Friday, 28 September 2012

Review a student music video

I have chosen to briefly review the Florence & The Machine song 'Howl'; it is in the indie/alternative rock genre and was constructed by Nick, Poppy, Mustafa and Charon. The intended audience is quite broad but in terms of age group, it is aimed at young people (16-25 year olds). I think this is because the artist herself is in that age group and the song portrays feelings that this specific audience can relate to.

There is a disjuncture structure in this video that also has the artist performing throughout. The narrative links to the representation; although she is shown to be 'hunted' by the wolf (as depicted by the scenes of her hiding in the forest), she is portrayed as an independent person rather than someone who needs a male. This is reinforced by her being the only person in the video. As mentioned in Laura Mulvey's theory, there is some dismemberment of the female artist in order to go with the typical convention of the male gaze. However, I think the large number of close ups in this video is done to mainly focus on her as the artist and actress rather than to appeal to the male gaze because I view this as a song that is targeted more at females.
The editing was done to the beat really well, which made it difficult to notice because it flowed naturally. The mise en scene of using different filters and lighting worked really well because it was aesthetically pleasing and would keep the audience focused on the video.

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