Meadowlark
//Paraffin
Meadowlark are an indie/alternative duo from Bristol, originally forming in 2013 starting off as a four piece the group now consists of Kate McGill and Daniel Broadley and are signed to Believe Records.
Their music video for their song ‘Paraffin’ is a performance/narrative video. It follows the story of a couple who are struggling in their relationship. It is conventional for an indie video to have a performance/narrative video as it still allows the group to show a performance aspect to their videos but it also helps engage the audience more by having a narrative included.
CAMERAWORK + EDITING
The video starts off with a panning shot, the shot allows us to establish the setting (the bedroom) and also introduce us to the couple in the narrative. The pan focuses a lot more on the women in a non-sexualised way, showing her from higher angles to show that she is weak and vulnerable.
Throughout the video, a lot of the footage is blurred at the edges and during the couple’s arguments the blurring becomes stronger, representing tears from either of them. They have also used close ups that focus on the couple individually after the arguments and the close ups are broken with re-laps of shots from their argument, showing that they are reflecting back on what happen.
For the performance side of the video, the duo is mainly shown through close ups and mid shots, the close ups mainly focus on Kate showing that she is the main singer and the mid shots show Daniel from the chin to the waist whilst he’s playing the guitar. This is again conventional for an indie genre as the shots are focusing more on the instrument than the person.
Throughout the video they have edited the colour palette a lot, when focusing on the couple the shots have a warm hue to them, mainly focusing on subtle reds and oranges to represent the anger emulating from the arguments. Whilst the shots focusing on the duo have more of a cool hue to them, focusing on blue and white tones, this represents the duo as being youthful and innocent. The cuts were quick throughout the video, matching with beat of song.
MISE EN SCENE
When focusing on the couple the lighting is very low key, representing that they are in a bad place together and that they are struggling. Meanwhile the lighting that focused on the duo was very high key lighting which is commonly connoted while optimism, therefore representing the duo as being the optimism for the couple to work things out together.
The mundane settings such as the apartment and balconies are relatable settings to viewer and providing a link to their own lives. The couple’s costumes consist of a simple floral dress for the woman and some dark wash jeans and a jumper for the man. The casual costume choice allows the audience to relate to the two characters and build their opinions based on that.
REPRESENTATION + THEORISTS
Neither Kate or the woman in the narrative are represented as being sexualised, there is no male gaze on either of them and they are both dressed modestly. As for the uses and gratification theory the music video falls under Personal Identity, the relatability that comes from the two characters allows the audience to engage more in the video.