By Katherine GillMUSIC VIDEO ANALYSIS

I have chosen to analysis one of Coldplay’s music videos, “The Scientist” because it is one of my favourite music videos and I believe that it’s also a good music video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqWLpTKBFcU

COLDPLAY-THE SCIENTIST

This music video is a mixture of styles. It has a narrative story but as the video is reversed we never really

understand what the full story is until the video has finished.

It is also a concept based video as it focuses on the technique of reversing the whole video which is developed

throughout the video. The genre of the music video is alternative/pop-rock. I think

the style of the music video goes well with the genre and lyrics of the song because the song is quite personal and

has a bit of emotion so the mixture of narrative and concept suits the song quite well.

THE STYLE

The settings are varies places outdoors for example down alley ways and walking throughout town streets and through the woodlands. These

locations are quite common and every day locations which could show how after the accident the protagonist just went through, he’s trying to go back to normal life to try and forget what just happened to him, which relates to

the lyrics “Going back to the start”When the protagonist gets to the woods, the lighting is slightly darker to

represent the mood he must be feeling after the car crash and how he must be feeling upset as well.

The protagonist is wearing black and white colours. The black could be used to represent his sadness after the accident and loss of his partner and to also represent the guilt he may feel after the accident. The white could also represent his innocence as it wasn’t actually his fault that the

car accident happened.

MISE EN SCENE

Camera- there are a lot of close ups that zoom out and pan across the scene which are often used in narratives to express motion and emotion. It almost seems like the

camera is tracking and following the protagonist on his journey back to the start of the scene, which relates to the

song and concept in the video.Editing- The concept of the video is that it starts at the end

of the story, and reverses itself back to the start. This relates to the whole idea and lyrics from the song and is

also a clever use of editing as the singer would have had to reverse the words that they sang as well. As well as the reversing of the clips, there is slow motion used as well

which emphasizes the protagonists actions

EDITING AND CAMERA

I personally think that this music video is very good because of the clever use of the reversed editing and how it links to the song. I also like how it starts at the end of the story so it creates questions that the audience start to ask

for example “where is he walking from” and “what happened to him”, which are then answered by the end of the video. I also like how they managed to cleverly reserve the song and still manage to lip sync to the reversed music pretty well as in some music videos people struggle with lip

syncing when the song is just normal.Overall I think that a clever concept has been used which relates well to the video but there is also a good narrative

story that also relates to the song. Also the various range of camera shots and techniques keeps the image moving and

keeps the audience interested which is good.

WHY I THINK THAT IT’S A GOOD VIDEO