Monday, January 25, 2016

Music Video Analysis




For my music video of choice, I decided to go with one of my favorite songs, One by Metallica. Looking back at this video, it is definitely a narrative. This song was written about a movie called "Johnny get your gun". The lyrics follow a character who was a soldier and had his arms, legs, sight, and hearing taken away from a land-mine.

"Landmine Has Taken My Sight
Taken My Speech
Taken My Hearing
Taken My Arms
Taken My Legs"

The song follows this sullen theme, by being void of almost all colors. The camera shots placed at the musicians are very dark. They are placed within what seems to be an abandoned warehouse, and most of time you can barely see their faces. The camera has a grayish almost blue tint to it, that makes it seem old, further adding to the melancholy feel of the story. Many of the elements such as color, light, and rhythm stay very consistent throughout much of the song. The first 4 minutes are very slow and almost calm. Many of the camera shots and transitions are smooth. However, around the 5 minute mark, the song picks up considerably. The camera shots become quicker and sporadic, in addition to musicians thrashing around. Around this time seems to be the key moment of the music video, as at 4:43 the bomb hits where the solider stands. And like stated earlier, the entire rhythm of the song and video erupts into chaos. Following this eruption a a crazy guitar solo begins and continues with the theme chaos. The insanity continues one for a little while until the songs abruptly ends with a scene of the solider's bed empty, continuing on with a shot of a group of people singing some kind of religious hmm. Perhaps insinuating the solider had died. Overall, by combing all these various elements, this video perfectly displays a world of loneliness and alienation.

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