Product Analysis 2

Mystery Jets - 'Half in love with Elizabeth'

The music video 'Half in love with Elizabeth', by the Mystery Jets has a narrative structure, however the Mystery Jets telling the story throughout the video but not through a performance but through acting. The music video demonstrates most of the key features from Andrew Goodwin's 'Key features of music video'. There is a relationship between the lyrics and the visuals, for example when it says, "How can you put your trust in a man who always sleeps in his clothes?" As teh man is seen getting up out of bed fully dressed in a suit whilst his partner is asleep. The link between the lyrics and visuals is seen through amplification. The video is about a man being in love with Elizabeth, the audience however do not know who or what Elizabeth is, as it could be another woman or it could be money, however we see that it is teh Queen Elizabeth that the man in the video is half in love with. So the video amplifies the original tracks meaning as it retains a link between the video and song however it develops the idea of being in love with Elizabeth. There are meat shots of the lead singer of the band throughout the video, which Goodwin descirbes as meeting the demands of the record label by showing the band. The video doesn's feature all of Goodwin's Key features however as it does not demonstrate the genre characteristics usually seen in the indie genre, for example there is no band performance throughout the video which is usually seen in the genre.

The Mise-en-Scene helps to establish the location of the video, as you can tell it is set in England through the high rise flat blocks seen at the beginning of the video. The video is in black and white, so this dark and dull colour adds to the seriousness and sadness of the song as it is about a man loving someone else, although in the video it is the queen, who people of England are suppose to love. The woman in the video is seen walking in skinny jeans which have connotations with the indie genre which links back to Goodwin's key features, the band are also seen wearing skinny jeans with cardigans and long hair which again links to the indie genre. The video starts where it ends, so the couple are seen hugging, with the rest telling the story as to why they were hugging in the first place. The first tiem the audience realise that it is Queen Elizabeth that the song is referring to, the man is seen drawing a picture of her, then he goes to the front door and picks up a letter and at this point there is a close up of him smelling the stamp and stroking it.

The video does not add to the artists meta-narrative, as the band are only seen a couple of times watching the man in the video telling the story. I believe that this video can be seen as art as it is not commercial, as the band arn't selling themselves, however it does present some challenging ideas. For example the man being in love with the Queen and actually leaving his girlfriend to be with her challenges his love for the other women and the irony that it is the Queen that he is leaving her for not another woman. The video could be seen as postmodern due to the man being in love with the Queen, it could also be seen as postmodern as the band are not seen by the actors telling the story, they are only seen by the audience, so their presence is not all necessary however it allows the audience to see who the people are behind the song, which again could link to Goodwin's theory as it may be down the meeting the demands of the record label.

The music video requires a focused viewing by the audience to be able to understand the meaning of the song, as the link between the lyrics and visuals is through amplification, to understand the twist that the band have put in the video as the song could have multiple meanings, the audience would have to focus on it rather than have an ambient viewing as they would only have their own ideas not the bands.