean that this is something that will always be used in their videos, which is creating the band's image as they are still new artists.
The editing used makes the verses look very slow as the shots seem longer, but when the song picks up when it gets to the chorus the shots get faster only for that part. Also there are a few transitions called super imposition where they have different shots over lapping each other as you can see all three of the performers, but the two that play instruments are faded out more than the main singer. Also on the performance shots there are more flashes of other shots of the singer singing. This all adds to the artist's image because, in most of their music videos like Gun and Lies this effect is used showing that this is what they want to be known as or related to. For example in this genre The 1975 are known for having black and white videos while Chvrches will use super imposition effect. 
The lyrics of the song are very hard to understand as when you first read and hear them it sounds like it talks about incest or sibling rivalry, however at an interview one of the band members said   "A lot of people think, for obvious reasons, that the song is about a relationship between two siblings," he said. "While we are happy for people to take their own meaning from our lyrics, this wasn’t necessarily the perspective we intended. A lot of our lyrics are quite impressionistic and open-ended. This is on purpose as we don’t like to be too obvious or prescriptive."  This means that to the artists the song could be about a girl who is lost which relates to the video but for people that do not know what the song is actually about then the video doesn’t link in with the lyrics. This relates to the artists as most of their songs the listener does not know what they are honestly about which means that they are open for interpretation. Also by them not having a typical song about partying or about the opposite sex, it shows that they are alternative and not mainstream and this is what they want to be known for.
The special effects are used at the end of the video when the girl releases a light from within. This could show that there is more to her than what we can see, however as we do not know what the actual meaning of the song is we do not fully know what this part of the song means. This is very typical of the genre to have something like this at the end as, this type of artist likes to sing about a person having more to them that people do not know about or the outcast ending up being cooler than the bully, this again happens in David Guetta Titanium. This part relates to the artist as it adds to their image more of them being an electronic type of band, and it makes them known for having funky lights.
The iconography within the video shows the band to be very alternative as they do not look like any other band I have seen before. From looking at the narrative and performance it makes them look like there is nothing else to them just them and their music as the story is very simple and the performance is simple which could suggest that they think the music is more important than what is actually going on.
Overall I think that that this music video fulfils its purpose which is to promote them and their image, as all the different mise en scene, camera work, editing and the lyrics all came together as each little detail was focused on what the band wanted as artists and them portraying what they want the audience to believe that they are like. Their image is clearly shown the whole way through which is also linked to their other videos, which shows that as a new band they are still promoting themselves as what they want the audience to think as all their videos use the same techniques  in them, and as a result successfully creating their image and promoting themselves.   


No comments:

Post a Comment