Revision - analysis of music video

Explore how media language combines to create meaning in the music video Are we Ready by Two door cinema club. You should make reference to generic conventions, ideological perspectives, elements of narrative. 


Knee jerk reaction:
This music video uses typical conventions of music videos in the indie pop genre such as lipsyncing to appeal to a larger audience. However, it also includes unconventional elements, making it highly polysemic. 


Plan: 
barthes codes
levi-strauss 
buadrillard - postmodernism 
mise en scene
editing
sequencial/continuous narrative/ continuity editing - conventional
intertextuality - advertisements - experimental 
proairetic
heurmenutic 
polysemic 
fast paced editing 
bright colours 
shaky camera work 
deliberately low production values
montage 
ideology - consumerism 
beatmatched
lipsync
variety of camera angles 
POV 
binary oppositions 
direct mode of address 
lyrics appear on packaging 
time jumping 
challenges advert industry 
70s/80s aesthetic - retro 
costumes
backdrops 
weird & creepy 
gross 
not conventionally attractive 
makeup - prosthetics 
horror 
unconventional camera angles 
dutch tilt/ canted angle 

Introduction - 
Media language refers to conventions of the music video which construct the ideology of the producer. In this essay I shall argue the 70s aesthetic and editing style constructs stereotypical conventions of indie pop genre to encode the ideology of the producer and appeal to their target audience. I shall also argue that this music video includes many unconventional elements also, which creates polysemy. 

Media language refers to the building blocks of media products, and the various techniques that producers use to encode their ideology. In this essay, I shall argue the video Are We Ready uses genre conventions in both conventional and atypical ways, in order to construct a confusing and exciting mode of address for the target audience - better

Content - 

This video consistently uses an unconventional and highly direct mode of address, deliberately making the target audience uncomfortable. This is achieved through these of highly confrontational direct mode of address, and is further anchored and reinforced through intimidating and creepy fake smiles that the performers use throughout. Additionally, a filter has been applied in post production to blue and soften the skins of the performers, and makeup has been used to construct a binary opposition between pale sickly skin and yellow teeth.

The video is also unconventional through the highly atypical representation of its male performers. Far from being stereotypically, hegemonically attractive, the performers are augmented through hair and makeup to look both physically unattractive and even unwell. This, in combination with the mES of the drugs and the use of sickening canted angles represent the damaging and dangerous side effects caused by the products being sold. This constructs a potentially controversial and even anti-capitalist ideology. 

Presents a satirical and subversive attack on consumerism. 

Onscreen graphics repeat the lyrics of the song in an intertextual reference to the advertising industry. This encodes through mise en scene the ideology that adverts present disingenuous and fake mode of address, which is highly manipulative of audiences. This is further anchored and reinforced through dangerous and addictive products such as cigarettes, chocolate, medication and alcohol 

Another way .... through the use of 70s iconography. A range of this is used, including jumpcuts, and a very straightforward, even jerky editing. This, along with the shabby, cheap looking MES of the setting cronstructs a video with deliberately low production values. This of course serves to make the video even more unconventional, which allows it to target an even larger audience. This is a classic example of Neal's repetition and difference theory, where some elements are repeated and others are changed in order to appeal to audiences . 

The point of view angle from the box is another unconventional aspect of this music video

The video uses the generic conventions of an indiepop video through the lipsyncing 

with the performers staring and smiling with their teeth at the camera. The mise en scene of their disingenuous smiles intimidates the audience, making an intertextual reference to the type of adverts they are replicating, that tend to be unnerving and creepy, 

cowboy hat - why not, adds interest - post modernism


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