Analysis: Bohemian Rhapsody

I created this by downloading the YouTube video via the Computer Hope website. I then added my text with Windows Live Movie Maker.

Please bear in mind with this video that I don't point something out every time it happens. For example, I only mention close-ups once, but there are several.

So, I have scored Bohemian Rhapsody a 7/10 on its ability to live up to the conventions of the Andrew Goodwin Theory. 

As is the problem with solely performance based videos, there were few clear links between the visuals and the lyrics; I still have no idea what the song is supposed to be about. Furthermore, it used few locations, none of which being particularly visually appealing. Along with this, the band were wearing only one costume throughout the video (unless you count whatever they were wearing in the super low key shots). Moreover, this costume did not give the band any sex appeal. (At least I didn't think so, maybe things were different in the seventies and girls couldn't resist men in silver latex suits, but I don't think so). Neither was there any voyeurism or sexualization of women to attract a straight male audience.

On the other hand, we have to take into account that this was pretty much the first music video ever made. I think the idea was to give the audience a taste of what a Queen gig would be like. This explains why it is performance based, and means that the video actually promotes Queen and Queen gigs. The demands of the record label are further met with the many, many close ups of the artist. There is a focus on the band throughout, and high angle shots are used to make them seem ever more impressive. They are also shown singing and playing instruments which not only showcases their skills, but creates a link between what we are seeing and hearing. Furthermore, there is a strong theme to the notion of looking; there are countless fade transitions and special effects are used to duplicate images and stuff. This is a key part to the AG theory. As for the costumes, I believe they were representative of the rock genre at the time, though this is now an outdated look. Editing and camera work has achieved to link the visuals with the music as you can see clear differences in these two aspects between the slow parts of the song and the fast parts. Lighting was also used well in this way, as explained in my video. On top of this, there are some links between the lyrics and the visual. The mood of the visuals represents the different phases in the song. Rapid cutting also makes it seem as if two people are singing to each other as they are in the song. Finally, a visual silhouette is also used in conjunction with the line "I see a little silhouetto of a man".

Overall, the video does have many basic aspects of the AG theory but it is a little outdated in how we would imagine a music video today and it misses some key conventions of these videos. None the less, it is a great song.

What would I take from this video to put into my own?

The lighting skills and the editing skills will all be necessary to make a good music video. More specifically however, I like the use of silhouettes and shadows in the low key scenes, these would be good for my song choice. I also think that the focus on the band and specifically on them playing instruments would work well at the beginning of my track. The kind of editing/special effects in this song might also be good fun to use.

The Best Music Videos Ever

Over the next few posts I will be analysing music videos suggested by the YouTube video below. This is not meant to be genre specific; the aim is to give me a general understanding of music videos as a whole. I will be using the Andrew Goodwin theory in the analysis of these music videos and will note ideas I have about my own music video which are inspired from these.

Lip Sync Task

As you might imagine, this involved making a quick music video and trying to lip sync it correctly. Firstly, we had to choose a song that we all knew the words to. Bohemian Rhapsody, of course. Then we filmed it at locations around school, and finally we created a video on Premiere Pro.

This is one of the videos our group created, it experiments a bit with transitions and intercutting different scenes, but it's primary purpose is to get us used to lip syncing.

What I learnt

Do the full song at each location
Personally I would already have done this, but because Bohemian Rhapsody is such a long song, and we as a team were so lazy, we instead did a different part of the song at each location. What I learnt from this task however, is that there needs to be lots of cuts throughout the video in order to make it visually appealing. This is a convention stated in the Andrew Goodwin theory. To do this, not only do you need lots of locations etcetera, etcetera, but you need to be able to cut back to those locations throughout the song. Take this location:

We only filmed the opening paragraph of the song in this location, and due to the nature of the shot, it had to be shown as one. What we should have done, is film the whole song at this location, and film it several times to get different camera angles etc. Thus, we would be able to keep cutting back to this location throughout the song in order to make the video more visually appealing.

Make sure to know the words exactly and how they are said

In the picture on the left, I have just finished miming the word 'me', however, the song holds that note for a lot longer than I did. Thus for the rest of the scene we are left with a picture of me and brad smiling at the camera whilst Freddie continues to sing. This just emphasizes the need to rehearse when doing my final video. You can't lip sync if your lips aren't moving.

In this shot we agreed that if we didn't already know, and if there was no audio, we wouldn't be able to make out what Brad was saying. This has lead me to believe that the singer should always say their lines as if they were actually singing, and accentuate their mouth and body movements to accentuate this.

The Theory of Andrew Goodwin

In a time before time, a theory was created. A theory that would determine the very future of music videos. This theory was created by Andrew Goodwin. No-one knows who Andrew Goodwin was or is; wikipedia believes him either to be an Australian operatic tenor, an Australian footballer, or an English Cricketer, while the rest of google believes him to be a chemistry professor at Oxford. However who he really was doesn't matter; he was a symbol, an icon, a turning point in musical history. Over the course of this paragraph, he has become the very meaning of music videos. Here is a wordle to sum up his theory:

Digipack Task

One of our first tasks was to create a practice cd album cover, here is a slideshare detailing what i did: