Music video analysis

The category

The category of the music video is a mixture of performance and narrative It’s a performance video because you can clearly see the band multiple times throughout the video playing instruments in a garage to the beat of the song and you can see Tom who is one of the singers, singing in sync with the vocals. Its also a narrative video as the band travel to different places in the music video and the clips just carry on from where ever they’re going so it’s telling a story of where they’re going on that day and what they’re doing.

The genre of the song

The genre of the song we have chosen is alternative rock. You can tell the genre of music is alternative rock by the style it is played in with a distorted soft guitar riff and the energetic singing.

The artist, song title, the genre of the music

Artist- blink-182

Song Title- First Date

Genre of the music- Alternative Rock

Use of props, costumes

There is a wide range of use of props and costumes in the music video. First of all there are the costumes, the 3 members of the band (Mark, Tom and Travis) are all wearing 70’s style wigs on their heads, and this shows that the music video has a 70’s style theme to it. There’s also the clothing the band are wearing which consists of short shorts, high socks and old band t-shirts. By wearing these items it gives the video a classical look instead of a modern day look, as the band members and extra’s in the video are dressed like they’re from the 70’s. The guitarist/vocalist (Tom) also has a fake bushy, classic mustache which you don’t see too many of these days so that adds a good effect to the video. To the left you can see the 3 members of the band wearing 70’s style clothing.

The band uses a main prop throughout the video, which is a minivan, but it’s a classical typical hippy van with the white roof and the red doors. It also contains a worn out paintwork look and has curtains on the windows of the minivan its rare you’d see this being drove on the streets today, this again lets you know that the video is set back in the 70’s quite obviously. Another prop used in the classic 70’s burger and milkshake which was quite big back in the 70’s at truck stop café’s those foods are used in most classical films like grease etc., so its typical American food to use. There is a scene where a woman is riding a bike and a baseball hits her resulting in her falling off and scraping her braces on her teeth along the floor. The braces that the woman has on her teeth are old as it goes right around her face and this shows that it’s been set back in time as nobody has them anymore.
Below you can see a picture of the classical hippy mini bus and a picture of the old teeth brace on the woman.

Special Effects

The first special effect we see in the music video is the smoke flowing out of the minivan as the band members open the door and tumble out. This could symbolize that the band have been smoking marijuana and they are in a hippy van so it’s quite stereotypical but people from that sub culture used to do that back then. Another effect we see in the video is towards the end of the music video when the characters are dressed in all white clothing and Tom (lead guitar/vocalist) is wearing a different coloured wig this time its brown to possibly to make it stand out from the clothing. All the members have the wind blowing through their hair and the special effect that is used in this shot is the green screen in the background, which creates a sunset background on a hill as if the band members are stood there. There’s a shot after that, which uses green screen again only this time the members are stood in a field with a horse, this has no relation to the 70’s style theme, and the band just put those shots in there for some comedy. There are not that many special effects in this music video because it’s not really a video that’s suitable to contain special effects. The only time the effects are involved in the video is when the band is joking around. Below you can see 2 pictures from the music video using the green screen special effect.


Goodwins theory

Blink-182’s music video for “First Date” shows plenty aspects of Goodwin’s theory throughput the video. The genre is shown through characteristics to clearly demonstrate the genre, as they are using instruments, which look similar to every other alternative rock videos, e.g. Stratocaster guitars. The visuals in some aspects do relate to the lyrics, but only for certain parts of the video. The lyric “My stupid hair” relates to the visuals as they all have stupid hair, apart from that no other lyrics match the visuals. Making the video seem to not follow the typical theory of Goodwin, by going against them. The music follows the visuals as the genre type of music is stereotyped as being rebellious. The video has many shots through the narrative part of the video, e.g. when they push a child in the swimming pool. The video consists of close ups to develop their popularity and motifs from the demands of the record label. This clearly follows Goodwin’s theory, because when the video goes to the indoor location where they are performing there are several close ups of their faces and instruments as they play them. The video makes particularly voyeuristic treatments of women’s bodies. This is shown around 1.04 in the video, when the blonde woman is at the bonnet of the car and she is dressed in a sexy manner by wearing a crop top and tight shorts. Blnk-182 parodies their look with wigs and costumes of the band Bee Gees. This follows the theory of intertexualilty in Goodwin’s theory. The costumes the band is wearing relates to intertexuality. They all refer to another band name the Bee Gees. As they wear wigs that look outrageous which is iconic to the look of the Bee Gees, as their hair is wavy and 80’s style. The reference is shown all the way through the music video. The end of the video also spoofs many films that have a title sequence to what the characters all turn out to be and do after the film as ended. Titles come up as a frame is frozen on each of the band members with a couple of lines telling the audience what they are doing now.

