Analysis of past student videos

2006 - Group 1 (Deja Vu, Love Machine)



Watching past student work has helped us appreciate the potential we could achieve and has helped us clearly pinpoint the application of music video theories and conventions.

This video was produced last year by Latymer Students Bruno, Matt, Harry and Francis and uses the track 'love machine'. The video is purely narrative based (there is no performance throughout), and creates a story which illustrates the lyrics but in a twisted, almost too literal kind of way. The lyrics talk of a 'love machine', so the boys literally created a love machine, or robot, which helps the geek get the girl. The video uses comedy to keep the audience's attention, beginning with a prologue in black and white, mocking the old silent movies, immediately suggesting that the band don't take themselves too seriously, and are there to entertain.

As the main body of the video begins, the boys have effectively established the characters with the use of the camera. They use lots of CU movement shots around the geek to help us relate to him, and see things from his perspective, but also use OTS shots of the robot and CUs of his eyes to establish how we are meant to view the geek, and see the robot as a cool, heroic figure. They then use POV shots from the geek when the narrative first presents Hannah, the use of seeing her from Harry's eyes allowing the audience to understand that she is the 'love interest'.

The video conforms to convention in the sense that it tries to maintain a visual hook throughout the narrative. This video in fact uses two visual hooks, the first being the ECU of the robot's eyes as it changes expression from happiness to anger, and the second being the love interest character slapping the geek who tries it on with her. The repetition of both of these shots creates comedy for the audience, and makes us want to keep watching, as it holds our attention.

However, I felt that from watching the video from a student perspective there was not a huge range of camera angles, and the use of more effective and sustained lighting could have created a greater atmosphere, and a greater sense of professionalism. Furthermore, with the focus being purely on narrative it meant that there is no sense of who the band actually is - nonetheless, it does give a sense of what they are like, and what their interests are.