A2 Music Video Exemplars

Take a look at some other A2 music videos on Youtube and post them on a blog post (along with the ones I posted for you to check out yesterday). Write a paragraph under each one with some thoughts about what impressed you about them. What did you like? What did you not like? What techniques did you notice that you'd like to try? 

Ed Sheeran - Photograph:

The music video the students made for Ed Sheeran's song, 'Photograph' carefully creates meaning in such a way that provides meaning and a background that the artist would have intended it to be interpreted as. In the video we see an older man living by himself and looking over old photos from when he was younger and in love. The use of different colours to represent the past and the present is clearly portrayed as the camera shots with the older man shows more dull and lifeless colours, which helps the audience understand that perhaps without love, life has less meaning. In the shots with the couple, young and in love, the colours are more vibrant which can show the life and childish innocence of young love. 

I liked how they put videos into the photograph rather than just a still photo that the man is looking at, but rather shows that he is almost reliving the memories, and this is emphasised when we see him go to revisit the places that he once went to when he was just a kid. The song in itself has a sort of melancholic undertone which the students incorporated into their video by having shots of the older man visiting the grave/memorial stone of his girlfriend/wife who has clearly passed away and shows just how easily love can be lost and found.

I also liked seeing the contrast of switching back and forth from the couple to showing him by himself, as seen in the bridge, and how at 3:53min when it has the quick shots switching back and forth between the two times: then and now.

Last I Heard - Thom Yorke

The music video for this song has been really well made. I really enjoyed the establishing shots of the girl waking up in the forest as it used a drone slowly circling around and zooming in to focus on her. It sort of reminds me of how a crow would circle its prey or someone stranded in a desert as they wake up without a clue as to how they got there. The contrast between the man and woman of the dark and light clothing that they are wearing is representative of the good and evil in the world, and links closely to the lyrics of the song: 'Swallowed up by the city' and 'Trying hard to leave', and several shots appear to be as if life is trying to take something from the woman, providing her with distractions that appear to have deadly and dangerous repercussions.