Analysis of a Music Video: Empire of The Sun - We Are The People

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DL_W8zOPXLg)

For this video in particular it’s hard to pick out a narrative, this may be due to the sheer complexity of the plot and the fact that the lyrics have no relation to the lyrics. The video almost has two narratives, the first being the two actors dreams, I think that when the two actors were lying dead at the bottom of the cliff, this was their dream. And the second being in real life, and what happened to the actors and how they ended up dead.

The video starts and ends in the same place, it’s almost like a circular narrative. At the start of the video the two singers are wondering through the desert, and at the end we see the two singers lying face down at the bottom of a cliff either passed out or dead. This is a very clever video because it effectively plays with time, starting at the end of the narrative and then goes back to the beginning of the narrative half way through the video.

The first time I watched this video I found it hard to come up with a narrative until I had watched it at least three times. After this long process I came up with two narratives, the first being; the video starts off with a POV shot of the sky, and finishes looking down on the two dead singers, this supports my narrative that the two singers were walking through the desert and died, and the video is their day dream of what happened. The second possible narrative starts with a man is sitting on a bike staring at the camera, and at the end the video the man is still sitting on his bike but this time he is staring at the two singers dead at the bottom of the cliff. This man on the bike is wondering how the singers ended up dead at the bottom of this cliff.

Overall I think the video has a main theme of death, throughout the video there are several little hints towards this, the first hint is at the very start of the video when the intro is playing, there are several shots of grave stones and skulls. Then another hint, about a minute into the video there is a close up of a man digging a grave. Then the two actors stumble across an old church, they are then pictured holding skulls and placing holding them up to the sun light. When the two singers are pictured dancing with villagers they dance holding giant crosses along with skulls being present in a lot of the scenes. Overall throughout the video there are several shots of things that are associated with death, this all emphasises the death of the two singers. Something else that I noticed also contributed to this theme, at the start of the video the camera is looking up at the sky, and then at also ends looking down on the two dead singers. It’s almost the two singer’s point of view from when they are dead lying flat out at the bottom of the cliff.

The video starts off with a long intro, the beats to the music are used as diajetic sound, the camera flicks to a bug falling of a bell to the sound of the beat, and shots change to the sound of the beat. When the actual music starts the camera changed to the two singers. The two singers look almost tribal like in their costumes and with their faces painted. Overall they look different to every person they meet. This correlates with the lyrics: We are the people who rule the world, suggesting they are superior to everyone else and at the start it emphasised that they are on their own; this is the only part of the lyrics that relates to the video.

The lighting is different to most other pop videos, mainly because the lighting gives some of the shots a sun kissed look with sun rays streaming through the trees in the rain forest scene. This leaves the sun pouring through the camera lenses to make the rain forrest look vibrant. At the start if the video quick editing is present, then as the music starts the editing fades slowly to correspond with the mellow music.

In some parts of the video the two singers are performing to the camera, like they are almost showing and telling us what happened to them. They stay in character throughout the whole video. Although they are in 'character' they are still playing them selves, dressing the same and having their make-up in the same style as they usually do.

Throughout the video there are several establishing shots at the start of every new scene, this sets the shot and familiarizes the scene to the audience. There are especially lots of establishing shots at the start of the deset and surroundings setting the first scene of the video.

There are few women in this video, and when women are present they are dancing, they are seen as more of an object in this video than a human being. The time span is longer than the actual video, I know this because when the video ends, the music is still playing in the background.

The main audience of this video is primarily a young audience, aged 15 up to about 25. The younger generations are more likely to find this random surreal humor funny rater that elderly generations, and thats why it works so well even though its so confusing to pick out a narrative.