Analysing a music video

This is the music video for the Arctic Monkeys - 'When The Sun Goes Down', directed by Paul Fraser, which is illustrative and narrative based.

The song begins with just vocals and simple guitar chords as the characters are introduced, with the clear lyrics being very illustrative with the visuals. For example 'Who's that girl there' is cut with a MCU of a young girl who we then see prostituting herself (leaning on the car window) which illustrates the subtle lyrics 'I doubt she does receipts'. There is then an artistic shot of a square-shaped spiral staircase from the bottom of the stairs looking up through the middle of the staircase, which could be a reflection of the creative image the band want to portray of themselves. We are then introduced to 'Scummy man', again with an illustrative relationship between the visuals and the lyrics as the handheld camera tracks forward to a MS of the man with his arm round the young girl followed by him taking food off her plate 'He'll rob you if he can'. The video then goes deeper into the narrative of the young prostitute trapped by the 'scummy man', who appears as sleezy as he swaggers up in a black shirt and then carries the young prostitute towards a taxi.

The music then increases in tempo, as does the visuals and the camera is a POV shot from a car window (possibly from the view of the girl), which speeds along the road and the shots are mainly of blurred traffic and street lights. The shots are cut to the music, for example the girl walks to the beat of the drum and the shots are cut on time with the beat, which makes the video more flowing and ties the visuals to the music. There are further illustrative visual and lyrical shots, such as when the girl 'makes a subtle proposition' to one of the Arctic Monkeys, and this is the first time we see one of the members from the Arctic Monkeys although there are later shots of the whole band loading their equipment into a car, allowing for the band to be recognised.

The visuals and the lyrics are less illustrative as the young magician is introduced, although we still get the sense of the scummy man jealously interfeering with the young prostitute, as he interupts her meal with a man and puts his arms on her shoulders as if to take claim to her and when he beats up the magician who makes her 'delighted when she sees him'

Even though this music video is about a young female prostitute and there are often CUs of her, she is not presented in sexual way as for most of the video she is draped in a coat with tied back scraggly hair and without makeup to make herself look pretty, but instead she looks tired and supressed.