This is gong to be my third and so far final Music Video analysis and therefore, the video I have chosen is of the song "Green Light" by Lorde.
This is the video of the song
The song Green light by Lorde is part of the album "Melodrama" and was released on 2nd March 2017. The song can be classified into electropop, post-disco and dance-pop genres with the music video being the narrative/performance type. The record label behind this song is Universal New Zealand and it was produced by Lorde, Jack Antonoff, Frank Dukes and Kuk Harrel, with Grant Singer as the director. The song was written by Ella Yelich-O'Connor (Lorde), Joel Little and Jack Antonoff and it stars Lorde.
Now, as you probably have guessed, is the time to summarize the narrative of the music video. In the beginning of the music video, you can see Lorde staring at her reflection in a public restroom and the next scene involves her dancing slowly in a club, with silhouettes of other playgoers and flashing lights surrounding her. She is then seen stepping inside a taxi, having exited the club at night and following this scene, she is seen taking her head out of the taxi window as it drives through Los Angeles. After this, she can be seen on the top of the taxi, dancing, with red lights shining on her. Juxtaposed scenes of her dancing and laying across the car are inter-cut. In the following scenes we see her dancing in the streets after putting on headphones and she seems to be enjoying herself. During the pre-chorus, she is inside the same bathroom from the first scene and with Antonoff playing piano in the background. As the earlier scenes of the video are mashed up at this point, the dancing intensifies and several shots of her moving her hair back and forth are shown. In the final scene, Lorde is seen making her way through an overpass at sunset, as a green light is reflected on her face.
While the video is primarily focused on performance, it does present a somewhat linear narrative and therefore, it can be classified as a narrative/performance video. It is quite evident why it is a performance video with Lorde lip syncing and dancing almost throughout and Antonoff playing the piano in the background at one point.
The main themes of the video are love, crushed dreams, heartbreak, change, hope and the past.
Moving on to some of the theories that can be applied to this video, I will start with Strauss's theory of binary opposition this time. The binary opposites of blue v. red, rest vs. dancing and dawn vs. night can be found in the video. This can also be tied to Sven E Carlson's binary opposition theory.
The next theory I am going to apply to this video is Steve Archer's theory about inspiration from other media. The lights on Lorde and the close-ups give it a TV commercial aura, hence, the inspiration comes from TV. Lorde's outfit is similar to her daily public outfits, hence the fashion inspiration is present as well.
Instead of going on to link this video to more theories, I am going to shift the focus to genre as the main purpose of this analysis was to analyze it focusing on the genre and its conventions.
Having classified the song into the following genres; electropop, post-disco and dance-pop, it's time to see the characteristics present in the music video that justify this classification.
One common feature of electropop and dance-pop videos is a night club and features dance, both of which are used to compliment the mood and theme of the video. If we look at the lightning, its a mixture of low key and neon lightning and since the mise-en-scene is primarily set at night, this becomes another characteristic associated with electropop. The close-up shots of the artist are featured to familiarize the audience with the artist as they lip-sync and due to the record label's demand, which is a characteristic represented in all genres. In electropop, the common narrative shown is not prominenet and this can be found in Green Light's music video, giving yet another element that helps justify the classification. The editing ensures that the cuts go with the beats of the song and that the pace is also set according according to the song, for example quick and fast during the chorus and slow paced in the intro and outro. All this is also a characteristic of the electropop genre.
Continuing with the genre characteristics,the variation of the shots of Lorde (in this case) are used in dance-pop music videos to add to the light and upbeat mood of the video.
Coming to the ideology behind the song, so in Lorde's words "And I realized this is that drunk girl at the party dancing around crying about her ex-boyfriend who everyone thinks is a mess. That’s her tonight and tomorrow she starts to rebuild. And that’s the song for me." I think this explains the main ideology behind the music video quite well and there is no reason left to further analyze it for the ideology.
Now lets discuss a few of the music video's elements and their respective significance and what they symbolize. Lets start with her staring into the mirror in the beginning, this could symbolize her reflecting on her past and what led o her break-up etc. The scene where she gets into the taxi could symbolize new beginnings and a new journey. It could also mean hope as the start of a new journey brings hope.
The camera techniques used in the video include pan, handheld, zoom-in/out and crane shots. The rule of thirds has been used expertly with a range of shot types including extreme wide shots, close-ups, match on action, low angle mid-shot and mid long to mid close up.
With this I will conclude this analysis and I hope that all that I learned through these three analysis would come in handy when creating my project.
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