Music Video Analysis Banks – Brain
Banks: Brain Genre: Contemporary R&B, Electropop Origin: Orange County, California Banks’s ‘Brain’ exhibits a circular narrative, in which the protagonist which also is the artist of this song starts and finishes with a faded black screen. Not also the video fades away but the music which allows a fluent and smooth start and finish. This music video supports the theorist Andrew Goodwin, the reason for this is because there is a relationship between the music and the visuals. There are different effects when the beat changes such as on 0:49 there is a little click and the audience receive a different visual that is an effect for the beat, we also see this at 0:59, 1:09 etc. the music video Brain also supports the theory by having a demand on the part of the record company for lots of close-ups of the artist. We can see this on 1:21 where we do not see her whole face however, the director is showing s the part of her face that has glitter or diamonds to stand out from the dark, but the other side of her is dark this way we don’t get to know the full her straight away. The star has her own iconography. The iconography for Banks is the videos are always black and white which gives you a nostalgic feeling especially as she is singing about a guy however; she has broken her conventions with colour on the video Drowning. Further on, this music video also supports the theory of Joan Lynch which is performance and narrative. Banks has performance in her video as it is filmed in a studio with a lot of lip-synching and the narrative is not directed to the music video or the lyrics as there is no story. When the beat changes we receive a lot of effects and animations which supports the theory of Jon Gow for the anti-performance we see this on 1:28 and from 1:31 to 1:34. I can argue the point whether this is a song and dance number. My first point is that she is not dancing however, her movements combined with the editing allows the audience to look at it in a different way such as dancing like on 1:45 to 1:49 and 1:52 to 1:58. I think that the director Barnaby Roper has enhanced the performance by adding effects on the beat of the music 2:24 to 2:40 as an example. The last theorist that I want to add is Carol Vernallis and the reason for this is because the music video follows the song’s form, which tends to be
cyclical and episodic rather than sequentially directed we see this on 2:24 to 2:40 and again on 3:00 to 3:20 and 3:33 to 3:45.
We start with a medium close-up shot combined with a low angle at 0:11 this makes the audience think that she is important because she is looking down on us just like when people kneel down on someone. This shot continuous to 0:24 it’s like the director is insisting for the audience to know that she is powerful. At 0:25 we receive another medium shot however, this time with no camera angles further on we do see that she is facing away and her head is towards the camera which could mean that she is untouchable because she is singing about a guy however, the naked back may represent that actually she is really weak as we can see her body structure. Afterwards at 0:39 we receive a close up however with canted framing the angle isn’t high but t is higher than a normal shot, this allows us to see her slightly different with her body language and facial expressions. Onwards, we receive a lot of medium shots and close up shots one after another; I think the director has done this to bring attention to the woman’s face and the fact that through the whole time she isn’t facing us. We have an extreme close up on 1:41 of her face and her shoulder. This can show how gentle she is and soft and we see her skin clear yet again she is hiding behind her shoulder or using it as a protection. Throughout this there is a stedicam movement which means establishing mount for a camera which mechanically isolates the operator’s movement from the camera such as from 1:02 to 1:20. Throughout the video there a fade technique used in the editing section such as from 1:32 to 1:34 which goes from visual effects and the last colour we see is white to a camera shot of Banks. I also think that there is quite a bit of
graphic match and the reason for this is because the visual effects dissolve into her as we see on 1:46 to 1:48. This is combined with synchronous sound the reason for this is because the only time we hear that clicking sound is when we have the effects on the screen so you can read it as that they are a part of the effect.
We see disequilibrium being used at 2:09 as we see insecurities about her because she is looking in the mirror but not directly. I’m using the mirror to represent insecurities because we always look at our reflection to see if we have something on our faces or something else which is very stereotypical. The reason I’m saying this is because she is singing about a guy and it’s very stereotypical for woman to become more self-conscious when there is a male involved. However, at 2:17 we see her with arms up and head up also the beat is very fast going which can challenge those conventions and say that she is powerful because of the different body posture or because of that guy. The enigma of this music video is that we will never know who the guy is and we know that because we only see her on the framing. The director has used low key artificial light which doesn’t allow the audience to see so many details of her even more the way she is positioned on 0:39 we see her body and face facing away from us as if we are not allowed to know her in her natural full body form.
A lot of whites, blacks and red have been used which confuses the audience because we don’t know whether to focus on the white or the black and red. Red represents power and fire however, also love – in a way the director is making us to mix it up and represent the type of relationship the colours contrast with each other allowing the audience to think more and watch further. Her clothing is very open and reviling. She seems to be wearing always something that shows her feminine side which is very stereotypical such as on 2:30, 2:34, 2:39 and 2:48 she’s always reviling herself even on 2:39 she just had heavy or a lot of jewellery. This shows her to be gentle or sexy. The reason I like this video is because I like how the visuals change with the beat of the music. I like how the editing is done and I like the fact that this video has little use of colour and yet make it so interesting. I have chosen this video because of the softness and the warmth.
Over all I research this video because I am interested into the editing that is done. I think the use of colour is great and the limited use of location shows that you don’t need a lot to create a good video in the location form. I think it shows clearly its conventions and the director has really shown the use of production and its forms.