Written By: Dan Smith
Genre: Indie / Alternative
This is the indie rock band, Bastille's music video for the song 'Laura Palmer'. The video shows a non-linear narrative, where each event seems to run parallel against each other, then joins together revealing the plot within the story. The overall narrative of the video shows a gang kidnap the lead singer of the band; who is making a music video on location within this music video and force him to join their gang.
The mise-en-scene used in the video is typical to the indie rock genre. The costumes that the characters wear are dark t shirts and jeans, including shirts and vests typical for the male characters. The female character featured in the video also reinforces the indie rock genre by wearing cut off jean shorts, a simple t shirt, black army style boots and dark make up, including plum lipstick; a feature that contrasts against her pale skin. The female character wears her long hair down throughout the video; a hair style that is common to the mise-en-scene of the genre but also suggests connotations of youth and freedom, a strong representation portrayed throughout the video. The props used consist of masks that the gang wear that links into the narrative, significantly hiding their appearances with only the video audience knowing who is who and quad bikes which they drive around on. The quad bike is a stereotypical mode of transport that younger people use for fun, suggesting that the group has been stereotyped in order for the audience to recognise them as youth. The props on the set of the music video location are lighting shown in the shot from the production teams point of view and other equipment used to shoot a video. The props set up the scene of the video and make it realistic to the audience, helping them understand the ideology behind the narrative. The locations of the video swap from the gangs point of view to the video production teams'. The main location featured shows the area of the gangs abandoned scrap yard where they are shown to hang around the most. Each time the video cuts to the gang location it's daylight or dusk, in a dry, sandy area. The location of the film production is a field and wood area and they are shooting in the dark.
The cinematography used conforms to the genre conventions of indie rock. The beginning of the video shows a handheld home video camera, which tilts at the sky and then zooms out from the female character. The use of a home style camera relates to the narrative of the music video and adds a slightly different effect than then normal video camera. It could suggest to the audience that they are looking into the gangs history and everyday life, getting to know the characters better. The next few shots are mix of long and establishing shots with a tilt upwards. Each shot switches back and forth between the parallel story lines, a technique I could use in the editing of my music video. There is an eye line match within the video, showing a gang member with the video camera, then an edit to what he's filming. This is realistic for the audience because it shows the two separate narratives often following a linear sequence, making the video more understandable. The close ups of the gangs faces also suggest the stronger link between the audience and those characters instead of the story happening with the rest of the video's characters. The facial expressions are hard to read, but don't often show positive emotion, but rather guarded and secretive. The narrative starts to unfold through the cinematography, when a track shot is used to gage the destination travelled by the gang, whilst rapid edits between both locations and sets of characters lead the audience to question the next sequence of events. The audience know when the two story lines cross over because a shot of the lead singer is seen on the home video camera footage. This would suggest that the gang had ideas of kidnapping/ holding hostage the band member, by documenting the process of the plan and when it's carried out. The next shots reveal the narrative on the home video footage; highlighting the aftermath of the kidnap and how the gang turns him into a member. This is reinforced through the hand camera movements whilst following the characters. The final shots in the video are home film footage alongside back and forth close ups of the masks the gang wear. The lead singer of the band is handed a mask to wear, accepting he is now one of the gang and the final shots in the narrative are another kidnapping from the audiences point of view and a blackout to finish. The cinematography portrays an interesting narrative to the audience, keeping them interested as well as conforming to the conventions of the narrative music video style.
The sound used throughout the video in non-diegetic from the song over the top of the video, a conventional feature for most music videos. The only diegetic parts of the video, which reinforce the narrative to the audience helping create a more realistic video, include the very beginning, where the sounds of the video camera can be heard and about half way through the video cuts to a dog barking on home video style footage, the first audible shot of the dog. This happens just as the gang kidnap the singer, suggesting it's used as an interruption for the audience to distract their attention for a while. This is an unconventional part of music videos, which highlights the stereotype of the indie rock music genre, of breaking the rules.
The editing of the video fits along with the music, showing fast pace edits and quick shots between different locations and characters. This keep the audience interested with the video as well as relating it to the narrative. The editing is conventional to the choice and genre of music and song. The fast editing goes along with the beat of the song, keeping it in time and flowing well.
The male characters dominate the video, with only one main female character. This links to the stereotype around males and them being the most dominant gender when in gangs and committing acts like kidnapping. This also shows the female character to find comfort within the male gang, as she's the only member to be female, unusual for her to belong there within the female stereotype.
The video's narrative creates an understanding through visuals and gives the audience something to follow. The shots switch from home video style to standard filming altering how the audience view the video keeping the interest alive. It also shows each aspect of the plot by using the different camera styles, giving the audience another indication as to what is going on. The narrative is easy to follow as the video goes on. The overall structure is simple but clever when incorporating the different camera styles. Using the band in the videos narrative also creates the link between the target audience and video, portraying an appealing video for their target market, who are most likely going to watch the video with the band featured as characters. There is a part of the video narrative where the lead singer is singing along with the song, almost like it's a performance style video, not narrative. The only way the audience discover it's part of the plot is when the production team start to direct the lead singer and the song carries on. The mix between the story line and the band performing is blurred for the audience, signifying the video structure to be less predictable creating a more interesting plot.
The conventions of form in the indie rock genre are shown through the narrative, 4 micro elements and audience. The narrative conforms to the genre form because the characters/band never break the 4th wall between the audience and story. This creates the conventional indie video recognisable to it's audience and separates the music genre. The video expectations from the conventions of form often reflect the mood and style of the song. This is a feature shown in 'Laura Palmer' reinforcing the idea that the video follows the conventions. The mise-en-scene, cinematography, editing and sound reflect the music genre, establishing the genre and create a recognisable video for the audience as well as setting conventions for videos in that genre to follow.
The ideology behind the music video is very abstract in relation to the lyrics but it is easy to follow the actual story and watch how the plot unfolds. There are parts of the lyrics that match with the narrative. Because the song itself has connotations of a quite sad and dark song, this is then portrayed through the narrative. The use of a gang and kidnap reflects the dark connotations behind the song and is stereotypical for the indie rock music genre. The occasional band view is also a key part of the ideology, linking the audience to the video by including the artists in the video.
The representation of the characters varies from the typical protagonist and antagonist binary opposite in any typical narrative structure. The difference is easy to spot through out the beginning, with the gang being the antagonists and the band being the protagonists. It's only towards the end of the video where this ideology is challenged due to the plot changing and the main protagonist becomes part of the antagonist gang. The lead is shown to slowly become accepted by the gang and eventually is given a rubber mask to wear himself. This could relate to the dominance of gangs and links into the theorist, Tessa Perkins with her theory of stereotyping and how stereotyping is important in music videos to show a clear idea of the different characters role within the narrative.
'Laura Palmer' could be an intertextual reference to the American TV series 'Twin Peaks', which follows a similar ideology as the video itself.
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