Music Video Research: Video 3

The third and final music video I will be analyising is Adele's 'Rolling in the Deep'.

It is obvious that this video contrasts the most out of all three videos; all artists are classed as 'indie', but whereas the other two videos have strong elements of the theme nature, 'Rolling in the Deep' does not have a single shot of outside, and its main distinctive theme is destruction.

At the start of the video, there is a stillness that suggests some havoc is about to happen. These four shots show the key elements to the video; adele, the drummer, the objects, and the dancer; it is almost like they are posed, waiting for something to happen during the first part of the first verse where Adele is singing with only a faint drum beat detecable in the background.

As soon as the drums kick in, we see the water start to jump in time with the beat, transforming the still water in glasses, untouched, undistrubed, into pulsing water, causing ripples; clearly reflecting what Adele is singing about, what could have been a perfect relationship was interfered with, and ruined, the water in the glasses were still until the drum beat interfered with them. As the verse starts to build up and then into the bridge, there is a sequence of shot reverse shots between Adele and the dancer. The dancer has started to manipulate the white sand with the stick, and the camera is zooming in further and further towards her face; suggesting a connection between the lyrics and the dancer; it could be said that just as the dancer is influencing the sand, just as the other person in the relationship started to influence her, which eventually led to the breaking up of said relationship. As the song continues, the dancer manipulates with the sand more and more, until eventually it is hard to      spot the dancer, because all of the sand is up the air around him and causing what called be called as a smoke screen.This video is full of metaphors and clearly this is another; just as the dancer has messed with the sand so much it is unclear exactly where he is, the person Adele is singing about messed with their relationship so much, she could no recognised what he was doing, or who he was.

As the video continues, other objects are featured in order to show destruction; a medium shot through the door way of a pile of broken white cups that have been smashed, we imeditatly assume they have been thrown and therefore obviously damaged. Later, another medium shot taken from the same doorway, but higher up shows the cups smashing against the white screen having literally being thrown, this confirms our assumptions, that these have been broken through acts of violence. Again here the colour white is used, just as the white sand was used, white is a very pure, clean colour, and in this music video we are constantly shown white items either being destroyed or distrubed.I think this is vital to helping deliver the message, that from Adele's point of view, her relationship was like a white cup, whole and untainted, but then it was messed with, and therefore ended up one of the broken cups in the pile.

                                                      

                                                                       This of centre medium shot is the first we see of the 'white city'. Already sparks are flying off it, and smoke is visable, this reflects the whole video in the sense that we do not see the relationship before, we only hear about its decline and the aftermath; we haven't been shown the entire object yet, we just notice the sparks and the smoke. 






Further on in the video, we do see the whole of the white city, without sparks, smoke or fire, the camera zooms in very slowly to change the shot from a long shot, to a close up; this allows to audience time to understand what they are viewing, again a very white, clean model of a city. The close up slow tracking shot empathises how pure this city is, absolutely everything is white, 

                                                 everything is whole and completed,                                          and still, as if it is at peace.                  

Then in the last verse, at the end of the song, sparks errupt from above, and they appear almost as if they are raining down, hammering down onto the city of stillness, and creating distruction. Close up shots of the white towers burning, and turning to ash, are a brilliant metaphor for the relationship Adele sings about. 'We could have had it all', the city was complete, it could have been filled with metaphorical people, and a life, but then the sparks came down and set fire to absolutely everything. This as the final object that gets destroyed is the most powerful, the cups get smashed, and the sand gets tossed around, but the city is burnt, and within a video with little colour, the orange flames of the fire leave a lasting effect.

In contrast to 'The A Team', but similar to 'Your Song', one of the key parts of 'Rolling in the Deep', is Adele singing or lipsyncing in the room alone. She doesn't smile once whilst singing, unlike Ellie Goulding, but the close ups do enforce how pretty she is and her facial expressions during these close ups give a clear indication of what the song truly means. The long shots that show her singing in the room alone, a room which looks abandoned, and unfinished, ensures our attention never wavers from her, or from the message the lyrics are telling us. We never see Adele stand up, it is as if she stuck to the chair, too focused on telling us her story to make sudden movements, this provides a nice 

simplicty in comparson to the rest of the video, which has lots of different unusal elements. Just as Ellie Goulding wasn't, Adele is in no way sexualised in this video; her gender is not important, her music is.

