Sam's Media Blog...

United Kingdom
A/S Level Media Studies Blog

Friday 19 June 2009

The Streets, Fit But You Know It, Analysis.

The video starts with a prelude before the song starts, with Mike Skinner entering a shop to pick up photos of his holiday. He opens the photos and exits the shop, and we see a close up of the first one of him and the bird he's singing about, and the photo takes the form of a moving video with him singing in it, forming the basis of the music video.

In terms of mise-en-scene, Mike is walking through a built up working class area in Britain with some snow on the ground. He is wearing casual clothes and a baseball cap making him look a bit 'chavvy.' All this links in with the 'street' image the band wants to create, and with the genre of the music (Garage/Rap.) Also, the weather and surroundings are completely different to that of the holiday. A lot of the imagery in the video, such as when he is argunig in the kebab shop, reflects what is being said in the lyrics. This also means that the majority of the edits, which is straightforward 'cuts' are made according to the lyrics, except in places where there are no singing, where edits happen to the beat of the music. However, the video is relevant to the beat of the music in places, such as where the beat slows down in the 'leave it out' section, the shot time increases accordingly to 'slow down' the video.

There is lip-syncing the whole way through the video, with Mike singing the lyrics whether in the photos or in the 'present time' walk down the street. The video takes the form of a narrative, telling the story of the holiday, rather than an abstract or performance stlye video. The majority of the video involves the viwer seeing close ups of Mike's holiday photos, as if we were seeing what he is seeing, followed by a reaction shot, where we see the expression on Mike's face as he reacts to each photo he looks at.

Overall, the video is relevant to the both the lyrics and the image of the band, but not so much the beat of the music.