Floors and walls the stand analysis
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Band: Floors And Walls Song: The Stand Director: Adam Powell This video begins with shots of the band’s instruments, not being played, with no music behind. This builds tension, you find yourself asking what will happen next. The next shot shows the band beginning to play – this is mostly a performance-based video, with some narrative also. The performance based side of the video shows all band members, whereas the narrative aspects show only the lead singer. The location used for the performance-based shots in this music video is a multi-story car park. This might have been chosen as the location because of the band’s genre of music, which they describe as being “Alternative/Drum & Bass/Concrete”. There is a relationship between the lyrics and the visuals in this video. For example, “As I walk in the bar of a restaurant...” shows a shot of the singer walking, then shots of him sitting in somewhere that looks like a pub or bar. Also, later on in the song, when he sings “And I wake up wondering where I am and my face feels really bruised...” the camera switches to a shot of the lead singer against a plain background using a blue/purple filter – possibly a reference to the bruising he would have. The camera shot is unsteady, as if you are swaying around. The shot also drifts in and out of focus; this creates the effect of the viewer feeling like they are the ones concussed in hospital.
Transcript of Floors and walls the stand analysis
Band: Floors And Walls
Song: The Stand
Director: Adam Powell
This video begins with shots of the band’s instruments, not being played, with no music behind. This builds tension, you find yourself asking what will happen next. The next shot shows the band beginning to play – this is mostly a performance-based video, with some narrative also. The performance based side of the video shows all band members, whereas the narrative aspects show only the lead singer.
The location used for the performance-based shots in this music video is a multi-story car park. This might have been chosen as the location because of the band’s genre of music, which they describe as being “Alternative/Drum & Bass/Concrete”.
There is a relationship between the lyrics and the visuals in this video. For example, “As I walk in the bar of a restaurant...” shows a shot of the singer walking, then shots of him sitting in somewhere that looks like a pub or bar. Also, later on in the song, when he sings “And I wake up wondering
where I am and my face feels really bruised...” the camera switches to a shot of the lead singer against a plain background using a blue/purple filter – possibly a reference to the bruising he would have. The camera shot is unsteady, as if you are swaying around. The shot also drifts in and out of focus; this creates the effect of the viewer feeling like they are the ones concussed in hospital.
Also, the camera shots change with the music. For example at the end of the song where he sings “La lala, la la la...” the shots cut on the beat except once. This is not overly done throughout the video so as to not to make it boring and repetitive and lose the viewer’s attention.
The shots switch between the band playing and the singer’s narrative. This keeps the video interesting, instead of having just the narrative or just the performance.
In this video, the only person you really see is the lead singer – the viewer doesn’t get to see many close-ups of the other band members. This directs focus upon him throughout the video in order to help gain audience attention.
During the shots of the whole band playing, the lighting is quite bright on them, and the background is dark as it is night. This draws your attention straight to the band and the music, which is what really matters, instead of aesthetic aspects.
The lighting in the narrative-based shots is less white and in the shots of the lead singer sitting in a bar, his face appears to have a red tint, perhaps a reference to him getting beaten up in the song and ending up in hospital.
