Goodwin Theory

Arctic Monkeys-When The Sun Goes Down

Genre

Indie - The indie music genre is not represented through the image of the band but through the mis en scene of the location relating back to the target audience. Indie music is established as music for the lower class and this is represented in a number of shots as the location of the video is very run down and in a number of shots of the principle characters are displayed on estates. This represents the target audience as they are generally from the lower class and the location of the video works well to create a mirror image of the lifestyle within the indie audience.

Boy Band – Throughout the music video, the band ‘Arctic Monkeys ‘ do not feature. This could be key to represented to the audience that the band is now well established and do not need to be present in their music video as they are already a well known music artisit.

Visuals and Lyrics

The lyrics to the single are much based on the male character throughout the music video as the lyrics are based on describing the male as a low life and generally bad person. The lyrics used when the male first intervenes into the music video are “what a scummy man”. This is very important as it represents the villain of the music video and starts of by calling him scum which allows the video to open up and show why the male is described in this way although at the time he seems to look as if he is helping the girl. The shot opens up to the male walking over to the lonely girl and looks so that the male character is helping the young female. Which shows the audience that the man must be trying to manipulate the girl, which allows the story to evolve and represent why the band call him scum although he seems to be helping the female.

Visuals and Music

The music video generally matches the pace of the music as throughout the video the cutting rhythm is at a very fast pace which matches the high intensity throughout the song. Although the song is generally at a very fast pace, The start of the video open slowly for the first 30 seconds which also relate to the cutting as the cutting first opens slowly but then picks up pace according to the rhythm of the music. As the pace picks up, the movement of the onscreen characters also begin to become much more lively and relate the pace of the onscreen movement to the fast pace rhythm to the music.

Selling the Artist

In the music video to the arctic monkeys single “when the sun goes down” does not feature the arctic monkeys throughout the video. This can be seen to effect as this could represent the band as very well known which leads to them not needing to represent themselves in their video. This means that the band are such a world known band that they do not need to be represented to their audience. The location of the video although represents the arctic monkeys as it can be used to represent the background of the band and relate to the urbanization of the target audience.

Notion of Looking

Throughout the music video, a number of close ups are used throughout of the female facing into the camera. The female also portrays a sad, lifeless facial expression in which she is able to draw the audience into helping her. This is effective as it follows the story of her needing help to get away from the controlling man she seem to commonly be with.

Shots are also taken during the music video of the female looking into the mirror. The shot is used to effect as the camera shot is recorded of the mirror as we can see the girl/man looking into the mirror. This can be important as it could represent that the audience should not be at the location and represent that the audience are watching something private.

Narrative Questions

1) Where is the story set? What does this tell you about the genre of the music video?2)How many principle characters?3) How is the story told?4) what questions are you left with?

1) The music video opens to a lower class location and this continues throughout the music video. The video opens to a mid shot of the girl but the audience is able to see a run down block of flats in the background of this shot. This is important as it follows other indie music trends and is able to represent the lifestyles of the indie genre and the audience to the music.

2) Throughout the music video there is a main principle character but also another important character. The video is based on the life style of the female as she attracts a thug who is also featured throughout.

3) The story to the music video is produced in a puzzled order which generally follows a story chronologically but tends to always cut back to previous shot and shot from the past. Of the female. This is important as the shot are used to follow the lyrics of the song and also is used to show different locations which can also be used to represent the genre.

4) The questions I was left with from the music video are:• What happens to the girl next?• Is she in trouble?• Does she get rid of the thuggish male?• Is she a hooker?• Why do the band not feature in the music video?