Analysing Paramore videos

Video 2: That's What You Get

I chose to do this video because I think it’s a very natural music video and one of their earlier ones so it’s important to analyse the videos from different stages in their career.

The video looks like it has a very low budget and this could be to do with the fact that it was earlier on in their career and because they weren’t as popular they didn’t have as much of a budget as they do now with them being much more successful.

There is a lot of varying camerawork which keeps the video really interesting because it doesn’t spend too long on a shot. Also the different effects used add something special to the video too. Throughout video there are certain shots that are filmed with a fish eye lens, and although this is very subtle, even this has links to pop/punk – I’ve seen bands in the genre in pictures with a fish eye lens.

There are a lot of close ups of Hayley’s face, more so than with the other members of the band. This could be because she is the lead singer and so most of the focus is on her, but it could also be because the microphone is close to her face, so she only needs a close-up, whereas the others need their instruments in the shot too so the audience know who they are if they haven’t really heard of the band before.

Something else I’ve noticed, is that they use the depth of field technique with the extra in the foreground being blurred and the people in the background were clear but they merged together and it looks really good.

As seen in most of their music videos, there is a narrative story but also performance footage. The footage isn’t live, but is usually set in the same setting as the other part of just the lip-syncing. For example, in this video Hayley lip-syncs the lyrics outside with a group of people in the background. This looks very informal and with a ‘chilled’ atmosphere- which is typical of the pop/punk genre – everyone is just having fun and relaxing with friends. The other part of the performance footage is in a house, where we also see people playing music and chatting. The idea behind the video seems simple.

The narrative story, involves a couple that are arguing but then ‘making up’ again and this links to the lyrics ‘why do we like to hurt so much’.

I really like the way the editing has been done post-production to make the narrative story told in split screen – again adding more element to make a very simple video exciting.

Hayley’s microphone is wrapped in orange tape, something she always has. The fact that it is orange is important I feel, because even on the album covers there is red, orange and dark yellow so there could be a fire colour theme running throughout the band as a whole.

I also feel the mobile phone is relevant because taking pictures on a mobile phone is a very ‘normal’ thing to do, so this makes the band even more relatable.

The lighting is very bright in this video, despite the song being about heartbreak; ‘if I ever start to think straight this heart will start a riot in me...’ and it looks very natural as the video is filmed in the daytime so any artificial lights used to make the filming better, is well hidden. Something that looks really nice with the lighting, is how the sun shines on to the camera, making the camera have an over-exposed type effect for a few seconds. Again this reinforces the idea of the video being relaxed and natural with not that much effort going in to it. The fact that the band and the extras in the background are wearing really casual clothes (black t-shirt and jeans) fits into the conventions of the pop/punk genre.