Artist - Foo Fighters
Song Title - Best Of You
Year - 2005
Best Of You is a song that was released in 2005, by the Foo Fighters.The song belongs to the Alternative Rock genre.
The video was directed by Mark Pellington. Pellington's wife died and it is thought he was drawn to this song due to it's notion of dealing with pain. I make a point of this because it is an example of music video directors using personal experiences to influence and shape their ideas for their videos.
One very noticable thing about this video is actually the first shot. When looking at codes and conventions early in the course, I made the point that music videos generally seem to consist of fast paced shots and edits. However, in this video the first shot lasts 44 seconds before a jump cut to the first Narrative part of this video. Following on from this, the length of shots and cuts seems to become more conventional, and much faster.
The video is, like many other music videos, a combination of perfomance and narrative based. The majority of the video is performance based, with the band often seen playing on top of an abandoned hospital. This links in with the lyrics about pain, as does most of the narrative shots that often show pain,depression and anger. The majority of the video is made up of performance based shots.
The visuals in the narrative shots in the video are often very closely linked to the lyrics of the song. For example, words such as "pain" are repeated in the song, and there are a number of shots of pain and suffering throughout. This shows an example of a music video linking the lyrics and th visuals together and provides something to be thought about when planning a music video.
As previously said, the majority of the video is performance based. There are a number of close up shots of the lead vocalist (in particular the first 44 seconds of the video; the single shot talked about earlier). There are also shots of other gang members, but fewer than the number of shots and time on screen of the lead vocalist. He is also seen on his own away from the hospital roof throughout parts of the video, suggesting possibly that he is breaking away from the rest and the things which confine him, which is an important message from the song.
For much of Alternative Rocks hisory it has been defined more by it's rejection of the commercialism of mainstream culture than by the type of music that actually belongs to the genre. This seems clear in this song, and the song is actually about breaking away from what confines people, rather than been stuck in confinement. This music video seems one that should be looked at really closely when planning our own music videos as their are a number of conventions used, such as using a strange/unconventional setting and close-ups of important people in the band or figures that are easily recognisable, but it also breaks away from a number of common conventions, such as the long shot at the beginning (rather than fast paced shots) and having close-ups of an unshaven man with quite long hair, moving away from the idea of male/female gaze where the close-ups would be of a highly attracive person. Because of the mix of conventions followed and conventions not followed, the video provides a good overview and could ignite a number of ideas.
Overall I think this could be a very helpful video when planning on making our own Music Videos later in the course.
you say 'This music video seems one that should be looked at really closely when planning our own music videos'
ReplyDeletethese are good posts BUT you need to ensure that YOUR view, + certainly any aspects you think may be worth mimicking/being influenced by are highlighted: sub-headings?