Rock Music Video Analysis (Cage The Elephant - Back Against The Wall)

Cinematography

Close Up/ Mid Shots of Artists - 

Focus Pulls - During this music video a large number of focus pulls are used. This obscures a large amount of the shot for the audience, and then shows it for a short amount of time before cutting to the next shot. This technique blurs the video adding a sense of surrealism.

Mise En Scene

Colour - In this music video very bright colours are used. This coupled with the background of a forest with trees and flowers gives the audience the feel that this is some sort of fairy tale world. This is further shown through the characters of the gnomes. These very bright colour pallet contrasts the performance of the character, as he can be seen trying to kill the gnomes, and also the lyrics are about the singer feeling trapped. This contrast to the colour helps to create a sinister tone as it gives the impression that the artist is troubled, and helps to create an image of them being rebellious.

This is clearly represented through this shot. The bright flower on the left symbolises beauty, whereas the gas can represents destruction.

Performance - Throughout the music video the lead singer can be seen attempting to kill and abuse the gnome characters. This performance helps to enforce the convention of rock music videos as being edgy, as the actions the character is doing makes him come across as evil, not someone who should be idolised, as seen in other music video genres such as pop.

Eye Contact - Eye contact is a convention used in almost all music videos, and across all genres. This is due to it allowing the artist to create a connection between them and the audience.

Lip Sycning/Playing Instruments - Like eye contact lip sycning and performance of instruments is seen in all genres of music videos. This gives the audience the impression that the artist is singing the actual song and the band is playing in each shot.