Analysis of Music Videos #3

Commander - Kelly Rowland ft. David Guetta

• Starts with crowd dancing in slow motion footage, wearing dark colours. Some men with slicked back white hair. Metallic looking clothing.
• White smoke screen pyrotechnic, bright lighting. Singer walks through in a cat suit, close up on her boots.
• Shot of her from behind walking through parting the crowd. Dominance, feminist ideology?
• She starts to sing, performance video, perhaps also concept?
• She's walking along a cat walk that is self raising, crowds dancing to the beat of the music. Red flashing lights.
• Intercuts from her wearing the black cat suit to a red one. Then duplicate shot of her in both, like mirror image but conflicting outfits.
• Perhaps intertexual link to something like Gladiators or Power Rangers ?
• Form of animation, choreographed dancing.
• Intercuts to a binary oppostion, no longer black background but white. Singer has her hair down in a dress, with a male DJ in the background.
• Split screen footage into three of singer and then DJ.
• Then cuts to slow motion shots of the crowd dancing, diverse range of people and fashion sense.
• Shot at the end where she hits the camera lenses, breaking the fourth wall, like a glass screen which shatters, she jumps through and her outfit changes as she does, music fades out and shot.

Summer of 69 - Bryan Adams

• Starts black and white footage, strumming a guitar. Flashback?
• Garden shed, male band playing, drinking beer.
• Narrative/performance, nice linking shot, throws a can away then turns to a shot of wedding car driving off with cans attached to the back.
• Shed collapses then fades into Bryan Adams laying on a hammock singing about the narrative, goes into colour. Like he is talking to a journalist as he makes notes.
• Then cuts back to flashback of 1950's dirve in movie setting. Couple running around, teenage romance.
• Fades back to colour, shaky camera work following singer walking towards the camera, breaking the fourth wall.
• Flashback of the band running around wrecking havoc, running around factory throwing apples. police chase them.
• As he walks fades from B/W to colour, walking around singing, someone out of frame throws him a guitar, walks to the garden shed again to play.
• Added bit at the end, like a mini film, linking with the narrative story of the song.
• Narrative footage adds anchorage to the story of the song and that the lyrics are not metaphorical but more narrational.