Evaluation

The video opens with a close up shot of a wine bottle situated on the ground in a rural, natural environment, a hand appears and clumsily drags the bottle out of the shot, the motion of how he grabs the bottle and drags is done to mimics a stereotypical monster in a pre 1970s horror film. The close up shot of the wine bottle tells the audience that this video is going to have some context about alcohol. The body language was organised to symbolise, in a comedic way, the media representation of todays youth in England which links in with the alcoholic drink. The fact that it is a wine bottle, which symbolises culture, being dragged away by a student in a horror style manner is a metaphor for todays youth lifestyle, this metaphor is way meant to be seen in a humorous way and not taken too seriously which the general body language of the students grasp of the bottle specifies. The Camera was handheld when taking the shot because the opening shot was meant to summarise the atmosphere for the rest of the video, because of this a smooth and steady shot would not have been suitable.

To avoid confusion in this evaluation I am going to label the characters A B C and D. A is the male in a stripyhoody, the male in the leather jacket will be called B, the female with brown hair and fake fur will be called C and the girl in the hoody will be D. In the second shot the camera was mounted above A on a tripod to give a sense of weakness to the character, this weakness is enhanced by the posture and position of the character, he is slumped over and unconscious. The camera slowly zooms out to reveal the scenery where the characters adventure is taking place and his cramped, isolated situation, the idea of this shot was for the viewer to ask “how did he get into this situation?” The shot is split into two sections which are parted by a shot of B preparing to smoke cannabis back in time which begins to explain how B got into the situation he is in, the time travelling is shown by A smoking straight after it zooms out from him. The storyline of the video explains how A got into that situation.

Before the first chorus the characters are sitting down in a quite, calm manner smoking and laughing, we used no effects here until the last shot before the first chorus, we did this to divide this section and contrast it to the rest of the video where, because of the structure of the music, it becomes much more trippy and more video manipulation is introduced. The shots of the characters smoking are all close ups to introduce the characters, both these shots were taken without the actors knowing so there body language are naturally happy and calm. A B C and D all leave the area they were introduced in and stumble drunkenly through the ruins of a giant arch way, this was done to progress the story line. The camera pans round following B because he is the one leading the rest of them. Just before the chorus kicks in there is the shot of characters B and C smoking, it is the same shot as earlier but it is now in reverse, making it looking like the smoke is jumping back into Bs mouth, the abstract clip gives the viewer an insight of what is in store for the rest of the video.

For the chorus we filmed a friend of ours playing a series of different instruments used in the song in front of a green screen, then we put an effect called split screen in the background using video editing software. We originally planned to have all the shots as extreme close ups so the viewer would not be able to tell that the person singing and playing the instruments is not really a member of MGMT but after a few takes of the sequence we decided to shoot the shots in close up, but not extreme close up so we could see the singers eyes, this was because no matter how many attempts and angels we used in extreme close up we could not make the singer look like a member of MGMT, so admitting defeat we decided to have his eyes and hair in the shot, this seemed to work because he looked like someone listeners of MGMT could relate to. We used the effects in the background to keep with the “trippy” “hippy” theme we were going for in this video.

From the second verse onwards the song takes a more upbeat tone, lots of different instruments are introduced and the pace of the music is increased. We adapted to the change in the song by exaggerating the intoxicated state of our characters. To do this we made the cast stumble around a lot more, we shot a huge chunk of the rest of the video in first person, we added a lot of effects and we cut the film to make the pace of change between shots much faster.

The second verse opens with B walking through a gap in the ruins, as he jumps through light streams trail behind him, adding to the trippy atmosphere of the video. the character is by himself which follows the storyline of the characters becoming much more independent. The first person shots have been shot in a way to make it look like they are been seen through someone who is intoxicated, we have used an effect that a lot of directors and editors use when representing drunk people. This effect has been made by playing the footage then over lapping it with the same footage a split second later, making everything in the shots blurred with trails, giving a nortious effect, tv series’ such as skins and films such as The Big Lebowski have used this effect when portraying alcohol and drugs from a first person angle. The first person shots show the characters are further apart and are becoming more independent which is a contrast to the close alignment seen in the first verse. This is not due to them falling out or arguing but because the alcohol and drugs have separated each of them into their own intoxicated, bewildering, independent worlds. After the period of the first person footage the shot of B running out of the hole in the ruins is reversed and then the story line goes back in time to when A and D are sitting down smoking. The reverse of B jumping through the hole works as a bridge in between the two sections in time. The clip of A and D smoking has been heavily manipulated to represent the change between verse two and verse one. As the verse calms down before entering the bridge we cut in a clip of B staggering slowly backwards in reverse time, his slow movements and the lack of major effects gently easies the video from being very jumpy and energetic to quite calm in the process of the structure of the song.

At the end of the second chorus the song fades into another first person shot of a character running up a set of stairs in the ruins, at the end he looks over the environment and watched character C stagger away by herself. The difference between this shot and the other first person shots is that the contrast and brightness was tampered with to give it a different feel to the rest of the video which is in tune with the structure of the music. The shot also has hands in it to make the clip more personal. The video ends with a time laps of storm clouds heading over the horizon through a gap in the ruins, this symbolises the general story that has just taken place.