Chosen Genre: Music Video Analysis 1

Passion Pit: Carried Away

As already identified, Passion Pit is an American indietronica band from Cambridge, Massachusetts, formed in 2007. Carried Away is a song by Passion Pit and it is taken from their second album 'Gossamer'. The music video for "Carried Away" was directed by Ben and Alex Brewer and it was produced by Braxton Pope and Saul Levitz and featured actress - Sophia Bush. The video shows a troubled relationship between Michael Angelakos (front man of Passion Pit) and Sophia Bush, arguing and quarrelling frequently. Throughout the video their relationship becomes gradually weaker, but as the video nears its end the two reconcile their differences and take it back to what it used to be like at the start of the relationship. The video premiered on YouTube Feb 14th 2013, and as of October 2014 has approximately 7,558,576 views.

Target Audience

The primary target audience for this video would most likely be indie-pop fans. The reason for this is because the genre of music that Passion Pit belongs to is 'indietronica' (mixture of indie-pop, indie-rock and electronic), therefore fans of Passion Pit are most likely to have an interest in one or all of those sub-genres. The video is fun-filled and rather colourful, therefore it will probably attract young people. It will also attract young people because of the narrative of the video - many of the young viewers may be experiencing a similar scenario to the narrative in the video.
There may also be a secondary target audience for this video due to the fact that One Tree Hill actress Sophia Bush features in it. Therefore, her fans will probably want to watch the video to appreciate her latest cameo appearance.

Representation

The romantic relationship at the beginning between the two characters is counter stereotypical as the girl (Sophia Bush) does some strange things that usually someone would not do, for example; drawing lipstick all over her cheek and pretending to stab her boyfriend in the head with scissors. In contrast to this, there is also stereotypical views of a good relationship, for example when they are lying on the bed smiling. Overall, the video shows quite a stereotypical view of a romantic relationship as they have their good times and bad times and in the end they work things out. Therefore the audience can perhaps relate to the narrative quite easily.

Relationship between lyrics and visuals

The strong narrative shown in the video clearly suggests that there is a connection between the lyrics and the visuals. The lyrics "carried away" are expressed by the acting throughout, for example; when the girl (Sophia Bush) is annoyed with her boyfriend wiping her lipstick off her cheek, so she therefore draws lipstick all over her cheek to show her annoyance and thus getting "carried away".

Analysis with screenshot examples

The first three seconds of the video are taken up by a clear title of the band. Therefore ensuring that the audience are aware of the artist even before the name of the song or before any figures are seen in the video. This is interesting because most music videos start with an intro to help set the scene of the video, however this video starts with a white strip and the band name seen very boldly on it, whilst it flashes in different colours for three seconds.

The three seconds following the artist introduction are then taken up with the name of the song. This is once again informing the audience not only the artist, but also the name of the song. The reason why artists might choose to do this at the beginning of their music videos is not necessarily for YouTube purposes, but for TV purpose. This is because if someone is watching a video on YouTube the chances are that someone has searched for a specific video and would already know the name of the artist and the song, whereas on TV someone would not necessarily initially know the name of the artist nor the song.


However, both shots of the information showing the artist and the song are backed onto the opening scene of the music video. This is further reinforced when the audience first sees an actor in the music video pop up and brush the 'Carried Away' out of the screen.


The first glance of the music video starts with the male character wiping lipstick off his girlfriend's cheek, which as we learn, evidently annoyed her and she thus gets 'carried away' and puts lipstick across her whole cheek to annoy him. This is a smart beginning for the music video because it straight away gives the audience an insight into the characters' personalities and is a key part of the narrative. This shot is also effective because it is not within the same frame, yet within two different frames, perhaps enhancing the importance of the  representation of each character and showing that they both have their differences and are distant from each other, yet close at the same time.







