Example kickstart 9bar remix analagy

The video I’m going to analyse isn’t a particularly ground breaking or spectacular but I liked it. It is a Dubstep (a genre based on instrumentals and some samples are used to remix the track) I’m going to look at the video to look at is Example – Kickstars (9bar remix).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ks0P1u6-OUY

This music video has a narrative and it starts off with a dolly shot as the intro to the song starts. It shows a scenery that seems American, probably to be more identifiable to American audiences. A lens flare in the background impairs the shot slightly as we are shown only the top of the fence in shallow focus and a man is walking behind. In the next shot we establish a main character.

This is not the artist ‘Example’ nor ‘9 bar’, so already a convention of the artist is subverted.

As the intro is slow, the footage is in slow motion and has no particular action. The next shot is out of focus to give a sense of no hard substance. The editor uses some cross fades to make the cuts flow with the music as there is no beat to the melody yet.

An over the shoulder shot reveals a female character and we assume by the looks on both their faces that they are in a relationship or both close to each other.

After this shot reverse shot we are shown her smile as he puts his hand under her chin. We know they are both in love. The boy girl convention, falling in love is shown here, it’s a cliché in song lyrics and themes to have a boy and a girl in love, but it is effective and works well, that’s why it is used so much.

When the beat drops the editing style changes to suit the up tempo beat as robbers all masked with tights enter and attack the couple in a montage with sharp cuts on beat with the music. Adding a conflict to keep the attention of the audience

The story progresses as the man defends his woman and beats up the thugs and runs out the door holding her hand. A picture is shown for a second to show the two have a past together adding a bit of depth to the characters and a back story.

At the hook the music slows slightly, and the protagonists pause as the woman puts her shoes on. This ties in with the music.

As the beat drops again, hand held camera conotates the panic they are in as more thugs come and chase the couple. The lense flare shows sunset and the golden tint of lighting is contemporary and used in modern photography. Also the vintage look is used to stylize the look of the video

At 1:54 the action stops and the body language shows the argument between the couple in slow motion and jump cuts pace it up in beat with the music.

Later in the narrative we cut to night time in an elliptical edit. And the thugs are searching for the two and regrouping.

Most of the video used a shallow depth of field and allot of lens flare. My only complaint is that the editing is lazy, if they were going to edit on beat they could have done it better and more consistently with exceptions to the shots that are held for effect.

The lighting switched to a low key lighting as night in a park is shown while more tungsten lights fare used in the city scenes to show the light from street lamps.

The shots are juxtaposed to create sorrow for the couple and fear from the thugs. Whilst showing the love that has ‘kickstarted’. This concept has come from the lyrics but the narrative and storyline is origonal.

Images of the couple falling in love are shown in the day and this coonects to the lyrics and the mood as the scene is calm.

“as i look into your eye i imagine life without ya’”

And as the beat dropped again we see out of focus a thug chase after them and the action kickstarts again.

A climactic fight occurs in the same editing style throughout the drops in montage, the song also comes to a climax and the protagonists come out triumphant, closing the video and concluding it.