Kasabian- Fire Music Video Analysis

• The start of the music video has a repeating beat which Andrew Goodwin states to make a song more memorable to the audience listening to it.
• When the lead singer begins to sing we can tell that the sound of his voice has been edited so that there is an echo in the background, maybe setting the feel for the rest of the music video.
• The tempo of the song is steady at the start, the time signature being the standard 4,4 structure. During the verse of the song, the tempo is quite slow, with the same beat being played on a loop. Then when the chorus starts the tempo speeds up by quite a bit and the song kicks in.
• We can tell where the music video is set almost straight away because of the clothes in which are worn by the band members. The video is set in western America and this is shown by the cowboy hats, neck chiefs and other clothing which was typical to the 19th and 20th western American style.
• Towards the end of the verse, the lyrics begin to build up and we know that the chorus is approaching when the volume of the singer’s voice becomes more full and louder and elongated.
• When the chorus begins the music becomes livelier and the setting changes to a bank CCTV scene, we know that it is CCTV footage from the black and white effect shown and the time stamp at the bottom of the screen later on in the chorus.
• We later find out that it is a bank robbery that is being held, typical of the western American culture at the time.
• The band members are seen holding guitars suggesting they are to be played but they actually represent guns. This is seen as they are held as guns and bullets and gunfire are seen coming out of the neck later on in the music video
• All the editing done in this video is all edited on the beat with slower shots during the verses and more fast paced action shots during the chorus. In the chorus, there are several cameras set up in the bank, and this is shown by the different angles that are used during the chorus and the bank robbery setting.
• During the second verse, most of it is focused on the lead singer’s face and is one of the only shot for the majority of the verse. In this we see the lead singing lip syncing the lyrics and this is a typical trait seen in other music videos during the narrative.
• We then return back to the bank robbery setting when the chorus starts again but this time it cuts away to a group of policemen that are outside, maybe running to the scene of the crime.
• As soon as the chorus finishes into the bridge of the song, the colour immediately comes back and we see the band members all together in the back of the bank, one is clearly injured. The shots are still fast and are not really edited on the beat during this bit.
• The music video has now progressed into a getaway scene typical again of a western American bank robbery scene, the chorus is playing again showing a great use of repetition but this time it is in colour.
• Typical shootout is seen, Filmed in slow motion.
• Short shots of people that have been wounded and killed during combat, showing that the hero has prevailed, referring to propp’s theory.
• Band member throws bag of money, money is actually music sheets but these clearly symbolise money, shot of music sheets on floor seen at start of video but did not know the importance at the start.
• Goes back in time, to just before the robbery takes place, video shows what will happen, giving a stronger impact on the video.
Camera Shots and Editing
• Establishing shot of setting, band member entering from the left of shot
• Medium shot of band member’s reflection in window, possibly the lead singer
• Close up of other band member, panning up from tooth pick to face
• Cut back to lead singing again same shot as before
• Shot to other band member, close up of face
• High angle shot of sheets of paper sweeping across the floor, might be of importance?
• Zoom out of sheets coming from brown bag
• Cut back to lead singer in reflection, a bit closer this time though, mainly focused on reflection
• Tracking shot, coming from car, this is clear because we can see the window frames, possibly point of view shot of person in car?
• Cut to medium/close up shot of man in car, with man walking in the window reflection on the left, rule of thirds.
• Extreme close up of man in cars face, tattoo of music note under the eye
• Cut back to lead singer in the reflection of window, shot is longer this time, with man turning around
• Cut to second man seen in music video, beginning to move as chorus begins to set in
• Long shot of second man walking
• Cut back again to lead singer this time facing away from the reflection
• Medium tracking shot, panning upwards of third man holding briefcase

Andrew Goodwin’s Theory:
In the music video fire by kasabian the tempo varies throughout, the verses being quite slow and then when the chorus begins the tempo of the song speeds up my quite a margin. Andrew Goodwin says that the tempo of popular music is very clearly and directly represented in music video clips. This is shown in Fire because during the verse the tempo is slow and therefore so is the camera edits and movements. This is paralleled in the chorus though as the music is a lot more fast paced therefore making the camera shots and movements a lot faster. The editing is done by the lyrics, when one line of lyrics finishes it cuts to another shot, another thing Andrew Goodwin says, showing the importance of the vocal. The music video is shown in two contrasting ways, showing a harmonic development which is visually represented in the music video. During the verse, it features the band members walking or standing all calm and collected and then in the chorus the effects change to black and white and it becomes more action packed with a bank robbery taking place. We know when the music video is coming to an end when the music begins to fade and a spoken voice is heard over the top of the music, Andrew Goodwin says we know when a video is ending visually, musically and lyrically.