Locations

The first location in the video is set in a messy and relaxing band practice room in a garage. The band is performing in this location throughout the video as it cuts from the narrative side of the video to the performing. The garage is full of posters and Christmas lights on the roof of the garage. The instruments take most the room up to emphasis their roll as a band and too sell their image to the pubic. Surrounding the instruments are speakers and recording equipment as they play and record their music. The second location seen is at an American style truck stop. Many other people are their such as women with revealing clothes and men trying to flirt with them as the band walk past staring at the girls as they get a burger. The next location is outside in a front lawn, where the band is playing baseball and a stereotypical geek with braces falls over onto the ground of her bike. The scenery is relaxed, with a worn out lawn with dull green grass. The people sit down on the sunbathing chairs and inside the red and white van. The atmosphere is full of laughter and fun, as they all laugh at the geeky girl. The next location is at a water park full of children and women who are seen as attractive. The atmosphere again is excited and energetic as they go to the water slide and look around as others are having fun. The variety of locations makes the video a lot more interesting to watch as an audience and not as dull as one location. The locations show how the alternative genre is fun and energetic to listen to.


Lighting

The lighting in he garage at the beginning and throughout the video it cuts back to is light up by many lights surrounding the band, such as lamps and Christmas lights. This is showing how they have no money to source there light any other way. The truck stop is set high key lighting from the natural light form the sun as they are outdoors. Simple lightning but very effective to make the video seem more happy and easy to watch compared to videos maybe set at twilight time. It is similar at other locations, as the video would have been filmed during a summer’s day outside in the naturally light up light. They do change lighting at the ending sequence as they sit outside the garage at night, so the lighting is very low key with the only source of light is coming from their garage and the light of the moon. The lighting in the whole video makes a good atmosphere and sense of them being an alternative band as they are usually happy and having fun.


Editing

The editing throughout the music video is very fast paced, with a lot of fast cuts to different shots. The fast paced editing matches the pace of the song in a way as the song is quite upbeat. Also the beat of the drum matches the editing pace to different shots within the video. During the video, slow motion is used a few times which helps it to create a comedy effect within the music video and make it quite funny to watch.There is a few times during the video when different editing transitions are used, as it cuts to a different shot. The editing in the video moves quite fast so it builds the need for viewing repeatedly. It also creates a experience of ‘jumping’, which involves going from the location to the person and then the instruments with no narrative continuity.

Camerawork

The start of the video is a low angle shot of the band as they walk into the garage talking, then shows them picking up their instruments and start playing.Throughout there is a lot of close ups on the singers face’s and their instruments. This could be used to help show the members of the band and for them to be recognized.Some extreme close ups are used on the singers face just showing his facial features.There is a mixture of high and low angle shots within the music video showing the band performing in what looks like a little garage.
When the band is performing the look directly into the camera a few times this gives a more intimate approach from the band to their audience. Long shots show the locations of the video, such as; a water park, back gardens and the garage. They also show the action, which is going on within the video, such as the band mucking around and having fun.




Craig Davis theory

Craig Davis AnalysisI would say that Blink 182’s music video for ‘First Date’ fits into the ‘Amplification’ category, as it is a mixture of both performance and narrative. There is a link to the song through the beat of the music, however the lyrics do not relate to the video in any way. The narrative of the video is quite mixed and isn’t really a simply narrative. The video follow on, but doesn’t match the lyrics. This is the case in most ‘Punk/rock’ video’s and a lot of other ‘Blink 182’ videos, therefore it could just be the genre style or the way the band likes to do things. The narrative for the music video is quite ‘loose’, looks fun and also has the comedy effect, rather then it being a simple or realistic video which would get boring to watch after a while. This helps the audience to be able to watch this video over again and not get bored.


POSTED BY DOUG & TOM & BETH