Music Video Analysis 4

Artists: Arctic Monkeys
Song: Suck It And See

Narrative:
The video includes a narrative as there is a storyline. The storyline of the video is that the protagonist of the video is a convict that is wanted by the police as the video starts off with a poster of the protagonist with the word "missing" underneath. The character is clearly portrayed to be in an American biker gang. The video focuses on his relationship with the female character in which they have elements of an abusive relationship. This video is a part of a trilogy of music video following the same story which will really appeal to their fan base as they'll want to see the next part and how the story finishes. It also makes the artists more identifiable as they will have seen one and expect the same content in the other videos.

Cinematography:
Mise-en-scene: 
The video starts off with the female protagonist looking into the camera for 2 seconds. The model stares right into the camera with a dull yet seductive facial expression, making a connection with the audience. However, the male protagonist comes on right after and he is wearing a scarf and sunglasses making it harder to see his facial expression. The facial expression of the protagonists changes throughout this music video. The male protagonist face is mainly covered by his sunglasses in this video, but when he takes them off he displays a sincere facial expression at 1:05. The facial expression emphasises the love he has for the love interest in the video as they are both intimate at this point. It then immediately cuts to the next scene where the female protagonist is clearly displaying an enraged face which juxtaposes with the male's facial expression showing an abusive side and a loving side to the story. Throughout the video the director has decided to mainly use natural lighting, but in some scenes there is artificial lighting. The two main areas of natural lighting in the music video are daylight lighting and night lighting as well as in the last scene the only lighting is the fireside.  There are two scenes where the camera looks into the sun creating a solar flare, this emphasises the natural atmosphere in the video. The video is set on America highways, which relates to the narrative of the video.  It is also set in an isolated home by the highway which depicts the idea of the protagonist being a convict. The home could be repossessed by them and stole it from the residents that have lived there to present their power as intimidating gangsters. The video has many stereotypical props that are needed to portray a gangster theme. The props included are marijuana, motorcycles, guns, bandana, cigarettes, alcohol bottles and sun glasses. The marijuana leaves, guns and alcohol bottles emphasise the gangster narrative and also the reason why he is wanted by the cops. The main prop that underline the American biker gang narrative would be the motorcycles as otherwise the group wouldn't have been portrayed properly. The female protagonists make-up is very soft and light which contrasts with the videos narrative of the gangster lifestyle and also the abusive relationship. Throughout the music video there are many costume changes. The male protagonist wears either a sleeveless flannel, a sleeveless jean jacket, leather jacket, a hawaiian shirt with black leather trousers or black jeans. The various costumes emphasise the gangster narrative mainly with the leather jacket/black trousers, sleeveless jean jacket and the black jeans because it is a stereotypical expectation. The sleeveless jean jacket has the name of the song and also the name of the album on the back of it which is a promotion within a promotion. As well as clothing he is also wearing a lot of jewellery on his hands which asserts the criminal narrative as he could have potentially stolen the jewellery. The female protagonist also has numerous costumes which are more revealing than the male's. The revealing and lack of clothing for the female character links to Dyer's star theory and Muvey's male gaze theory where women are sexualised. The body language of the female character emphasises both Dyer's and Muvey's theory as she is constantly walking slowly and is shown to be slender. Her body language also portrays her dominance over the male character as she usually initiates the intimate moments by constantly pulling the protagonist down to her level.

Editing:
The director decided to use the continuity editing for this video to develop the videos storyline without drawing attention to how it has been done. He has also decided to censor the females areola to make the video more suitable for a younger audience.

Performance:
The director has decided to not use any dance choreography for this video to not draw attention away from the storyline, instead he has used scenes where the the protagonist becomes aggressive where he throws an empty bottle of alcohol at the wall. As well as that, there are scenes of the couple fighting and arguing, focusing on the storyline of an abusive relationship. Although the protagonist is the drummer for the band, so he is a semi-professional actor that acts to a very professional standard in the video, however, the female character is played by Breana McDow who is mainly a model but also an actress who has acted in many music videos, which makes her a professional compared to the protagonist.

Sound:
There is no lip syncing in the video as the singer for the band isn't in this video, also there is no lip syncing because the director may have not wanted the focus to be drawn away from the storyline of the video. There are no overlays on the video other than the studio version of the song. The sound is non-diagetic.