Analysis of music videos - Arctic Monkeys

 Arctic Monkeys - Leave Before The Lights Come On.

Narrative

I have chosen Arctic Monkeys video ‘Leave Before The Lights Come On’ to analyze to fit into my genre of Alternative Rock. There is no initial band in this video to make it identifiable by the audience. I like this video because it doesn’t necessarily follow the lyrics of the song and doesn’t stick to the stereotypical band video, which involves instruments being played by the band members.

It is a narrative video following the life of a desperate woman.

Andrew Goodwin’s theories do not tend to work within this video.

The mise-en-scene within this video also has a casual dress sense although at the end the band’s merchandise name ‘Bang bang’ is advertised on the man's t-shirt. The location is set in a town area showing a realistic outlook. The video isn’t necessarily going with normal rock music video conventions.

Camera angles are key for in this video for example close up shots are used to show emotions of the two characters involved. As the song climaxes the action and storyline in the video mimics it.

The denotation in this video is a man and a woman and the facial expressions they are pulling. The connotation is that the relationship is in trouble because the facial expressions show negative emotions and distress.

There are transitions between two clips in this video in the start where we follow the man and woman’s lives separately. At specific points they have modified the speed of the clip to add to the drama that’s going on within the video, they have speeded clips and paused clips. Non-diegetic sound is used within this video.

Representation of gender in this video is shown through a woman’s desire for a man showing she is desiring affection the male is portrayed as loyal but cold. The characters are represented as working class citizens.

The overall myth/ideology is that relationships encounter problems even between complete strangers. This includes a stalker and her victim. There is an enigma code of whether we know whether the woman will jump or not. In this video it is stereotypical that women are always looking out for romance.