Lighting is a huge factor in any music video. When
researching different videos to do my textual analysis on for lighting I instantly
thought of looking at an Indie band as their videos are usually quite unique. I
finally chose to study the ‘Catfish and the Bottlemen’ video for their song ‘Soundcheck’.
The video follows Van McCann, lead singer, and his band mates performing their
track in a large open spaced room.
Flashes of light against a black screen open the music video.
This grabs the audience’s attention from the beginning instead of a typical
fade out of black or wipe transition. When the flashing stops, we are
introduced to the set and main source of lighting, the strip lights on the
ceiling. These lights appear bright against low key lighting, to grab our
attention within quite a plain set.
Initially low key lighting is used and we see the
silhouettes of the band members. It is a performance based music video as we
see the band singing to their track and playing instruments.
The colour theme of the music video is black and white. As
the song is titled ‘Souncheck’ I believe the video has been kept to black and
white to keep the main focus on the sound of the song instead of the visuals in
the music video.
Despite this, it is important that the video still draws in
viewers to help promote the song and maximize profits and knowledge of the
band, especially as they are an uncommon indie band. This has mainly been done
by the lighting within the video. One way this has been completed is by using a
strong light through different angles. This changes the low key lighting to
high key lighting. This creates a light
beaming through, creating silhouettes and unique shapes. It comes across as
quite glary whilst on the screen. This makes visuals stand out, even though it
is entirely in black and white. The use of the light beaming also focuses where
we look on the screen, which can be useful when changing the center of the
music video.
Thought beats are used in this video with lighting. In the music
video there is a section where the lights flash to the beat. This can be seen
in the following gif.
As the song slows down and an instrumental is played the lighting
gradually changes to low key lighting again. This adds to the suspense and
emotions of the song. As the song starts to pick up speed the lighting becomes
higher key again.
At the climax of the song there is a montage of different lighting
used. The main effect used is flashing lights. The and movements of the band
create the feel of attending a concert. This is an advantage of a performance
based music video as it sells the artist as performers and especially within
this music video, it makes you believe you would enjoy to see them live, which
then promotes them and increases their profits if their tours sell out and get
bigger. Another interesting moment I noticed about the lighting is during this climax
montage the initial lights we saw shine at their brightest. This further
increases the experience of the music video to feel as if the viewer is
actually at a concert.
Along with the fast pace editing
of the ending of the music video, the lighting creates extremely interesting
visuals for the audience to watch. There is never a boring moment of the video,
even though it is all set in one room. Indie bands have different conventions
to pop bands and they are known for being quirky and different. Through the use
of lighting this video manages to be different and not become a boring black
and white video.
A technique I have learnt from this video is that by
shining a bright light behind the artist you can create different silhouettes,
depending on the closeness of the light. The closer the light the more extreme
the silhouette.
At the end of the video there is a bright light shining on
McCann as the camera follows him. As the camera follows him the bright light
continues to disappear out of shot. As he carries on walking the bright light entirely
goes out of shot and as McCann exits the shot the video is left with a black
screen.
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