Music video analysis "Seen it all"

Act: Jake Bugg

Track: Seen it all

Year: 2012

Audience: 15 onwards
Genre: Singer songwriter 
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_est5zPL6eo

Narrative: The story of this music video involves a young man (perhaps in his early to mid 20’s) wandering aimlessly around a city as if he is up to no good. You could almost say that the character is running away from something due to the news that was on the television in his flat (involving a police related crime) and when he spotted the police in the streets and decided to avoid them. It also seems like the character is finding it difficult to fit in with society for example he fails to catch the girl’s attention when he knocks on the window of the café that she is working in. It can also be because he is constantly going to different places around the city that the video’s set in but keeps leaving again due to a difficulty fitting in. Perhaps he has done things in the past that he regrets and he is trying to start fresh again.

Visuals and lyrics: The chorus to the song goes “I’ve seen it all” meaning that the singer has been to places and seen quite a lot of perhaps haunting and traumatising moments in his life. I think that the same principle applies to the protagonist in the video as he looks like the kind of guy that wants to start fresh and forget about all the bad things that he has done or seen in the past. Furthermore, the fact that he seems like he is unable to fit in with the society around him is explained when the artist sings “I felt a little out of place”.

Shot variety: A number of different shots were used in this video such as pans, close ups, establishing shots and mid to long shots. The mixture of all these shots gives the video a lot of diversity and it makes it more interesting and appealing to the audience.

FX: The main effect I spotted in the video was that the director produced quite a bit of the video in slow motion. I think that this was done in order to show to the audience how difficult and slow the character’s life in the video is. The lighting in general is quite dark and not particularly happy, and this comes together well with the song and the character. The ending of the song shows the character looking at the television in the back of a bar and seeing his own name on the news as a victim to violence that occurred the night before, we then see him slowly fade out of the picture. It seems that the entire time he was a ghost to everybody in the video but he may not have realised it.

Pace: The pace of the video is quite slow moving due to the slow motion effect used throughout the sequence, however this does not tie in particularly well with the song as it isn’t a particularly slow song so that could emphasise the confusion in the protagonist’s life perhaps.

Location/mise-en-scene: According to my research, the video is set in Glasgow which in general isn’t the safest of cities in the United Kingdom so therefore that comes in well with the story that the songwriter and the director is trying to tell the audience. The costume used is normal everyday clothing to show that the song doesn’t possess anything unnatural or magical. I think they are trying to tell the audience that this is a very down to earth song and video so the director has attempted to put as little magical elements into it as possible.