Music Video Deconstruction #1

The Script – Breakeven

For my deconstruction, I will be summarising the video of ‘The Man Who Can’t Be Moved’ by pop band ‘The Script’, I will be doing it in the format of writing what elements this music video is comprised of in relation to Andrew Goodwin’s 6 rules of music videos.

Below is a link to the video of which im going to deconstruct:

The Script - The Man Who Can't Be Moved

#1 Music videos demonstrate genre characteristics.

This video is what Andrew Goodwin would describe as being a ‘hybrid’ music video because it possesses the elements of two or more of the types of music video he has stated, the two in this case being Narrative and Performance. Because of the way pop has evolved and included a lot of other genres in its iconography, this type is normal for the pop genre as a whole.

Pop videos are also known to have a story relating to a love story of some kind, this video in particular is relating to a man who has recently broken up with his girlfriend and he wants to find her again, this is explained through the acting within the video.

Narrative scene of the video Performance scene of the video

#2 There is a relationship between lyrics and visuals. The lyrics are represented with images.

In this video, there is a clear representation between the song and the video because video is assisting the lyrics in order to give the consumer a better understanding of the story the song is trying to tell. Andrew Goodwin states that a music video can either Illustrate, Contradict or Amplify the song, in the video I believe that the video is illustrating the song because it very closely visualises the song and presents it in a visual form.

#3 There is a relationship between music and visuals. The tone and atmosphere of the visual reflects that of the music.

The relationship is clearly presented is by on-beat editing, this occurs at 00:20 when he is walking across the street, it is visible to see that he is stepping in time to the song, which shows how much more the relationship is involved between the song and video. The change in shots is also dictated by the beat of the music, I noticed that the length and type of shot is also very dependant on the part of the song is on, if the song has slowed down, it might feature a panoramic shot where the camera circles around the actor while an upbeat section of the song.

#4 The demands of the record label will include the need for lots of close ups of the artist and the artist may develop motifs which recur across their work.

In this video I noticed a lot of the close-ups occur whilst in the performance part of the song, the camera does an extreme close shot on the singer’s face, this happens a couple of times each time the video reverts back to the performance form, the close-ups of the singer’s face does also occur in the narrative parts but the shots are held longer in the performance parts thus making them easier to notice, this satisfies the record labels needs to expose the artist by creating a visual icon to assign to them.

#5 There is frequently reference to notion of looking (screens within screens, mirrors, stages, etc) and particularly voyeuristic treatment of the female body.

The notion of looking is used constantly throughout the music video because the entirety of the Narrative scenes are used with a POV (Point-Of-View) style shot which establishes the idea of looking onto the events of the video as if you were a passer-by. The reason why the use of voyeurism in music videos is so popular is because it is actively engaging for the consumer, it makes them feel like they are really there which enriches the experience which, in turn, generates more sales for the record company.

#6 There are often intertextual reference (to films, tv programmes, other music videos etc).

Intertextual references are becoming increasingly more common in music videos, especially in the pop genre, however, I found no discernable references to popular culture as of today which is odd because the pop genre is known to include a variety of references to pop culture in the time of the video’s production and for this video not to present any noticeable ones makes it a gleaming exception to say the least.