Technical Analysis (1)

For my first technical analysis I will be using a simple music video by Calvin Harris, Ready For the Weekend, directed by Ben Ib who has also directed videos for the likes of Robbie Williams and Kylie Minogue . This song is in the electro genre and the video has a concept of repetition. Calvin Harris in continually using a magic red portal, this portal cuts from scene to scene as he picks it up and moves it around. The dancing girls wear red leotards tin order to match the red mirror, red shirt, red furniture, etc., until they change into blue and yellow zip-up bathing suits, expanding the palette and multiplying endlessly.  






Camerawork
Throughout the video the director uses handheld camera shots however, to introduce the video he has used  an extreme close-up and then zoomed out to an extreme long shot. This is not commonly used in music videos, however in this case the extreme close-up concentrates on the specific detail of mise-en-scene (the red portal/circle), this prop is used throughout the whole video and a close up is used to show the importance of it .  Zooming out to show an extreme long shot, this emphasises and background and environment the character is against, it is hard to see detail visible in the shot but the red circle can still be seen clearly. This scene then transforms into a moving picture inside the red circle which Calvin Harris then takes off a wall and moves it around. The circle then changes into an object when he puts his head through it instead of it just being a picture. Within the video the main camera movement is a Handheld shot, it is ragged and follows the dancers and the main singer wherever there arms/body moves. This is like a 'fly on the wall' effect which gives the audience a sense of realism, as if they are actually watching it in real life, instead of a frozen postion. 
Many zooms are also used in and out of scenes when the red circle is used again. Using zoom connotes the movement and excitement of the video. Many pans are also used to move the camera form left to right which follow the dancers so that they are kept in the middle of the frame. 

When the camera is using zoom movements this means that many different camera shots are established. For example it zooms from a close-up to a long shot all throughout the video these then can reveal new objects within the scene. The 'Zoom' camera movement is constantly distancing and approaching the subject to always focus on new things withing the scene. Mid-shots, close-up and longs shots are all widley used in the video.  In the second half of the video we see that the colour changes from red to blue and yellow and the girls have had an outfit change. However, calvin Harris is still dressed in red and has red backgrounds.

 

The colour red could connotate a celebration. For example, when people say 'to paint the town red' it means to celebrate. The mise-en-scene is the video is simple, it uses few costume changes and only 8 different scenes, the video uses bright colours to connote happiness and fun.  Towards the end of the video the backgrounds turn yellow and blue, this could represent the excitement that the weekend is coming, yellow and blue together are a high contrast and eye-popping so that the audience are most likely to be concentrating on the dancers.

 

When the background does turn blue and yellow the dancers then seem to duplicate or be mirrored with special effects. This has influenced my video greatly as it is a clever idea and in an electro video you tend to see lots of dancing and bright colours which me and my group will be dapting to our video.