One of my favourite music video’s I’ve seen is for Groove Armada’s song Paper Romance
Not my usual taste in music, however I enjoyed the video so much it stuck in my head. The use of the muted colour scheme and fluorescent lighting in the late night environment created a gritty, seedy aesthetic that was as sad it was beautiful in it’s own way. The central figure begins crying in her apartment before putting on clothes and heading out into the city. Her behaviour and style suggests drugs but that could be presumptuous. The use of cutaways to store owners and other various people holding bland expressions aids with development of the environment. Eventually, after the breakdown in the supermarket, she find her way to the bar. In the bar the band is performing. As this weeks reading by Vernallis discussed often the inclusion of the performing band can take away from the audiences perception of the focus of the music video if it does not centre around the band, which this video does not. However, the way in which the band is included in this particular video injects them seamlessly into the established setting. While the band engage in their high-energy, karaoke style performance the central figure dances, smiling for the first time. The video cuts between shots of her, patrons at the bar who maintain a mannequin-like stillness, and close-ups of the band.
To me one of the most appealing factors of music video’s is the lack of wasted shots. Often with regular feature films there tends to be a lot of shot’s included only to display what is happening in the narrative, as opposed to music videos which don’t require this and can focus on creating artistic shots that exist largely for their visual merit.
