Swedish House Mafia - One (your name) music video analysis

This is one of the first shots in the video, it seems unusual yet it stands out because it is bright white, mixed with other pastel colours, the shot looks bold, so it draws your eye in. The editing pace in this sequence is quite fast, it matches the pace of the music, the clever thing about this part of the video is that the recording device in the shot is made to be controlling the sound of the song, which is interesting because it’s not often used in music videos like that.

An extreme close up of a woman's eye is shown with the lyrics to the song in the middle over her pupil, this adds interest to he video and is an effective way to present the lyrics. This could also connote the woman's eyes are telling us she wants to know your name without her actually having to say anything, the eye stares in to the camera which creates a direct mode of address. 

A mid shot of a man is used with a centre framing, a negative lighting has been used to create an interesting and unusual effect on the shot. This links to the luminous colours used throughout the rest of the video. Lighting is incredibly important in this genre of music, to create a club type of mood to the video.  

This is the first birdseye shot we get, of the table and the people around it, during the video the look and things around the table begin to change, in this shot for instance there are various wires, a fan and some chain around, signifying this may be the ‘setting up, getting ready’ stage of the party.

Again we see another birdseye shot of the table, this time though we see more people, which appear now to be our main focus. There is an interesting use of costume in this shot, as the people who are in the room seem to be wearing masks usually associated with breakdance, although they are wearing them on the tops of their heads giving the audience a very surreal, confused presentation, despite that it is very interesting, and does create a good look. The editing in this part is especially quick.
  

The editing pace at this point is at its fastest. In this shot we see the birds eye view of the table has changed again, this time we see confetti and nobody around the table the shot is mostly of a dark black colour and just the one man Dj-ing the music. This could be a pointer in the narrative of the video as this may be the peak of the party, and it’s now about to start dying down.

In this shot, we see how the song title and lyrics are highlighted, this is one of the only points in the video that we can salvage some sort of narrative structure. The song seems to be based around the general club scene and meeting people. This therefore highlights that point. It is an interesting shot because along with the rest of the style of the video, this you would normally pick up on as not part of the same style; however it manages to work in this video, maybe because of the fast editing pace or because the lighting of the shot is still fairly low/dark.This shot is interesting also, because it has changed from the similar shot of the birds eye with the masked people in, to a close up of this man, we see a different use of editing here as there is effect to the fact he is breathing fire. There is also an interesting use of sound stings throughout the video, there is layered sound above that of the actual music track, giving the video more depth and making it more effective, the sounds almost act as sound effects to certain things people are doing e.g. glass breaking. This becomes especially apparent towards the end of the video. 


We then see the silhouette of a woman dancing, throughout this the lighting in the background changes, to a red colour to black and white, which is again unusual because it is in contrast to the rest of the video, which is in colour. However the dancing is obviously significant to the song.

In this shot we see a close up of a woman’s lips, the background is very out of focus, we understand that the use of close up on lips in music video’s is very conventionally popular, I know this from the research I did on conventions of music videos. 

As you can see this shot is a strong contrast to the one above, on it’s own it even looks like a picture rather than part of a video. The interesting thing about this shot is that the front layer is of the tape recording image again, yet the background is full of colour, there is an actor waving a flare light around, as this is when the end bridge of the song comes in, it matches the pace of the music really well, and the count down on the tape recorder makes it even more powerful because you are anticipating what is going to happen next.

As you can see this shot is a strong contrast to the one above, on it’s own it even looks like a picture rather than part of a video. The interesting thing about this shot is that the front layer is of the tape recording image again, yet the background is full of colour, there is an actor waving a flare light around, as this is when the end bridge of the song comes in, it matches the pace of the music really well, and the count down on the tape recorder makes it even more powerful because you are anticipating what is going to happen next.

The next few shots and ones before hand are mostly close ups of the recording device again, which keep our attention drawn to what is happening, another interesting thing that is used too, is the fact that the lyrics often appear on screen, which is not common in music videos because it often looks amateur. However with the technique being used in this video, it doesn’t give it that effect; within the next few shots that are shown also, the editing progresses and gets faster, with the addition of the sides of the shots moving to make the illusion of loud speakers when they jump.

This next shot, is of a break dancer, again wearing a mask. However the shot is framed oddly, it appears again to be birdseye but gives the illusion that the dancer is dancing on a vertical wall, which is impressive to look at. The editing again here is very quick.