The Killers - Read My Mind

This music video has no real significant narrative, only mini, sometimes comedic, scenarios in inner city Tokyo. For example, scenes of a large green costumed character with no connotations to the video whatsoever. The video begins with an establishing shot of the city, moving to a mid shot of Brandon Flowers himself, and a four shot of the Killers. The scene cuts in the video are short, and in time with the actual song, changing scenes frequently between the mini narratives, which total to around eight or nine. Music videos of this genre typically represent performances with narratives synchronized around them, and many close shots of the band members, with longer performance shots of the band. This video doesn’t really explore a lot of performance throughout, although it doesn’t lack performance enough to express itself as an exception to the general rule. The lighting is bright and technical, fairly in-keep with the connotations Tokyo and Japan. The protagonists of the video are the band members, and few other actors are shown. The mise en scene of the video consists of the band members wearing typical Western suits, and riding bicycles designed in America. This, possibly, is to represent the band as Americans in a foreign country. Written by Sam

Arctic Monkeys - Suck it and See

“Suck it and See” incorporates a simplistic illustrative narrative, of a couple that are evidently in love with each other but constantly fight, both verbally and physically. This is connoted by quite intense close up shots of intimate and aggressive moments. These shots help express the fiery relationship. The genre of the video is Alternative/indie rock and stereotypical elements of this genre are exhibited through mise en scene of the video. For example, ‘Rock and Roll’ can usually connote leather, bikers etc, which is the narrative in this video. The protagonist is a biker and his partner in the video is the typical ‘biker’s girlfriend’. Although, in general, videos of this typical genre usually portray an illustrative music video, being that they usually just show a performance with minimal narrative. Although, this video shows no performance of the band itself, and only shows one band member throughout the entire narrative, as the main actor in the video is Matt Helders, the drummer of the band. In terms of editing, the video is regularly switching from close up intimate scenes to wide shots of the biker gang, both on bikes and communal scenes. Although scene switches do not keep to every beat of the song, when they do switch, it is always in time with the song. The lighting is generally quite natural, as the majority of scenes are outside. For the few indoor scenes, the lighting is quite dim, insinuating intimacy. Written by Sam