Mise-en-scene
The mise-en-scene of Nirvana's music video was well produced and edited together. As the music video was carefully understandable to audiences as the setting was carefully shown as the music video is set in a school's gym than linked in to the name of the song as a school's gym can be represented by the words ' smells like teen spirit'. Another example of a well mise-en-scene technique that's used to show a clear understanding to the audience to help with showing/telling the story of the song is the costumes of both the band and teenagers. For an example the teenager schoolgirl's cheerleaders, who shows and helps to set the location of the song. Also the props on the set helps to set the location of the song as the audience can easily see that the song is set in a school's gym and probably think that the song is a part of a school's morning assembly. Additionally the song can be compared to be a message that the person (like the school's head teacher) is going to tell the teenagers something important. Also the lightning of the set is a bit dark that suggests that it's a school morning that the teenagers have to sit down and listen to something that's important but not to them as well as it the style of the artist of how their music videos are shown and played in this type of lightning, that tells the audience that they are a rock band as rock bands have their music videos dark.
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| Cheerleaders cheering on the other teenagers to cheer for the band. |
In the Nirvana's music video, there is a lot of camera shots, angles and movement is used to show the setting/location and the music artist band and the reactions of the teenagers listening. For example there is an mid - establishing at the beginning of the music video that shows both the gym (location) and the teenager schoolgirls cheerleaders. This mid-establishing shot can be backed up by Andrew Goodwin's 6 Features of Music Videos Theory. For example this mid-establishing shot shows the 5th feature of the theory as this shot shows a particularly voyeuristic treatment of the female body. That this camera shot of the schoolgirls cheerleaders is use in between the camera shots of the different members of Nirvana.
Furthermore there's plenty of close-ups and mid shots of Nirvana playing their instruments and singing, as stated in Andrew Goodwin's 6 Features of Music Videos Theory that there are a lot of camera shots of the artist or band in their music video. This is the 4th feature in the theory as it states that the demand of the record label will include the need for lots of close-ups of the artist and the artist may develop motifs which recur across their work.
For example there is a close up of a band member of Nirvana at the beginning of the music video before he starts to play his drums, this is an example of the 4th feature of the theory being used to promote their song and music video as it shows a member of the band.
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| Close up of the Nirvana's drummer playing the beat to their song beginning of the music video for Smells Like Teen Spirit. |
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| Mid/close up of the main singer of the band. |
The editing for this Nirvana's music video was carefully done to fit into Andrew Goodwin's 6 Features of Music Videos Theory as the music video clearly shows strong genre characteristics of a school's morning assembly that the teenagers aren't interested with what's being stated at the front of the assembly. This is an example of the 1st feature of the theory that the music video demonstrate genre characteristics. Also at the beginning of the Nirvana's music video, there is another example of Andrew Goodwin's 6 Features of Music Videos being used as this is 2nd feature of the theory that there is a relationship between the lyrics and visuals. That the lyrics are represented with images.
In this example there is a black cleaner man banging his mop and head to the beat of the song, this shows how the picture of the black cleaner is head-banging to the beat of the music.
Also, another example of a 2nd feature of the theory being shown is that there is plenty of camera shots of the teenagers sitting down and listening to the band playing their song 'Smells Like Teen Spirit', as the word 'teen' is being represented by the camera shots of the teenagers.
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| A mid shot of the teenager, as its an example of the plenty of camera shots of the listening teenagers in between the camera shots of the band members. |
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| The black cleaner male dancing to the beat of the Nirvana's song. |
Sound
The lyrics to the Nirvana's music video did match with the visuals that were shown in the music video as the song was about teen spirit so this means that in the music video itself there was a requirement that some teenagers should be presented in the music video.
Also the lyrics of the song is slow and simple spread out with the beat of the song, as this fits more to the music video as the band is pretending they are a school band playing in front of their friends and talking about teenager spirit. As this is another example of the 1st feature of Goodwin's 6 Features of Music Video Theory being used as the band is pretending to play in front of their school friends in a gym as this is a genre characteristic of a secondary school band.
Additionally in the music video, the audience can hear the band playing their musical instruments for the song and see the visuals of them playing their musical instruments individually and as a group.
This is an example of Goodwin's 4th feature of his theory being used as the record label is using camera shots of the band playing their musical instruments individually and as a group as to promote their music video for the song but as well as telling the audience that they are playing the beat for the song themselves and with their own musical instruments and not using special effects in the post-production stage (editing).
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