Florence and the Machine

Cosmic Love

Content

• The content of the music video include the main artist Florence falling in love causing pain in her eyes and although the person she loves don’t love her back, she still continues to love him. This type of narrative will attract a female audience as they will be more likely to relate to this type of narrative; they can connect with the artist.

Style and length of editing

Half way through the music video there is a fade-in of a medium shot of Florence standing in bushes. This ghostly image of herself walking through the bushes comes with the lyrics “in the dark, I can hear your heartbeat I tried to find the sound but then it stopped, and I was in the darkness, so darkness I became.” This follows Goodwin’s theory where there is a relationship with the lyric and the visuals as she is in the darkness. These shots of the bushes are cross-cutted as shots of her in the mirrored box room show. This creates a manic atmosphere with the fast editing as the repetition of the artist to be stuck in a continuous cycle of pain, searching for love. This will help me in the making of my music video as I can use different types of editing styles to present a type of emotion such as love or anger.

Mise en SceneThe light bulb. At the beginning and end of the song, the light bulb flashes in the same beat of the song. The song begins and ends with the noise similar to a heart beat. This makes it seem like the light bulb is generating music.

This mise en scene of the rings on her fingers suggests this artist and music video is Indie. The unusual style of the rings; two pendant rings with queens head on them- this could be a fashion statement. The red nail varnish goes with the red colours in the mise en scene. This may have been used to show her genre of music.

The red autumn leaves. The colour matches her hair. This may suggest that there should be a focus on her face as it doesn’t blend in. As she is walking through moving the leaves we see her wearing a white shirt with a black bow-tie. This contrasts her background and the leaves. This may have been used to make her more noticeable in the video. The clothing is similar to alternative rock; the tie. This is stereotypically seen as male clothing. This may have been used to show that Indie genre music is different with a “care-free” attitude.

Later on in the music video, leaves and glitter get flown in the air; this is like a celebration of all her emotions and the fairytale ending shoe could be getting in her song. Glitter also represents the genre through the connotations of fun, happiness and represents feminity.

This can help me in my planning of music video because I can get ideas of what types of outfits to give the female character in our music video.

LocationsThis first location is in a forest while the second is in a room surrounded by mirrors. This is not a location that the audience will aspire to. This would make this artist ordinary as the audience will be familiar with this location and not aspire to it. This goes with Dyer’s Star theory about the paradoxes. The star is simultaneously ordinary and extra ordinary. This will help me in the making of my music video as I will include at least one of these paradoxes that will cause the audience to feel like they can relate to the artist due to their location.

Star development

The first image is from her first music video while the second is from one of her latest. From these two images you can see that Florence and the Machine has developed due to media such as lighting and mise en scene. The quality of the second image looks more professional due to the lighting; this can help me in the planning of my music video as I can try and improve the quality by using better quality such as high-key lighting.

Camera shots/ angles

The main shots used in this music video is close ups and mid shots. This shots are useful as it helps the audience to recognize her more. The close up will help identify her face while the mid shot does the same will shows us her outfits and actions. This will help us in our music video as this will be our first music video we need our artist to be recognized. This close ups and mid shots will help use do this.

Characters

The only character in this music video is the artist herself Florence. Having only the artists in the music video is useful as there will be no distractions and the audience will notice them more. So it will be useful for me to include the artists alone because being new artists, they need the full attention.

Colour and lighting

Comparing the first two pictures, the background becomes lighter and softer. This goes with the lyrics which follows Goodwin’s theory. “you left me in the darkness” this lyric went with the first image describing her emotions of being alone. Later on in the song it describes her as couple “took the stars from our eyes and made a map” suggesting she isn’t alone anymore. In the left-bottom image, Florence is wearing black which contrasts with the warm colours in he reflections. The last image of Florence holding light is much brighter and tranquil with the blues. This suggests daytime. The last line being “in the shadow of your heart” which could mean that she is always going to be behind this man whom she loves. This suggests a happy ending to the sad beginning. This can help me in the planning of my music video as I can also try to include lighting and colours that will help tell the narrative better.