Music Video Analysis - Beabadoobee, If you want to

The video opens with a slow zoom out from a close up shot of the main artist to a wide shot
of the mother and doctor standing over her. This starts off the music video with a sense of
enigma as we do not know what is wrong with the artist. The first setting is the girl’s bedroom
which gives the music video an intimate and personal atmosphere before the narrative has
fully been established. This use of enigma and setting would make the audience feel
intrigued in what is going on and worried for the main singer. The doctor is then seen
offering the singer a red pill, this is an intertextual reference to a significantly well-known
scene in The Matrix, this reference would be easily noticed by the audience of this music
video as it is aimed at a more niche audience that tend to have more background knowledge
of different media texts. Using intertextual references is one of the conventions of music
videos so by this music video using this it supports the theory of music video conventions.
Throughout the music video there are close up shots of the main singer performing the song,
the band behind her all have their hair covering their faces. This suggests the importance of
the main singer and establishes her star image as being independent and as being of great
importance. The singer is shown throughout the video performing, she's seen singing and
there is a large focus on her playing the guitar. Performance is one of the conventions of a
music video as the main artist is usually presented performing the song, which is shown in
this video. In addition to this the focus on her playing the guitar is conventional for music
videos that involve a band, it highlights her talent and broadcasts it throughout the video.
This would appeal to the target audience because music aficionados would notice the singer
playing the instrument and be impressed by it, also emphasising her star image as being full
of talent.
When the singer takes the red pill the video becomes very dream-like, the music video has a
soft focus and the lighting is low key. This creates a dream like reality in the music video and
gives the audience a sense of anti-realism. The next setting is an all-white room that looks
almost illustrated, everything in the room is white with a black outline the only colour is
brought by the band's clothes. This emphasises the importance of the band as the colour
causes them to stand out from the background, it also emphasises the sense of antirealism
through the cartoon-like room. The main colour palette includes red, blue and neutral colours
like white and black. The colour red has connotations of strength and adventure while the
colour blue has connotations of sadness. These colours being used together give
contrasting meanings which emphasise the narrative being about insomnia and mental
health creating struggles sleeping. The additional use of the subtle neutral colours unifies the
diverse colour palette and give a “neutral” ground to both the extremes of the blues and
reds.