Angels and Airwaves (AvA) - Video Analysis
I am analysing this music video from a known band who already have an image so that I can grow more familiar with techniques used to create a good music video. The genre that AvA come under is Neo-Space rock/ Alternative Rock. They have created a band image that casts them as something out of this world and all video and the style of music they make is on an 'epic' scale. They have a running theme of space, stars and planets in their videos but they also project themselves into a hyper-real and abstract world. Why do they promote this image? Well it's because they want to take their audience somewhere out of this world. They portray their music on a grand and universal scope showing that they are almost unreal or a band that is hyper-real; because of this image the audience expect to see something that takes them to an alternate reality.
Shot Analysis:- The first shot introduces the topic of the song and sets the theme for the rest of the clip and also gives us an insight of what the song could be about.
- The head-on shot with the members walking towards the camera creates a link with well known shows like Star-trek, Stargate, Men in Black demonstrating intertextuality.
- The band is also often shot from a distance giving the viewer a sense of a grand space.
- The shot of the earth with a bright light behind keeps in time with the music and fades to white at the point of climax.
- The singer is in frnt of a bright light to create a silhouette which makes him look almost angelic.
- A clip of the universe is regularly shown to give perspective and shows the band small compared to a vast space.
- Shots of the singer walking through large and bright landscapes allows the audience to make connection with space and earth.
- As the music slows down and the reverb of the song increases the band also start to move slowly as if floating in space.
- When the singer says 'life's waiting to begin' a pan shot of him in a bright and sunny location is related directly to the lyrics in a conceptual way as the a bright and vast landscape could symbolize life or hope.
- At 3:50 a clip of the universe zooming in could show a change of in the time-line and then that is backed up by the following clips of old wars that bring feelings of violence, despair, and pain.
- As the song starts to end the landscape he is standing in is starting to show the sun starting to set.
- The beginning of the music video shows the singer walking towards us but as the sun starts to set he is now walking away.
- The music video has a linear narrative. The final scene shows an abstract and hyper-real setting different plants in the background.
