Technical Analysis

The Wombats - Moving To New York

From producing the technical analysis and watching the video in great detail, i have learnt that during the course of the video, the shots last mainly between three to four seconds with various use of graphic art work only lasting a second long and some lasting less than a second. The longest shot is nine seconds long and is a medium shot of the lead singer while the background behind him changes. This would have been made infront of a green screen then the effects added later. A common shot in the video is of the band performing on the television making the video narrative based and performance based. The most coomon shot size in the video is the MS (Medium Shot) of the singer face on looking rather tired and stressed. This has relevance to the songs title and its meaning as it is about insomnia. Other common shots are CU (Close Up) of the television, eyes and hamster that plays a key role within the video as he talks to the animal, making him appear like hes loosing his mind. Various shots consist of shooting from low angles with a high camera tilt, focusing forward and tracking. The shots that use tracking slowly bring the camera forward or backwards making you focus your attention on something particular, for example the television with the band performing. Static shots are used several times when the frontmand in singing to the camera but are very short and quickly cut to another shot. A shot that particularly stands out is the shot of the band blurring on the television, this is created with the use of graphics and is continuinly cut to between other shots, this shot only lasts for 1 second at maximum before moving on.

There is a relationship between visuals and the lyrics of the song, for example 'am I losing touch or am I just completely off the track?' suggesting is he loosing his mind, which is then backed up with him talking to a hamster and imaginine things. The narrative is constructed through this link between the lyrics and the visuals and there are a number of performance shots in the video which suggest the video is of the indie genre. For example the three to four second shots of the television showing the band performing, playing instruments and wearing skinny jeans. These are conventions often connoted with the indie/rock genre.

The narrative fuzz of the video makes it unclear as to whether he is living in New York or if he should move there. Other lyrics such as 'And I don't know why I want to voice this out loud,It's theraputic somehow' suggest he wants to tell someone but he can't and how he finds it theraputic. Other parts of the narrative, including the shots of the singer at work in an office are constructed with the use of continually cutting back to the close up performance shots on the television. These performance shots are repeated throughout of the band playing there instruments creating verisimilatude. Pedding is used from a high angle shot to a low angle shot of the singer in his bedroom which quickly cuts to a POV shot of the television, these all add the experience of watching the music video and add to our understanding of the video.

When planning our work, we shall consider the different shots often used within the indie/rock genre music vido production and plan to use many of them including quick montage editing which create meaning within the video. We could incorporate performance shots and take into account that they add to the realism of the music video, however as we are most likely to create a narrative music video we may not need to include this element. Close ups of the frontman singer are often good to show the star persona of the band. The length of the shots made me realise just how many shots we need to include to fill the length of the song, while most of them being only a few seconds long.