Manchester Orchestra - Virgin (Analysis)

Joe

The Category - This qualifies for illustration; the video tells a few stories, the video itself consisting of the 'virgin girl', the war veteran in the wheelchair, the children and the TV screen and the gas mask theme which runs throughout the duration of the film.

The Genre Of The Song - The genre of the song has been labeled 'Alternative Rock'. Other than pop/charts, rock is considered the second most popular genre of music in the world. Alternative rock consists of various subgenera that have emerged from the independent music scene since the 1980's such as grunge, brit pop, indie pop and indie pop.

The Artist, Song Title, The genre Of The Music - Manchester Orchestra - Virgin. Manchester Orchestra aren't actually from manchester, they chose their artist name because Manchester is known as the biggest 'sprouting' place for music production and they thought they might get extra recognition and such.

Koceila

Graphics/FX -

The effect at the beginning where the ears are on the persons bottom is to connote that what we hear and take in everyday is nonsense.

There are many uses of CGI at the end where the room transforms into a broken, rotted yet similar one to the room they were just sat in to show how quickly society can change from normal and calm to disrupt and corrupt. It is to connote modern day society and how certain countries which seem alright at first can quickly become violent. Also the man in the gas mask being multiplied at many moments shows the dominance of people within the war zone that is commercialism.

Locations – The locations used for the music video vary from a range of American settings. They use a supermarket, the actual city, beaches, fields and also various houses. Most of the shots have some type of commercialistic item (cigarettes, Pepsi or perfume) that is juxtaposed by the American flag merging the two meaning together implying that America is dominated by commercialism.

Lighting – Is high key at many times but also the inverse at moments of darkness. Most of it is natural however on the odd occasion it’s darkened to fit in with the images shown which are themed mostly around darkness and evil.

Editing –Is to the beat and extremely fast at times (magazines being shown). The images are put together in a way that tells a non-coherent story but you still understand what’s actually happening. Also there are a variety of fades, starting with the matress on fire, where theres a orange tinted effect that then blurs off as it changes to the next scene.

John

Props
The props used in this video consist of a burning matress, gas masks which especially denotes protecting yourself against the gas of commercialism ,cigerettes, burgers all these are all commercial products in which the music video/song is trying to potray to its audience.









Craig Davis Analysis
For this video there is no obvious link with the lyrics therefore the narrative is categorized as disjunctive. The video does not focus on the performers at all it is more focused on getting the point of commercialism across to the audience.

Camera Use

• Long shots to set the scene
• Close ups to introduce and show emotions on characters

• Extreme close ups to show specifics to enhance commercialistic theme

• Over the shoulder shots to set the scene of the video from the characters point of view
• Low angle shots to show the vunerable characters oint of view
  
• High angle shots to show the dominance of certain characters
  
• Establishing shots to so the scenery of the video e.g The Beach

• Wide angle to show the streets from the war veterans point of view

Goodwins Analysis

Genre Characteristics:

Manchester Orchestra portrays the genre of indie music because the mellow instruments and diegetic sound you would represent with most laid back rock bands.Also we would be more ousted towards the indie category because in video the performers don't show themselves due to being well known by audiences across the globe, instead they play the part of narrative story's or give a idea across to the audience.

Close Up of Artists:

In this video there is not any close ups of the artists because most artists are already known by niche audiences so they do not need to focus on showing peoples faces. The pop star silhouette is associated close ups of the performers face so get there known by people. Manchester Orchestra are mostly focused on telling a story and getting a point across to the audiences.

Joe

Relationships Between Lyrics and Visuals:

First of all, the song title is 'Virgin' and one of the scenes references is to a girl who is portrayed to us as the virgin. This is becomes apparent as later on in the video she is laying on a bed without clothes. Her lack of make-up and natural hair tell us that she us a virgin.

Notion of Looking:

Television screens are a regular occurrences in this video, this agrees with Goodwins theory, he says that as music video viewers we are persuaded to look and visualize the reasons behind the video producers work.

Intertextual References:

We got a vague idea that the TV in the video that seems to be brainwashing the children. The white house and fuzzy screen is similar to what occurs in the film 'The Ring'. Something horrific always happens when the fuzzy screen comes on.