Detailed Video Analysis

I have chosen to look at Kaiser Chiefs - Never Miss A Beat as my detailed video analysis as it fits the genre that I have chosen to look at, and the video itself is quite interesting.

From the very beginning of the song up until 8 seconds, there is a short into of what is supposed to be a few people in a pub watching the news on television. From the look of the television and clothing, we assume that this video is set around the 70's/80's. Continuity editing is used to establish the area we are at. From 6 until 8 seconds we see someone pulling some curtains back and looking outside, as soon at the instruments start playing, the camera changes to show us some people who are running along side some apartment blocks, they are wearing animal masks and the editing is in slow motion, this is a point of view shot from what the man was looking at from indoors. We are first shown a long shot of the people outdoors, this shows up what they are wearing, and they look fairly normally dresses apart from the masks. At 24 seconds, from a long shot, we see a man in the pub turning around the look at the television, at 25 seconds a cut zoom in is used to frame the television. The 'news presenter' (actually one of the lead singers of Kaiser Chiefs) starts singing. From 25 seconds until 52 seconds, continuous cross cuts are used between the news presenter and various groups of people, each group wearing a different type of mask.

The music video is a mixture of narrative and performance from the band. The lyrics and the narrative of the music video have some connection, presumably the song is about youth who don't want to go to school because they think that is uncool, hence the lyrics -

"What did you learn today?

I learned nothing
What did you do today?
I did nothing
What did you learn at school?
I didn't go
Why didn't you go to school?
I don't know"

The people in the music video could be a representation of the kids that don't want to go to school and get up to crazy things in their school time. From the beginning of the music up until around 2:32 it looks as though these people are about to start a riot, but at 2:32, we are shown a high angle long shot of the differently masked group of people come together and begin a well rehearsed looking dance routine. From 2:32 up until 2:52, various long shots, close ups, high angles, zoom in/outs are used to show this dance routine, thereafter, shots of the band performing are merged in.

The mise en scene and colouring of the music video are quite dull for the majority of the video, for example, assuming that the music video is supposed to be set in the 70's/80's the colouring of the shots are sepia toned, however, shots of the masked people come out a lot brighter because they are wearing bright clothing, this is shown best from 2:32 onwards, because of the brightly coloured umbrellas that are used within the dance routine.