Analysis of a professional music video

Foo Fighters- Rope

Information on video

The song was release on 1st March 2011, it was the first single to be released from their new album 'Wasting Light'.

The song is 4:19 long and was written by Dave Grohl who is the lead singer of the band and the video was directed by Butch Vig.

The music video was shot entirely on VHS.

Canadian electronic producer deadmau5 produced a popular remix of the song that was released separately as part of the deadmau5 Mix Edits EP. It was made available digitally on 14 April 2011.

Genre

The genre of the music video is Alternative rock/post grunge. This is shown through the video, as the other than fades at the start, the whole video is in black and white, even the costumes of the whole band.

At the start of the music video it is slow, quiet and is a silhouette of the band but as soon as it gets heavier and the drums come in, it goes to normal, but they are still in a white room with dark clothing.

This suggests the particular genre as many videos do this such as the video we chose for our production 'Underdog' by Kasabian.

Narrative Structure

The video doesn't really have a narrative structure, the video is quite basic, and is all set in one room, but cuts to different band members. Bellow is examples of these shots.

Visual Style

The camerawork in this video is very typical of a music video by a rock band. There are a lot of close ups of the band memebers, high and low angle shots, as well as an establishing shot.

There are many cuts in this video. At the starts there are fewer and slower cuts, but as the video goes on the tempo of the music increases, along with the cuts.

The costumes are quite typical of a rock band, they are wearing dark clothes, with messy hair and unshaven.

The lighting is unatural, as it is filmed in a studio, which is completely white and there are bright lights shining down.

The setting of the video is the room and the only props used are the instruments.

Character Representation

Again the character representation is mainly based on their music, as their appearance makes them look careless and like a typical rock and roll band. Their music is normally very upbeat and always has a catchy chorus like this particular song.

What makes it successful?

This song was very successful, topping the charts. This is because it was the first single released from their new album, so everyone will buy it to listen to it, and also because it is catchy and has every attribute that most Foo Fighters songs have.