Music Video Analysis- The Maccabees- First Love

The Maccabees are a current established indie band. Their music is very artistic and conforms lots to the indie genre.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6A1xu0BSs2s&feature=fvst
Sorry i cannot put this video on the blog- video blocked by request.

The first scene is a powerful image of a women lying on her own very straight and formally dressed. This creates a feeling of loneliness, this connotates with the sing as the song is talking of first love, its all about the emotions you would feel in your first love. The images used are really effective in helping give meaning to the song and narrative. Where it shows the man sitting on a stool on his own next to some lockers, I feel as though this is effective because he is not in the middle of the camera shot. He is sitting to the right and the camera doesn’t seem to focus on him. This gives off a vibe that he is not important because the shot doesn’t show him getting any attention, which could relate to the narrative and suggests this is what his relationship consists of. It then moves onto a really artistic mid shot/ close up of this bloke lying down drawing around himself with chalk on a concrete floor. This is really artistic and is not usually seen in a music video therefore making it interesting for the audience. There are numerous strange images which would be seen as weird to the public for example there is a bloke stroking his car bonnet. This could link to the lyrics because he says “Do you miss home”. There is also a women holding a mug this could connotate to those lyrics because a cup of tea or a mug is seen as quite a homely thing, therefore it links to the lyrics.

 There are lots of fast cuts of different people reactions to a relationship, however all these people display the indie image and look like everyday people too. They all look sad which displays the meaning of the song. All of the cuts are perfectly timed with the beat; I think that we should do that with our video because it helps keep the video interesting and fresh. By doing this it means the video will flow and enables both a narrative and the band to play on the same video. This video is very strange because it shows lots of different characters doing odd things for example a guy puts lipstick on his hand and kisses his hand. By doing this it suggests he is lonely and could be looking for love in his life.



This video contains lots of close-ups of faces, by doing this it creates a relationship with the audience through eye contact. By doing this it could lead to more focus and passion from the fans. It then moves to a close up on his shoes, this shows through mise en scene what he is wearing. He can reach out to his fans by what he is wearing as he could become an icon. This also makes the video seem really simplistic.
There are lots of hidden messages in this video through use of props and certain images. For example there is a woman trying to put puzzle pieces together. This has connotations of a relationship not working because the pieces don’t fit together. I think things like this would be good in our video, as it helps divide the singing parts. And can link all the narratives together.
The setting of this video is based throughout houses, which is clever, as this helps the video to be produced cheaply. The lighting throughout this video is usually natural lighting as seen in the image above.