My second video to analyse and steal inspiration from is 'Hitten' by Those dancing days.
Like most first time music videos the content is pretty simple and aims to introduce the band to a bigger audience by making the majority of the video performance. This often means that the band will be shown interacting together and generally being themselves so we can understand some areas of personality and in most cases short clips of individual band members will be shown where they either look down the camera or just play an instrument alone. In this case Hitten showcases the band to be a group of friends showing that their fun arrises from music and just plainly being around each other which is depicted through band members either playing with eachother or their surroundings.
In terms of camera work the video concentrates on a heavy use of unsteady hand held shots to give a very real feel what is being shown. This also works well with the band's mood and feeling which is quite playful and childish, this is because behind all of the joyful attributes they display there is a strong underlining feeling of reality. This is shown quite clearly by the camera work which leads the audience to think of the band imagining their own little world but we see the reality behind it. This is actually exemplified in all aspects of the band as the song title is called Hitten which when understood alongside the music video seems very constrasting and even the album name titled 'In our space hero suits'. The camera work also focusses briefly on changing angles and lighting, but this only works as a way of changing the mise en scene and doesn't have an overall affect on the music video.
Repetition of images is a key factor in most music videos and is included to either fill gaps or to give the audience something to look out for. In thise case we see a repetition of most things because of the basic layout of the music video, but each time something is repeated a small area of it is changed to keep the audience's attention. For instance repeating the unusual shot of the band standing in different areas of a room whilst in one square of the screen the shot is repeated using clever editing. This is used more an twice and each time the band changes in someway, however in this case the image is repeated time and time again because its also quite clever and hard to understand.
This leads me nicely onto technical ideas which seem not to take centre stage in this music video but add a quirky side to it. As the mean feature of the video is the band being themselves so the audience can see them for who they are using too much effects and unusual editing would have taken the focus away and given the complete wrong idea. But because the video only played with this aspect slightly it only seemed to add to the feeling the band were trying to give away. Most recent music videos use extreme locations or green screen technology to show off and grab the attention of their target but 'Those dancing days' have used very bleak and dull settings combined with very basic technology to show that they don't need to include new technologies or digital works. They instead used old editing techniques of just reversing a recorded shot and overlapping two different shots and all this only improves the look they were going for which was to show that they don't need expensive materials of new technology to impress. Their anologue view on publicising themselves does all the work for them in a very digital new world of music video making.
Finally instead of working with the beat of the music to keep shots in time and keep a sense of rhythm the editing of the video breaks with convention and only occasionally keeps in time. Whereas for the rest of the video the audience gets a sense that they're watching a series of clips that depict old memories as they all seem personal and flick between close ups and messing about. However when the editing alligns with the music its often to show lip syncing, which is only ever a close up of the lead singer, and when the drummer is found hitting imaginary drums. Overall this all actually works and isn't disorientating because the unusual editing fits the mood and seems random much like the games and interaction of the band members. It almost seems as if the editing can only be understood by the target audience which makes the whole video very personal, very targetted and very effective.
In terms of theory the music video excells in being explained by John Stewart's theory of the aesthetics of TV commercials. This is shown by the heavy use of close ups on the lead singer who is mosty certainly the front-man of the group and is used to entice the band's target audience who adore the unusual and quirky (this may also slightly dip into Laura Mulvey's Male gaze theory). It also has clear influences of modern fashion and of the popoular 'individual' movements, it even replicates modern photography of urban setting and depictions of real life. But it mainly fousses on bringing its audience back to their childish roots as the music video clearly shows the band constantly playing around with whatever is around them and finding something to laugh at by just being with each other. This is so effective in making the audience nostalgic that their unique selling point is being an innocent band that audiences can, in a way, trust.
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