music video analysis 1- Audioslave- Doesn't Remind Me.

The music video is an example of amplification because it was directed by Chris Milk who can be seen as a music video auteur and the video helps to amplify the song's meaning. This music video is narrative-based with a "narrative fuzz" which needs a number of viewings to fully understand the narrative of the video which gives the video repeatability. The video can be seen as successful due to the way in which the relationship between the lyrics and visuals creates feelings in the viewer. The link between the narrative of the video and the lyrics give the video a sad feel to it with the lyrics, "the things that I've lost" and the footage of the young boy's father being shot down in his fighter jet. The young boy's grief creates a feeling of sadness in both the song and the music video. There is another relationship created between the lyrics and visuals in the verses such as the line sung "colourful clothing in the sun". The music video has an element of American national pride in the narrative with the image of the American flag and the poster reading "Your Country Needs You" enhancing the feeling of national pride throughout the video. This shows how the music video reinforces the ideological discourse of national pride in America and the idea of fighting for your country can be seen through both the boy's father and the young boy himself holding aloft the American flag after winning a boxing match.

The narrative in the video has a strong presentation of the dreams of success and the people that the young boy idolises and looks to for support. The shot where he looks at the picture of his father and the jump cuts between him flying his model plane and his father flying the real fighter jet show the viewer how he idolises his father and allows the audience to emphathise with him after his father dies.

Audioslave's video needs to be watched as a focused viewing rather than ambient because there is a strong narrative which, in order to be understood needs to be watched carefully and a viewed a number of times.

Furthermore, this video can be seen as postmodern through the use of bricolage and intertextuality.  There are intertextual references to 'Rocky' in the shots of the young boy running up the steps and then holding his arms aloft in victory.

video directors- Martin De Thurah

This director uses techniques which most would not, the use of wires gives some of his work a Japanese’s feel. He quotes that “I tend to make things complex in a simple way, because I think that complexity is beautiful. I find life quite complicated-there is never just one version” this shows as the video is sometimes confusing and it makes you watch it over to try to get the meaning of it.

The director studied painting then followed by animation which shows in some of his work such as ‘human’. This has a feel like some of the charectes could be animated, this is similar to Royksopp - What Else Is There?. This video has very animated and art feel to it. The backgrounds do not look real but still gives the video a realistic feel.
I liked his video ‘human by car park north’. This video is much different to any others I have seen, it follows a dance routine video structure but with parts of slow motion and a narrative of the two children, who appear to have fallen in love. This mixed conventions shows that music videos can be very unique and not stick to and blue print. In the video ‘best day’ he uses light very well, moving it from one side gives a moving shadow that gives the expression if long periods of time shortened down.

Looking at videos such as ‘Lise Westzynthius – Séance’ and ‘Human by carpark north’ both use lots of meat shots of the characters within the video. Similarly in both videos the people participating are not the band or singing the track, the human video uses children doing out of the ordinary things. These often make little sense first time watching them. This brings me back to the Séance video which just shows a persons veins making them follow up the persons arm.