BW: Learnings From Technical Deconstruction

I completed two technical deconstructions, one for 'Sewn' by The Feeling and one for 'Set My World On Fire' by The Feeling.

I chose to do two songs by The Feeling, because the band is similar in style (in terms of indie rock and pop) to the band who performed the song we have chosen, Two Door Cinema Club. Furthemore, I did two songs by the same artist because it has allowed me to compare how music videos are built differently for different songs, even if made by the same artist.

The main aspect of music videos that I learnt from the technical deconstruction was how fast the cutting rate was. Although I always knew that music videos had a fast cutting rate, I had never appreciated the amount of cuts a music video had. For instance, in 'Set My World On Fire', there were 30 different shots in 00:58 seconds, working out at more than a shot for every two seconds. 'Sewn', a slower paced song, did not have a much slower cutting rate, with 30 different shots in just 1:10, so a little bit over a shot every two seconds.

Above, although the shot on the right is a new shot, it is showing the same action. Each cut doesn't need to show a new location or scene.

The amount of different shots led me to realise that even when there are new shots, they often show the same thing. For instance, a performance shot may just cut to the same performance shot, but closer up, or vice-versa. This is useful, as before we storyboard for our own music video, we need to use similar shots between cuts, and not just assume that every time we cut we cut to a new scene or location.

The other main aspect of filming that I noticed was the amount of movement in a music video. As part of my technical analysis, I wrote the shot size, movement in the shot as well as relevant mise-en-scene. In the 00:58 seconds of 'Set My World On Fire' which I analysed, of the 30 shots, only one of them had no movement in it, and this was a landscape shot. All other shots had some form of movement, whether slow pans, tracking shots or movement from the use of steady-cams or handi-cams.

The above landscape shot, (shot 25 on my deconstruction sheet) was the only shot which I analysed which did not have movement in it.