Storyboard for Californication

5 music videos i enjoy

I found this music video really enjoyable simply for the fact that it is animated entirely apart from when the rapper appears out of the ground and sings. For the rest of the song, the music video features the main singer, cartoon character "2D" singing in a desert with an army hat on to a crowd of children. In the tank, characters Murdoc, Noodle and Russel drive through the desert in search for 2D and the rest of the children in order to rescue them. Damon Albarn, the writer of the song, tells us that the song is based on children in war zones, having to protect themselves against guns and other weapons of war, this is shown as the children sing "I need a gun, to keep myself from harm"



What i enjoyed about this music video is that the whole world seems to be made out of candy. It's creative, sweet and has a lot of colour. The whole video seems to take place inside a giant board game that is played by Snoop Dog. The video contains sweet desserts come to life including alive gummy bears and ginger bread men. From what I can tell, wide shots are mostly used here to possibly emphasise the strange scenery.


What I particularly like with "Wall of glass" was the rotating shot of the corridor going round and round with the different colours flashing around in kind of  orange/yellow haze with the lights flickering as this goes on. A reverse zoom shot is slowly going towards a door as the corridor rotates all before SFX are used to make the screen look like it has shattered, all before Liam is revealed standing in the corridor, a low angled shot looking up to him with him crouching down slightly to peer into the camera. The part of  the video where he talks into a multiple mirrors is also interesting as he is shown from different angles lip singing and this looks really effective in relation to the blue light being shone.
What I liked about this video was the lyrics appearing on one of the toys in time with the song. It also features a lot of closeups of the singer's face as he lip sings while playing on his keyboard. He appears to be inside a child's bedroom which presents the song as being quite playful, innocent and lively. The singer wears average clothes, that being a t-shirt and jeans which makes him look a lot more approachable to the audience watching.
I liked this video for the fact that it is unique and quite strange to watch. The mise-en-scene of the costume is minimal with them wearing nude coloured underwear and are inside a white room with a massive cage. The two people in the cage, A man and a girl proceed to dance strangely and in different positions. The seem to act quite feral as the dance in the cage, communicating with each other quite oddly and moving unhumanly.

Textual analysis of a music video before i was born

The video begins with a rather faded background with two hands switching on and off a light bulb with quite a cold, white light. This could temporal link to the music as the bulb lights up each time the music has a beat. It's a simple rhythm at the start which links to the simplistic scene that lacks colour and features a few moths flying around the bulb.


The next few shots shown after that are extreme close ups of rapidly blinking eyes of different people to symbolise the music building up slightly more. The colour of the scene is a lot brighter with yellows and primary colours of the eyes and clothing standing out. As the eyes blink rapidly, women in bikinis swim around on a pool, smiling. The sound and mise-en-scene on this is nicely linked through Goodwin's theories of the nice up beat tune and the bright scenery of women sunbathing and having fun on a summery day.



The lead singer of the band, Damon, is then standing in a tilted, close up shot with the same enhanced colour as before. He looks directly in the camera and winks while the green screen behind him displays different pub signs, architecture and neon signs. This presents the common culture of what people tend to do and see on holiday. As Damon sings "Following the heard." The green screen behind him shows many people queuing up to get onto an elevator. This links to Goodwin's theories as it shows the lyrics of the song and the footage of the music video closely related.



The mise-en-secne of the video displays the band members in long, baggy sports jackets and jeans with hair quite messy. As the music video goes along, different people begin to wear plain white T-shirts with words of the lyrics printed onto them in black lettering. this showing the relation of the song to the video.

From the mise-en-scene, it is clear that the music video is representing the band as youthful and rebellious.


The editing of the video flickers between scenes of people partying in a nightclub to men and women drinking, having fun by the pool and going down waterslides. All this happens in moments as the band stands and plays in front of the screen and images moving around. All this symbolises the fun atmosphere the music producers want you to feel.


A lot of arch shots are used particularly around Damon and the rest of the band as they play. The band members jump around with their guitars and dance in time with the beat.

A new beginning

AS has finished but A2 starts suddenly. It's the scary part of the year where you don't know how well or badly you've done. Despite this, planning for music videos begin and i'm looking forward to understanding the music industry and how footage can be matched to the ryhmnic beat of a song