4th Music Video Research: 'The Woodpile' - Frightened Rabbit

My working partner Chris has also researched into the chosen brief 'Music Video'.

'The Woodpile' by Frightened Rabbit has been analysed by Chris.

The entirety of the video plays out in one shot and also takes place in slow motion, this allows the camera to get every reaction to the event. the fact it is all one shoot adds an extremely dreamy effect and the slow motion adds to this. Also both of these things add a feeling of fluidity to the sequence. the video has a very bleak filter, there is a lot of grey and dim colours. 

The first shot of the music video; we start with a mid shot of the bands frontman crossing a street. this opening shot has given the audience a key focus of the video, this character.

As he crosses the street, the camera pans/tracks him in the mid shot. 

After he has crossed the street, the camera pans down and sweeps across the side of this police car. This gives the audience setting as the badge says “City of New York” This also gives the audience a theme or plot hints i.e. something serious so much so that it requires police attention has happened.

Then the camera follows around the side of the police car and track him as he walks up to a store.

then the camera follows him up the path towards the crowded shop.

then the camera pauses as he looks in to the store and then they both move into the store.

The the camera stops following him and makes its way through the crowd towards the police man who is trying to move people away from the scene while on the radio.

then the camera turns round the isle and looks past the police man, to a long shot down the isle to where there is a man who appears to have fallen down with what looks like a pool of blood.

Then the camera tracks down the isle and slowly zooms on the fallen man. 

then the camera round to the man standing eating the Cheetos

then the camera pans round and we see a mid shot proportion of an on looker, we also see another policeman arguing with what appears to be the stores owner. The owner follows an Asian stereotype of the babbling newsagents owner. 

as the camera pans we get a longer period of time focusing on the two

arguing.

then the camera rotates to a wide shot of a line of onlookers, the slow motion action gives the audience time to observe the onlookers reactions to the incident.

Up to this point we have now seen the majority of the shop, it appears to be a very conventional and familiar small news agents.

Then two onlookers move away from the group and the camera follows them round to the entrance, their we see the bands frontman again. One onlooker turns back with hand covered in shock about what he has seen. 

The camera then focus a woman in red who enters, she is already carrying a microphones and then proceeds to stand in front of a cameraman and starts talking. Her level of clothing connotes a seriousness about her, and the shade of red is also quite dominant in the extremely grey scale of the music video. 

the shot ten zooms on the reporters face 

the reporters face then drops and she lowers her mic, the onlookers in the back ground also start to have open faces. 

the camera pans across with the reporter still in shot, and the camera man then starts to turn round too. 

We pan round the entire group of onlookers. The police officer is still talking on the radio.

We then go back to the same shot from earlier, Now the fallen man is slowly getting up, the camera once again track down the isle again.

The man slowly rises, picking up a empty bottle off the floor, looking rather confused he stares at the bottle. At this point we start to notice the wet floor sign that a onlooker was standing in front of earlier.  He then proceeds to rub the back of his head. 

The camera then pans round and focuses on the wet floor sign leaving the video with a message… look out for wet floors.