The drum beat provides a clear, repetitive, ever lasting impact within the video. The constant boom boom of the drum perhaps reflects the constant arguing and unhappiness caused by the relationship; there is no point in the entire video where a drum beat, however faint can not be heard. The close up of the drum pedals, and the drummer smashing the drums enforces the idea that it was another person, not Adele who caused this unhappiness, she is the victim. 

    As I have already mentioned, the video has little colour, similar Ed Sheeran's The A Team which is all in black and white apart from the very last shot. Although there is not a black and white effect on the camera, Adele is dressed in all black, so are the dancer and the drummer, and the objects are all white; to involve any bright colours in the surrounding such as yellow or orange because it would not fit in with the         feel of the song, an emotional revealing of Adele's upset.

The editing pace obviously increases at the song builds towards it's climax and then the end of the song. From 3.09 there are at least 40 shot in only 30 seconds; Adele singing, the dancer, the drummer, the white city, the water and the broken tea cups are all featured, and shown more then once. This editing change complement the change in the pace of music, just before the change, shots of adele in the dark are shown, not singing, and then all of a sudden she begins to sing a long powerful note and the everything changes. This techinque of editing could be said to be an example of synaethesia, the build up of the music reflects in the pace of edititng; synaethesia is also used as the first chorus builds up. As the tempo of the music increases in the first bridge, we are shown a long shot of the dancer lowering his hand towards the bottom of his stick to take control of it and then go on to pull it round in a half circle, in preperation for a rigious dance routine, and Adele starts using her arms to empathise her words, there is a sequence of shot reverse shots whilst building up to the chorus; both the dancer and Adele start to make movements, before making even bigger ones when the chorus does kick in.

In my opinion 'Rolling in the Deep' is the complete opposite to 'The A Team' in terms of narrative; in The A Team, we are shown the girl dead on the park bench and go back in time to see how she got to this state, it is all about what happened before, 'Rolling in the Deep' however is based on the aftermath of the relationship, the effect the break-up has left on Adele. In 'The A Team' the part of the the story that is withheld to us is how exactly she died, the ending of her story, and in 'Rolling in the Deep' what is withheld is the relationship, the story of them before it got to this point.

Adele is known for her soulfull, heart-renching songs, she has not released a single hugely upbeat song; therefore she is shown in this video to be passionate and soulful, it is made obvious through the use of close ups that she really cares about what she is singing about, she knows the exact meaning of the lyrics. The close ups also draw the audiences attention to how pretty she is; it could be said that her music styling is quite old fashioned in a industry that is full of upbeat rnb club music, this I believe is reflected in her hair and make-up. The big eyeliner flicks, and the backcombed beehive style hair is typical of the 60s eara.

This video is amplifying; Adele is clearly singing about a horrible break-up, but the use of the dancer, the drummer and the white objects are what she uses to demostrate this; there is no shots of her arguing with a man, or them 'rolling in the deep' together. Instead she clearly shows us how deeply he has hurt her, and 'the rolling' I believe refers to how lost she is, unsure of what to do or where to go.

John Berger's statement made in 1972 that 'men act, women appear', clearly this is does not go hand in hand with this video. Adele, a woman, is the main focus throughout the video, and the only face we actually see, we do not see the face of the drummer or the dancer; it is unclear what the dancer's gender is, but the drummer is clearly a man, in this video, these two characters appear, and don't act.




















Just as it was with 'The A Team' and 'Your Song', all shots are cut to the beat; as I have said in the other analysis, it plays a huge part in making sure the music and the video flow together, therefore this is a technique we will definatly be using in the making of our music video.