The View-Same Jeans Music Video Analysis

To help me develop better skills and further my knowledge, I have analysed a second music video. The song is called "Same Jeans" and it is performed by Scottish band The View.

This video is produced as a of performance and narrative piece. The song is approximately 3 minutes 47 seconds long, and features all members of the band.



Generally, the song is about a man (in this case lead singer Kyle) who goes through the path of four days without ever getting changed. This is not crucial information. I gather that the story generally is bout Kyle leading such a crazy lifestyle that he doesn't have time to change his clothes because he is always partying and performing.



The video follows generally the same pattern the whole way through. It starts with Kyle being woken up by a knocking at the door, with a medium close up shot of his face and torso. For the first 25 seconds it shows Kyle (the lead singer of the band) getting up, opening up the curtains of his hotel room, and then leaving the room. This is all done with the use of a hand held camera. After 12 seconds Kyle starts to sing. This is where I noted that the music video was performance as well as narrative. For the next 20 seconds Kyle then walks to the hotel lift and opens it to reveal a live crowd audience. His walk to the lift is covered with camera shots including close up, medium close up, and medium to long.



Between 46 seconds 1:02 seconds, Kyle joins his band members at a live gig and performs the song. During these 16 seconds of live footage, a range of camera shots are included which give off the image of frenziness. The shots show the band performing and show individual performances as well as group. There are also shots of the audience dancing and jumping up and down. This is a regular theme in the other occasions during the music video where a live performance is screened.



After 1:03 seconds, we see a close up camera shot fixed on Kyle singing. The shot zooms out and it shows that Kyle appears to be waiting in airport or some sort of waiting room. His face displays little emotion and this suggested to me that perhaps these are the more boring times in his life. This was also the case in the hotel room and walking to the lift. The zoom out shot lasted about 10 seconds, and we then see a medium to long shot of what appears to be a fellow band member leaning against a wall with a guitar. The next 10-15 seconds then consisted of shots of Kyle and the other band member. The band member then moves towards the camera before it goes back to Kyle, who is then joined by the band member. There is then 2 seconds of singing before it again goes to a shot of the band performing live.



The live performance follows the same patterns as last time, and is about 17 seconds long. It then cuts to a close up shot of Kyle, being filmed by a handheld camera. The camera follows him for around 13 seconds as he stumbles through a party. The vision is blurry and because it is handheld I took this to mean that Kyle is very drunk and there is madness going on all around him. A medium to long shot is then took of Kyle dropping to a sofa, with the following shot filmed in daylight with him waking up on the same sofa. This pattern is regular and to me it is showing all the different things that are happening to him in his day to day life and these offer reasons why he has not yet changed his clothes. Kyle then gets up and leaves the house with medium close up shots then took of people asleep who were obviously at the party. A medium close up shot then focuses on Kyle leaving the party and singing. He then opens a door and we again see the performing band for the last time. This time the performance aspect lasts for 64 seconds and again follows the same patterns as before. This time however, the camera zooms in and out on members of the audience, and there are many medium close up shots of singular members of the audience. The final shot is then a 10 second shot of Kyle falling back on the hotel bed and then being waken up all over again.

Overall, I think that the music video is average to good at best. It is well consturcted and I think it has a decent storyline behind it which comes across well on screen. The video follows a consistent pattern all the way through. However I think this begins to get slightly monotonous after a while and I think there is too much live footage of the band. I think it would have worked well if there some parts where Kyle plays the guitar on his own, maybe at a party scene, instead of so much footage of a live performance. I also think that a wider range of camera shots could have perhaps been used. All in all, I have learnt a lot from this video, and will try to incorporate some methods into my music video.

Here is a link for the music video if you want to watch it yourself!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpF51y8udgY