The first stance of humour which is implemented into the video can be seen when the female character is cutting her boyfriend's hair and he says something to annoy her so she pretends to stab him in the head, and thus being "carried away". This is a wide shot and shows the audience both the reactions of the female and the male character. Whilst she is pretending to stab him in the head, he is completely oblivious to this action, and due to the wide shot used, the audience can therefore see both of their reactions at that moment.



There is an inter-textual reference seen in the video which can been seen when the man is holding a record which has images from the music video on it. The record, once turned over, also shows other songs from the artist Passion Pit, which is indirectly essentially advertising and promoting their other songs. This is clever use of inter-textuality for both the band and also for the music video.




Until this point, the audience has only really seen the female character getting "carried away" and reacting badly to some of the male character's actions. Here we get the first glimpse of him getting "carried away" with her actions. He clearly gets jealous when he sees her talking with another man. He evidently can't bare watching this scene, so he therefore gets his drinking cup and scoops the other man up into it. Obviously in reality this is a logical impossibility and could never happen, however this video is slightly wackier than the average cliché love-story narrative and has lots of twists, of which this is one of them.



One of the more cliché parts of the narrative can be seen when the pair are laying in bed together laughing. The reason this may be seen as quite cliché is because this is probably how most of the younger target audience would typically view a love - story or how they would assume a relationship to be like. Whereas the older target viewing audience would empathise with the vast majority of the video, perhaps more so with the arguing as it gives a more realistic insight to what it is like to be in a relationship.



I found it interesting how there was no performance by the band on this music video, other than the occasional lip sync of "carried away" during the chorus. I also found it interesting how they used Sophia Bush to lip sync a bit of one of the latter chorus'.

Another interesting thing, and also my favourite part of the video, which I found from this video is the use of subtitle text to show the audience the dialogue of the arguments which the pair have. This further helps the audience to engage and relate to the narrative. The last full minute of the video shows a rewind of the arguments which have occurred and what the male character has done to screw things up. The dialogue in this specific argument is "if you are so miserable then why don't you just leave?" to which the male replies "you make me sick" and after hesitating for a few seconds says "i'm sorry". The female is clearly taken aback by his actions and erupts. The eruption is shown through the explosion of words throughout the shot. This is very effective because I can guess that it is essentially showing words from all their different arguments - as if the female has been holding this all in for so long now that everything he has done to upset her is finally all erupting from her.


The fact that the first words which the audience sees erupt are "i'm sorry" could suggest two things. The first being that the apology he has just said to his girlfriend is worthless because he has said sorry too many times now. Or the second being that every argument starts by him saying something stupid to her and ending with another worthless apology. The word 'sorry' is broken on the floor which perhaps connotes their fragmented relationship.

The pair are then seen running together to try and escape all the exploding words around the house. They are also seen trying to smash up the words flying out. This could once again suggest two potential things. The first being that their arguments are bringing them back together because they realise that they are supposed to be together. The second being that their arguments are flashing before their eyes and they are trying to erase any nasty things they have ever said to each other in order to make everything fine again.


All of this leads up to the end of the video when we see a previous scene from the video being repeated, however this time with an alternate ending/answer. The male is seen apologising for his actions by writing 'sorry' in the sky. However when the audience first sees this scene, they don't see what the female character replies or if she even replies at all. Whereas this time the audience sees her reply which is 'ok', in other words, forgiving him for his faults.

The final scene shows the pair laying on the floor, surrounded by all their exploding words scattered around the room, and around them.
What I found interesting about this shot is that there are two very prominent sets of words displayed by the pair. "Can't breathe" and "ending its fine". To me, these two suggest that in the end everything is fine. Perhaps this is the message of the narrative to this music video - that no matter how bad things seem, in the end you can work it out and it will all be fine.




The video also ends in a very similar way in which the video starts. The video starts with two separate frames, and this is the exact thing that happens at the end of the video. Two words join up to spell out 'the end' - the "The" from the 'can't breathe' and the "End" from the "ending it's fine" join up together to spell out "The End" and can both be seen in separate frames.