Technical Analysis. (SaAd!!)

The video I have decided to analyse is 'sing' by Travis. I have chosen this because it is a light hearted, playful and charismatic example of disjuncture. (The sing is about singing to cheer yourself up.) The video basically involves the band appearing at a posh, high-brow dinner party and end up starting a food fight due to their immature attitude. The camera angles and camera movement used in the video is key in establishing the video's playfulness and the band's humor.

The only performance shots are in a T.V in the video and in this performance, the focus is very much on the music - meat shots, CUs of the instruments, etc.

At the start of the video, the band members are on bikes and look extremely immature. The scene requires several tracking shots alongside their bikes and a couple from in front of them and behind them. The use of CUs of their feet pedalling and the wheels allows the audience to see that they are too big for the bikes and creates humour. A couple of MCUs are used in this scene and show the band members are wearing suits, which contrasts with the fact that they are on bikes, again making it seem playful and funny. There is one CU of the lead singers face revealing a childish smile to establish his star persona. There is also one ped-up shot of the lead singer to really establish that he is too big for his bike.

Several of the shots of the lead singer show other band members in the background smiling and walking together. This is used to give the band a sense of togetherness and represent them as a tigh-knitted team. When the band first enter this huge house, an LS is used from the top of a big spiral staircase to show them entering the landing. This shows another contrast between them and their sorrounding. Also, it creates a panoramic view to make the landing seem even bigger than it is. The band's approach to the dining room is timed nicely with the chorus and features several cross cuts with the performance.

As they approach the dining room, a dolly shot is used from the band's P.O.V and shot-reverse-shot is used to show the band's reaction to seeing a crowd in the dining room and the crowds reaction to see them. (They look shocked and look down on them which adds to the video's light hearted humour.)

When these people all sit down at the table, mostly MCUs are used (Newsreader shots) as they are sitting at a table. However, the camera moves up and down the table to show all the poeple using a couple of tracking shots. Also once they sit down, several CUs and ECUs of the band members' facial expressions are used to show their reaction to seeing all this food.

The food fight starts as soon as the chorus starts and undercranking is used for several shots from this point on. Undercranking is first used to show a woman swinging a squid above her head and throwing it, and then to show the squids path from one side of the table to the other while all these 'mature' and 'upper-brow' guests sling food at each other around the table. Undercranking is also used when the lead singer dives sideways James Bond style to throw a cake.

From seeing all these types of shots used to emphasis the humour and personality of the band, it is obvious to me that we should use some similar techniques. Although our song is a different genre, we are taking a similar, light-hearted approach. First of all, undercranking is coordinated well with the song on several occasions - something we should do when our sing briefly slows down. Tracking shots and dolly shots are something which is used well at the start of the video when the band members are on their bikes. Something else I have noticed from this analysis is that there are no long, static shots and generally, there are lots of cuts and most shots only last a couple of seconds. (This is important to our concept especially as we plan on doing a chase sequence.)