Music Video comparison

ALT-J BreezeBlocks

The alt-j breezeblocks music video follows the genre of thriller as we see a lot of
connotations when we see a use of a knife that is often seen in thriller music videos, we also
see low-key lighting in this music video as it is a dark story line, there is slow motion that
shows all the actions that we can see and also the pace of it shows that it is slow to get all of
the action in. This music video is in reverse and at first we thought the first male who was the
attacker but as we got more into the video, the woman was the attacker as we see her with
the knife. If we put this as the linear version of the music video, we can apply the classical
hollywood structure towards it by breaking it up into the different components. Side A will be
the man who is trying to help the kidnapped women who we think is his wife as they both
have a wedding ring on, with side B being the kidnapper. The problem that is being created
is that she is tied up and she has tape over her mouth to ensure no one could hear her. The
problem gets worse as the attacker comes out of the door and starts to chase the man and
gets into a physical altercation with him, we know this because of the bottle being thrown
towards his direction, the knife scene when he pushed it out her hands and being thrown
across the table. The resolution of this theory is the shot where she is underwater and we
see that she is dead with the breezeblock across her chest, and the coda is that she gets the
wife back and goes back to normal life. There are a variety of binary oppositions that we see
throughout this music video with the main one really being the good vs bad, the good of this
video is the man who helps his wife and fights off the kidnapper and eventually kills her, with
the bad being the kidnapper. This can also be identified to Hero v Villian, Male v Female and
Love v Hate. There are numerous enigma codes that we see in this music video with the
main one being who is the woman and why is she doing what she is doing. The only big one
is the question of what’s going on? We ask this question because of the start when we see
the kidnapper in the water dead. We also ask the question of who is in the wrong because at
the start it is unclear who the bad person is but as time goes on, we see that the kidnapper is
in the wrong. Finally, there are some action codes that we see and the main one of the
breeze block and of the knife that we see and we wonder what are they doing in using them,
We also see the wedding ring and we see that they are married from the extreme close up of
him flicking the switch and seeing the ring, with also seeing it on the woman's hand when he
opened the door. Also the enigma code of the glass bottle as she is throwing it towards his
direction trying to make it hit him as he moves away. Also of the cup when they were fighting
on the table and the man pushes the cup off and we see this as an extreme close up to
show the intense nature of it all.

SeaFret

In this music video, it is an open narrative structure and we know this from the loads of
unanswered questions that we see at the end. This is also a linear music video and we know
this because it is chronological order as we see the time past from all the different events
that we see. It is also a single-strand narrative as it follows all through the narrative
step-by-step. We learn that this music video has the drama genre as we see loads of close
ups of facial expressions and all of the objects that see benefit the drama genre correctly.
We also see low-key lighting that also suggests that it is dark, and easey performance and
that there is a lot going on. There is also loads of violence that we see in the performance
and when we see her getting jumped by a gang of bullies. There are also dramatic themes
that correlate the genre of drama as we see her have super powers and scare the bullies off.
There is also ambient lighting that we can see from the fact that we can see the sun shining
through the curtains in her house as if we are in our own house. There are a few enigma
codes that we can identify whilst watching this music video and one of the main questions
that we ask ourselves is that is everything she is doing in terms of the powers all a dream?
We ask this question because she may want to have these powers and scare the bullies off
so she is dreaming of it begging it comes to life. We also see at the start of the music video
that she is trying to find her mum but she ain’t in the house so we ask where’s her mum? We
also ask if the bullying stopped after she gave the powers to the bullies after she was beaten
up. We also ask where the box comes from with her stuff in it, which goes back to the
question that we asked about is it all a dream. We also ask the question why she is dressed
like this and we go back to the point that it is all in her dreams. There are many binary
oppositions that we see as hero v victims with the girl being the hero as like a superhero and
the victims being the bullies who were scared off. The same applies for the confident v
unconfident, bullies v innocent and popular v unpopular.

Comparison:

On a whole, both of the music videos are much different in terms of applying the structure in
many different ways because the first one that I analysed of breezeblocks, this was much
harder to analyse with it being in reverse and an non-linear video, in comparison to the
seafret music video where it was chronological order and you could understand the narrative
throughout. You couldn’t quite make out who was who in the breezeblocks until we got till the
end of the music video where we saw the man come into the house and see his wife
kidnapped and his kidnapper coming out of another door with a knife. There was also more
enigma codes in the second analysis because it was more clear on what the narrative was
and there were more questions that could have been asked in comparison to the
breezeblocks where all of our answers were answered. Another thing that was very similar in
both music videos was the fact that it was quite evident to what the genre of both music
videos were with all the codes of conventions of drama with the low-key lighting and all of
the extreme close ups that we seen throughout both of the music videos.