Music Video Analysis

Funeral For A Friend – Roses For the Dead

The video for ‘Roses For The Dead’ is of a non-linear narrative where it follows a young school boy throughout the video. Over the shoulder shot has been used as he is walking, making his way to his journey; the audience sees his world from his eyes. The roses outside the front door symbolise death which immediately sets the tone of the music video and we start to know what to expect. The male is being bullied along the way to his destination and during this, the mother is introduced and she appears to be mourning. The mother has flash backs of her son and watches home videos, allowing her to escape from reality. Meanwhile the boy is in an empty room, emphasising his loneliness and isolation and makes his way up to a balcony where he looks down at the view. The mother then gets increasingly upset, rapidly pulling his posters down as the song pace gets increasingly faster which builds the climax. This video follows a typical indie music video as the narrative entails a depressed person, focusing on the emotion of both the character and song. However this video leaves out the usual performance shots of the band, going against the conventions.

As the video goes back in time to reflect on the past, I thought this would be a key idea for my music video; I will film the actress being joyful, happy etc. and will edit those clips to make it clear that it was in the past.