Critical Analysis of Music Videos 5

Caro Emerald


I have noticed that we have been focusing on 'pop' music videos in our analysis, artists who have almost unlimited budgets and are played on the radio all the time.  These videos have been useful to us, giving us an idea of how 'that area' of the music business create videos. However, it does not reflect all our interest, nor the whole music video industry. This is why we are analysing Caro Emerald's videos. She is an up and coming artist who would not necessarily have such a high budget. Her style of music is individual, and not "mainstream".


Back it up 

One thing that separates Back it Up from most of her other videos, is that it is split into 4 parts, allowing  her to use her signature black and white with colour filter shots (showing her and her band) while also including some 50's television/film inspired performance. I am not sure about the exact technical term for this but I am guessing that the exposure on the camera is higher in the performance shots(example at 1:43), allowing more bright white light to come through, thus giving a fresher and very different look to the shots of her and individual band members against the white back-drop (example at 1:00). The element that makes the audience know it is a Caro Emerald video is the 'karaoke' style lyrics that appear on the screen as she sings them. A variation on this convention is the occasional lyrics that appear as film titles throughout the video (example at  1:16) and 'The End'.
A number of after effects have been used on this video to give it an authentic look for the eras she is using. The rolling projector effect at the start and the flickers of dust throughout the film just add to the general 'vintage' look of the video.  The other two black and white performances (early television scene at the start and the performance in front of the huge title letters) add to the hollywood glamour of this video.




That Man 

This video (especially the intro) is heavily influenced by 50's film titles. The combination of rolling/morphing animation, real film and silhouettes is very similar to titles like 'Charade' 1963.
With this type of video, elements such as locations are of less relevance, and although the audience cannot see the full costumes for most of the video,  the shape of the garment is still very important. The era must be clear to the audience even through the silhouette. Having chosen this challenging format (full sequence animation with inserts of real film) there needed to be other ways to show the performance of the singer and band. She was able to do this using silhouettes of filmed action and her trade mark colour filters combined with the morphing animation. Including dancers, performing a dance closely linked to the 40's and 50's (lindy-hop), adds a different kind of movement to balance the chase sequence.


Stuck 

This video is quite different to the others. For a start, her trademark 'lyrics on the screen' and coloured filters are not used. Although the strong colour schemes that run through each section are a variation on this convention. The use of conveyer belts, extra characters and theatrical set make it look like a MGM musical!  I feel that in this video, Caro has more fun with the genre: the extended shoulder shaking sequence and lightly comical facial expressions show this. Each scene has been carefully colour co-ordinated to highlight her bright costume.




From this analysis I have learnt:

• Colour co-ordination is used in many different ways in her videos.
• Mise en scene is very important in Caro's videos as the songs are influenced by a mixture of 40's and 50's style music, so it is imperative that the videos reflect this. Costumes, make-up, props locations and font for the lyrics all show this. 
• Many of her videos use after effects: such as coloured filters, old film effects and text on screen.
• A lot of the appeal to her videos is the obvious fun Caro is having in each one.  The light comical touches such as facial expressions or cheesy 50's style narrative are examples of this element. 
• The 'lyrics on screen' feature is used by many artists, but I think that Caro's videos execute it better than many. 
• Her videos are always introduced by titles on the screen.e.g. ''Caro Emerald  in  That Man'' this also reminds me of 50's musical films.