Miss JacksonThe opening shot sets us straight away with the location and time the music video is setting place. The image is brought by silence until the ambiance begin to start.
A tyre on fire rolls across the wet car park. The tire is the brightness object in the establishing shot as the rest of the area is dimly lit. There is a close up on the tyre stressing it's importance and relevance to the videos narrative. The fire in this context symbolises destruction as the tyre must have come from a car. Car crash?
The light from behind is very bright, blocking us from seeing his face in detail. He is facing his back from the window suggesting he has turned his back on the light and wants to face the darkness. This could relate to his mental state as he keeps confined and wants to stay a lone. The light being normality and the darkness being the opposite. The colour consist mainly of blue, black and white, showing a coldness to the surroundings and to the character.
The close up pan of the women in provocative clothing suggests activity of a sexual nature, but it is never clear in the video. There is a high angle close up of Urie washing the blood off his hands. The red symbolises danger and usually death, which we could assume from the lifeless body. These couple of shots also work well with the lyrics, "found another victim, bu no ones ever gonna find Miss Jackson". The lyrics and visual play well together giving the audience the impression the women is dead and Urie killed her. 
A painting is brought to our attention with a distinctive explanation mark and a chopped off head with smoke coming out of it. There is a quick cut to Urie studying the picture, the source of light is on one side. The blue effect of the light mimics the idea moonlight shining through the window. This creates the eerie atmosphere and builds up tension and suspense as it reaches the chorus.
At the chorus the music reaches it's climax and the characters mental state explodes. This is shown through Urie's character shouting at the television screen, dancing ecstatically in the car park and shouting at the camera "But I love her anyway". This attitude links back to Urie being obsessed and his mental state. The camera becomes handheld and is shaky and the transitions between shots is very fast paced. This fast pace is consistent with the speed of the bass beat and helps emphasis on the video narrative. The narrative possibly being Urie's persistent obsession of Miss Jackson.
There is more emphasis on the bright light (neonish) theme throughout the video. The headlight are head on blinding us and hiding Urie behind the wheel. The headlights almost on purpose dazzle us, which portrays Urie to be out of control and reckless. There are mid shots of Urie driving while having similar manic spasms like before in the hotel room, putting emphasis on him and his well-being.
Brendan Urie drives to a abandoned field with a distinctive explanation mark, which was seen in the painting in the hotel room. The narrative begins to fall together and we are able to link certain clues together, such as the painting and his obsessional madness. The woman is identified with a close up and as she stands in front of the explanation mark makes the audience assume she is the reason why people are gathered and she is the important figure out of them all. The smoke contrasts well against the dark background and gives a magical mystic aspect to the video.
The narrative of the video reaches its conclusion where we learn what is really happening and why there was blood on Urie's hands. Like in theatre, the music stops and there is a dramatic pause. Urie is handed the sword in silence and once he swings the music begins from the climax it was cut off at. This was very effective, because it built tension even more before the final climax occurred.
The spell is then broken from the others were and more smoke appears and we see the woman head on the floor. We can acknowledge that Urie did cut off her head and we now understand the previous scenes (well more than we originally did). After various two-shots and close ups we are taken to a environmental shot which puts all the action under one frame. This shot shows the circle of people around Urie and the woman, which is almost identical to the painting previously.
We are then taken back to the hotel and the video ends with a steady slow zoom onto the head on the drawer, before cutting to black and the end of the song.
Official Video
Excellent analysis Alice. Well done for incorporating Goodwin, as well as reference to camera, mise en scene and editing detail in a chronological way. Your use of terminology is great too.
ReplyDeleteT: consider how this might influence your own production - what ideas do you like particularly?
What ideas do you like particularly?
ReplyDeleteI particularly like the surrealism of the video and the dark essence it has. P!ATD are known for their weird songs and videos to correlate with that. When considering my own music video ideas, I was looking at the way the story was presented. Leaving questions to the audience about the narrative, as it only gave you a vague idea. The mystery is the main reason I love the video, because its not basic - it can be interpreted differently. At the time of analysing this video, I didn't have a band/artist to do a song on, so I chose the style of music that I like and what type of genre of music I'd like to do a video on.