The Brick by Boring brick video, sang by Paramore was co-directed by Meiert Avis and Chris LeDoux. The genre is rock however it is an unconventional rock music video but it does apply certain aspects that you see in rock music videos, so it is very mixed.
The front woman is Hayley Williams which is quite strange for a rock video as the genre normally shows men as the lead, however Hayley is the lead singer and the main person within the group, so in all their videos she tends to be the main focus. Also what is different about this video is that you don’t see any instruments or any shots of the band all together. This is normally a key part of a rock music video to showcase all the talents and create understanding, however as this video has a strong narrative, therefore we don’t see a lot of the band. Furthermore in most rock videos, they don’t wear elaborate costumes. Traditionally they tend to wear dark bagger, casual costumes like a t-shirt and jeans, however in this video there is a clear costume as Hayley is dressed in a white medieval dress, which is very different for this sort of genre as they normally wear dark colours.
It does show some characteristics of rock videos as we get lots of close ups of Hayley Williams face while she is singing, linking the music to the video as well as establishing who the lead is. This links to Andrew Goodwin's theory, as it is important to have close ups of the artist in order to give them publicity, and it is a common aspect of a music video. There is also a lot of long swooping movements in the camera work, which again is stereotypical of rock genre as they often cut to the beat or move to it. Although the beginning of the narrative is very bright we get that contrasted with the darkness at the end, giving off an eerie, unknown vibe with is quite common within the rock genre. They often show the binary opposition light vs. dark, focusing mainly on the dark.
There is a clear relationship with the lyrics and the video. The song is all about someone who lives in a dream world to escape reality, yet it all crumbles in the end, and this is clearly represented in the dream like narrative which follows a small girl who's fairytale turns into a nightmare. The song is amplified by the video as it shows the audience the story that Hayley is singing about, making them fully understand the story she is trying to portray. For example the opening line ‘she lives in a fairytale..’ we see a close up shot of Hayley which then cuts to a medium shot of the young girl walking into an Alice and wonderland type world with fairy wings, so the lyrics clearly link to what she is singing about, again following Goodwins theory, as he also believes that the lyrics and visuals should match.
The video is also very in sync with the beat of the music as the cuts change constantly to the beat and make it easy for the audience to follow. The whole sequences cross cuts between Hayley singing and the small girl and there is often close ups of her singing, which links the visual to the music as the audience knows who the artist is. Also there is a huge use of CGI in this music video to create the ‘Pans Labyrinth’ style setting that it was based around. Furthermore the leaves are always falling, but the pace at which they fall changes with the music, so as the pace progresses towards the end, they fall a lot faster. Also within the last verse there is a clear change in the pace of the music as the beat quickens and this is reflected in the editing as the cuts become a lot faster and the CGI image changes to a much darker one, to show that the music is changes. It is also the climax of the song and this is clearly reflected in the video.
The clear star in this video is Hayley as she represents Paramore. This video is very different compared to their normal edgy videos, therefore it shows a level of maturity as it is from their third album as it shows a change in the band as they are getting older and more established. Also she is not overly sexualised; however this is normal for rock genre as women are often not the subject. This is also because Paramore’s target audience is very young, as they are mainly 14-20 year olds; therefore it is inappropriate for a young audience.
The main aspect of this video is that there is a huge amount of intertexuality that is used to attract the young audience to this video and create the mise-en-scene. The main theme that runs throughout this clip is Fairytales and many are represented. The world the little girl enters through a door directly relates to the story of Alice in wonderland as she explores this world and meets this mad hatter type character. The video was actually based on the Spanish movie Pan’s Labyrinth and we definitely see that story line throughout, as the movie is very dark and mysterious and that definitely comes across toward the end where the video shifts from this magical land to a dark scary place with lighting. There is also a medieval vibe with the costume and castle, which is quite common within the fairytale genre as they started out as folk stories. All of this helps the audience to follow the narrative as it is a very short video, so by connoting these media texts, they immediately understand what is happening. This is important because although the video is a mixture of narrative, performance and concept based, the narrative is the strongest section as it links so clearly with the lyrics to the song.
Overall the Video to Brick by Boring brick is very different to the Star image that is often represented of Paramore, as they are known as an edgy rock band with a girl lead singer. Their videos are normally heavily performance based as Hayley is a great front woman. But this video shows the change in their image as all the songs from their new album have videos that match the meaning on the lyrics. This shows they are evolving as a band and not conforming to the normal conventions of their genre.
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