Props

For our music video, we used a range of props. Our main prop was the cowboy hat that Tom wears throughout the video. This fits in with the western culture as it is typical to see a cowboy with a cowboy hat. We also used a stool, that we all sit on during the music video. We thought that this was suitable because a plastic chair wouldn't suit as well, as we found out from our digipack design. We used 3 guitars for our music video. Tom is seen holding a guitar during the video, as we thought that this was typical to the western culture and most country/western singers played guitar. We used two other guitars for me and Sam, to give a bit of variety to the video. I used a normal acoustic guitar, also seen on the digipack and Sam used an electric bass guitar. Tom also had a broom that he used to sweep the drama studio floor. We picked this after we listened to the lyrics of the song and thought it would fit in well if part of the narrative involved Tom sweeping.

Digipack design

We created a Digipack for our music video, that also accompanies the poster. i have researched into other existing digipacks and found that the cover of the album almost always links in with the music video and poster.

The front of the digipack features a guitar leaning up against a chair. It has a spotlight shining over it, just like the spotlight shines over tom in the music video. On the back of the cover features a blue, old looking door which i think fits well with the music video and the genre of music. The blue door is seen in the music video so there is clear synergy between the music video and the digipack. The songs for the album are shown next to the blue door against a wall. I considered this when i took the photo of the blue door because it would suit well if the songs could be seen visibly against a different colour to the door.

On the inside of the digipack features a guitar hole where the CD is meant to be held. I thought this would be a good idea because the hole is round so its clear that the CD is meant to fit there. Opposite the photo of the guitar hole is a picture of Tom. Tom is wearing the same clothes as he was in the music video so this links in well in terms of synergy. This is also the same picture that we have used for the poster so this also links in. I think that this digipack fits in well with the music video because i have considered what would look good in terms of the genre.

Poster Design

We have designed a promotional poster for our music video, that will hopefully draw in people to want to buy out album. We looked into existing posters for music videos and albums and from this we put together what we thought would make a good poster.
The poster features tom leaning up against a wall and then there is relevant information to the album/song release. I chose to use Corel photo paint and Corel draw for the design of my poster. I started off in corel photo paint where i imported the picture we took using the still camera into he program. From here i cropped the photo so that it would fit the page and then i went into effects and played around with the lighting and colour. Because our music video is in the western theme, we chose a yellow tint for the photo to try and fit the genre of music. I then imported the edited version into Corel draw where i then added text. I chose to use a font that looked similar to western style writing because it would fit in with the genre.

Setting

For our music video we need a large space that can be darkened by a significant amount. We will be using a spotlight in a dark room to just lighten one spot. We also need an open space so that tom can sweep across a floor.
We have chose the drama studio for this because it has an open space and it is suitbale for what we want to do. There is a raised area which will be good to get an aerial view of whats going on and we can use this to our advantage.

initial designs- Shots

Shot#1- High angle of Tom lip syncing
Shot#2- medium shot of Tom lip syncing
Shot#3- Side view, medium shot of Tom lip syncing first line of song
Shot#4- Opposite side view, medium shot of Tom lipsyncing second line of song
Shot#5- Close up shot of dj decks found in music department, black and white
Shot#6- Start of narrative, Tom sweeps floor, low angle shot
Shot#7- Tom spins brush around and pretends to play guitar, low angle shot
Shot#8- Tom begins to walk towards doors in urgency,Tom throws broom to one side and opens door, low angle shot, close up
Shot#9- Medium shot of Tom standing outside door frame, lip syncing last two lines and then walks off.

Costume

We have carewfully considered costume for this music video. We have decided that Tom should be wearing a cowboy hat for the video because we think it will fit in with the genre well and is suitable for the video. We have also decided on Tom wearing a checkered shirt to get more of a feel for western culture and style. He will also be wearing jeans which is quite typical of the modern western culture of today. Footwear has been a bit of a problem though because we dont own a pair of boots/cowboy boots so we have had to make do with standard trainers. In future we will probably consider costume a bit more because we will have more time to do so and make it look a lot more professional.