Music Video analysis

I Don’t Feel Like Dancing – Scissor Sisters.

The video we will be analyzing will be ‘I don’t feel like dancing’ by the Scissor Sisters. The genre to this video is pop/dance, we have chosen this video to analyze as it is a similar genre to ‘Fire with fire’ and this is the song we will be creating a music video to. The length of this music video is 4:22 seconds.

Performance

Firstly the music video ‘I Don’t Feel Like Dancing’ is mainly performance however it does have aspects of narrative running throughout. The performance is demonstrated through the use of green screen, and special effects, such as from the beginning of the music video right through to the end there are various shots that continue to overlap each other, these shots are juxtapose against each other as they are all different from each other and don’t relate. This creates an interesting yet confusing experience for the viewer. There is no repetition of shots throughout the video, which keeps the audience attention.

Narrative categories

There is a narrative aspect as the lyrics of the song talk about dancing and the performers are dancing. The amplification and disjuncture shows that the backgrounds that were used in the music video have no direct link to the lyrics. However this creates a unique interpretation of the song, as it has unusual and bizarre ideas, which makes it quite surreal capturing the audience attention.

An example of this from the time 3.28 to 3.34 there is a shot of a woman screaming at a man with a plain background. While thought the rest of the video the shots are very abstract

Audio/visual

There are various camera shots used in the video from beginning to end there was a total of 102 shots. All of theses shots were merged together with the use of video-editing software. The very first shot is a medium panning shot of a young boy looking at a poster on the wall, (which later turns into singing heads) this lasts from 0.00 to 0.05. Another example of a shot that was used an extreme long shot, (ELS) of the main singer this lasted from 0.31 to 0.43. The final shot that was used was a medium zoom out shot to a child watching the music video being played this lasted from 4.11 to 4.15.

Editing

The editing in the video is extreme as through out the video there is some sort of editing. E.g. People rotating in mid air and others moving across the screen in a way that wouldn’t be possible without the use of green screen. The background always changes but the editing of it is seamless. There is no jump cuts from scene to scene. However the shots seem to flow to the next. The editing move quite fast as the scene don’t last very long this mean the audience have to keep watching otherwise they’ll miss something. This may have been done purposely by the director so the audience keeps their interest in the video.

Lighting

The lighting changes throughout the video, because in the beginning the lighting is high key and the colour is very saturated. Although in other parts of the video the lighting is low key and the colour is slightly muted. The lighting effects in this video enhance the atmosphere as the use of special effects (such as the flashing lights) indicates a change in the beat of the music.

Mise-en-scene

The main performer is wearing a bright purple leather jumpsuit throughout the entire song, which helps him stand out from everyone else, as everyone else was wearing other fabrics such as cotton. This ‘out there’ costumes helps the viewer to identify his as the lead singer. This is the norm for pop videos as the main performer wears the more outrageous clothes. None of the music video was shot on location and so the mise en scene for the setting is very restricted, however the use of green screen aids the sensation of different locations.

here is the original music video.

http://www.muzu.tv/scissorsisters/i-dont-feel-like-dancin-music-video/196929