Friday 26 September 2014

Music Video Analysis - Rise Against 'Make It Stop'

Rise Against's 2011 single Make It Stop was released as part of an anti-bullying/anti-suicide campaign for teenagers, which meant that the video was created with the intention to be extremely emotional and gripping to audiences in order to prove the point of the campaign.

The mise-en scene of the band is stereotypical of the genre as they are all wearing black tops with jeans and converse/canvas shoes. However, i don't believe they are dressed like this in order to relate to a specific target audience, instead i believe the band are dressed quite casual and generic as it means that they can relate to who the campaign is aimed at, teenagers. By relating to as many teenagers as possible the video will allow for personal relationships to form with both the band and the characters in the narrative parts of the music video meaning that audiences will be more likely to take in the information as they feel more related to the characters.

The use of editing during the performance shots is quite fast paced in order for the cuts to be synchronous with the fast tempo of the song. However, during the narrative shots i believe the editing has been made slower in order to deliver the narrative to the audience without it being too overwhelming. This is important in delivering the message in the video as they wouldn't want any fast paced, eccentric editing techniques taking away from the video's true aim. On the other hand they have made the performance shots faster in order to conform to the bands star image as audiences wouldn't want the stars playing at a slow pace as the reason why they are so well known is for their high tempo'd music.

I also believe that Todorov's Equilibrium theory is used throughout the narrative scenes as the music video starts with the 3 protagonists in a calm environment, then it changes into the chaos of their bullying and being about to commit suicide, and finally it reverts back to calmness as it connotes that in the future the characters have become successful. This gives the audience the belief that they should never give up due to the fact that they never know how successful they could become in the future and that they should stick to their beliefs and to being who they are because that won't take away from their potential.

The plot of the story symbolises the bands beliefs and values as they are clearly against bullying and suicide and have used their fame and status in order to raise greater awareness on the issue. I believe this is a good thing for the band and the 'it gets better' project, which is mentioned at the end of the video, due to the fact that it is synergistic; both the band and the project will gain publicity for each other which will increase the awareness of both of them. Furthermore it is good for 'Rise Against' as they will get recognition for the work that they have done even by audiences who may not be fans of the Rock/Metal genre of music, and although this may not increase the number of people who like the genre, it will lead to a much larger chance of the band winning accolades for their work.

During the narrative scenes much of the camera work is fairly basic, there is very little use of pans or other camera movements for the same reason as in editing, the video needs to be delivered to audiences without being too overwhelming. The lack of camera movement continues throughout the latter half of the video however in this we see more varying shots and especially a use of close-ups in which the audience can see the emotion in the 3 characters faces as they walk home, but also as they are about to commit suicide. These use of closeups have been used to pull on the heart strings of the audience and are highly effective in creating support for the 'It gets better' Project. The performance shots on the other hand are a direct contrast as many of the shots feature camera movements such as panning shots, zolly shots and others. This is used in order to keep the traditional audience of the band interested as they would be used to seeing much faster paced editing and camera techniques than that which are used in the narrative shots so the performance based shots are included to satisfy Rise Against's established audience.

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