The Strokes Under Cover of Darkness

Montage used to show jump cut shots of the band and the instruments floating in dank water. This shot is completely different to all the others used over the next 40 seconds and is perhaps being used to grab the attention of the audience. Another possibility of why the shot is there is that it could be how the video ends and the audience are being shown one of the final shots to spark their interest in the video. The shot may also have a symbolic reference to the band such as they are metaphorically drowning in their fame or other personal issues. The montage is made up of around six shots and lasts only two seconds this means that the average shot duration is less than a third of a second. The following shot is of a clock that doesnt tick but yet the pendulum is still swinging. At first the close up of the clock seems to bear no relevance to the proceeding shots in the video, but upon thinking about it I realised that the clock very subtly sets the scenes and prepares the audience for the Mise-en-scene that is to follow. The clock appears to be made of gold as does the candle stick holder to the right of it and they are placed on an old stand seemingly made out of mahogany. The materials that the objects are made out of seem to be expensive or hold a heritage of some sort, denoting the upper class. This shot lasts 2 seconds which is the same length as the montage but is yet only one shot. The first stand alone shot of a character is a mid/close up shot from just below the shoulders upwards. In the background there is a light that strangely draws attention to the person but at the same time makes it hard to focus on the facial features of the person in shot. This shot is a strong characteristic of Indie music videos as it is a shot that has occurred in many other Indie bands music videos. A reason for this is that the shot has a very strong symbolic meaning especially when linked with religion or the supernatural. The shot seems to be a rough representation of an angel with the white light behind the person, this single shots seems to align the band with something such as an angel or savior which is a big claim to make. As the shot seems to appear in multiple music videos by a wide range of Indie bands it should be a shot that we try to include in our own music video.

This shot is a close up of a man holding a conductors baton which connotes, in an obvious fashion, that he is a conductor. However the role of a conductor is much deeper than just holding a stick and waving it about, a conductor will write the entire score of music to something and then lead the orchestra when playing it, they are the puppet masters of the musical world. As this shot is placed straight after the previous one of the man in front of the light we can deduce that he is the conductor and that he is linked to showbiz and not anything supernatural related. For such a simple shot it has a long time on the screen as it lasts roughly four seconds, this could mean that the baton is an important symbol within the music video and it has a possibility of reoccurring through out. This next shot is an extremely long one and lasts for around thirteen seconds, although the duration of the shot is much longer than usual a lot is shown in the shot. The shot starts off by the camera moving backwards from the drummer which appears to give the impression that the camera is zooming out although it isnt, the camera then continues to move backwards even further reveling a guitarist. At this point the drummer is still in the shot but only in the distance and he will eventually disappear because the ledge that the members of the band appear to be on is curved. Once the camera has past the first guitarists it the passes a second guitarist, at this point the drummer is completely out of shot, who is positioned on the other side of the ledge so that the first guitarist can still be seen around the bend in the infrastructure. Finally the camera moves further backwards still to reveal the bassist who is now blocking out the view of the first guitarist completely from the camera. Personally I find the ordering of which the band members appear rather strange as in music you generally work from the foundations up which in this case would be drums, bass, rhythm guitar and then lead guitar. However this shot challenges the musical conventions by putting the bass as the last person to be revealed to the camera. This shot is very unique it also grabbed my attention as soon as I saw it because of how unordinary it is and as a result I think we should try and incorporate something similar to this shot in our own music video.

The mis-en-scene in the shot works perfectly synergistically with everything in the shot and also previous shots in the video. All the band members are in suits which people often wear when attending places like the theater, which is where this video appears to be set. Another way the mis-en-scene can be interpreted is by assuming that the band members are following the conductor in the previous shot who may actually be the singer to the band. If the conductor is in fact the singer this is another musical convention that is being challenged by the video by saying that perhaps the most important member of the band is the singer. In theater musicians are often heard and not seen and their positioning on the balcony conveys just that. Each band member has an equal amount of prevalence on the screen in this shot which gives the audience an equal amount of time to see each band member and again links to the roles of importance within the band that I briefly touched upon. As each band member is seen for the same amount of time it conveys an ideology of working as a unit where everyone is equal.

This shot is very similar to the one that just occurred, only this time instead of showing band members the camera is simply just moving backwards across a table and starting from the chair at the head of the table. Strangely enough this shot is longer than the first one of the band members but yet it has less in it, this is probably because it is trying to build tension and create a small climax at this point in the music video. The chair is focused on throughout the shot and it could connote that perhaps someone is missing from the shot, especially because its the only chair that you can see in the shot.

This is part of the shot that starts out from zooming out from the chair at the head of the table, the shot slowly reveals that the band members are placed on either side of the table, two on each side. The band members form a sort of arrow head with the drummer on the far right and bassist on the far left, then on the inside of both of them is the rhythm and lead guitarist. At the centre of the arrow we would presume that the singer would be there however this isnt the case as the space is filled by the empty chair at the end of the table, from this we can connote that the chair is possibly a symbolic representation of the missing lead singer.

The first stand alone shot of just one member of the band comes rather late in during the video, he appears at 42 seconds in which could imply that the band wish to be shown as group unit and not as single members trying to steal the spotlight. The shot lasts for two seconds and is a low angle shot looking up at the bass player, creating an image of power. However the stance that the bass player is taking isnt one of power so the shot and the context of it highly juxtapose each other. This juxtaposition within the shot and the quick prevalence time quickly catches the audiences attention and engages them more in the video.

Another stand alone shot of a band member is a high angle which usually connotes the idea that the character being portrayed is inferior and not that powerful. However the same incident that occurred in the last shot occurs here except its the opposite way round, the character is holding a powerful stance but the general rule of shot dictates that the character is being shown as inferior which again causes a juxtaposition. The shot is a long shot although it looks like a mid shot because as you can only see from about the waist up but much more of the scenery can be seen on the camera.