TASK 3 Director Research

I will be analysing the video 'The hell song' By the band Sum 41.
The video was directed by Marc Klasfeld. Its in the genre of punk rock and the video has many charecteristics of most punk rock videos, which are very fast paced shots and lots of close ups of the band.

There is very interesting use's of Mise-en-scene. As the whole video is of the band as dolls which is a very clever idea for a video, there is also alot of other dolls such as Ozzy Osbourne, Marilyn Manson and Jesus. The location just looks like they shot the video inside there house, but the video is made to look like a real life concert. For the band they had dolls and just printed out passport size photos of their faces with different expressions on them. So When theres a close-up of the band singing there facial expressions on the dolls make it look like there singing and the people holding the dolls shake them with the singing so there moving to make it look real life. All the dolls are handheld and you can clearly see peoples hands holding the dolls moving them around which is done on purpose, as it makes the video seem abit more punk as its all done with no special effects. There not trying to hide that there moving them with there hands. The cinematography is lots of close-ups of all the dolls especially of the band when the chorus in the song comes. And on all of dolls of famous people there is close-ups of most of them shown. But most the time the shot is a longshot where you can see the whole body of the dolls. The video is very fast paced it cuts between alot of different shots throughout the video you hardly ever see the same scene twice in the video. Theres alot of action going on in the video which fits very well as its a punk rock song so its a constant movement to go with the fast punk-rock music.
The song lyrics are about one of the band members friends finding out they where HIV positive. The video doesnt really relate to the lyrics much. As the video shows a big concert with drinking drugs and sex. The way there friend contracted HIV is through sex so this could be realting to the lryics of the song. Apart from that I cant see much else in relation from the lyrics to the song. The video doesnt cut to the beat of the music. It cuts to the band soon as the chorus comes in apart from that it doesnt do it to the beat. Theres one long solo instrument part in the song which is shown by a doll of Angus Young coming joing the band on the stage doing a guitar solo the guitarist's doll doing a guitar solo to. The dolls dont do guitar solo's there expressions are changed and there moved around to show that they are doing a guitar solo though. The video only changes the pace when the chorus kicks in the dolls of the band are moved fastly to show they are singing and the crowd of dolls watching is all moved around quickly aswell in the chorus.

The director shows the bands name in the song on a lite brite board with sum 41 written on it. Other than that there isnt any other advertising. The image shown of the band is as dolls. Im not sure if this is meant to represent there dolls of there record label and the record label plays around witht hem like dolls theres no suggestion of it. But the dolls of the band are shown partying, drinking, sex so the classic sex drugs rock and roll image is shown but in dolls. This video relates to alot of there previous videos, as none of there previous videos contain serious shots or any amazing special effects in there videos. So 'The hell song' video fits very well with there style of videos. There style music video's are meant to be funny. Alot of them are just a big concert and people partying to there songs. So they have done the same but used dolls instead of people for this video. Which works just as effectivly as it would with people.

The artist is on sexual display in the video but as there dolls its not real. But there crotch's are still blurred out anyway to make it seem real and as a comedic extra. Other dolls in the video are shown doing sexual activities with the band. The only way this relates to film and tv is that it has dolls of famous people from TV and films in the video. They arrive on a red carpet on the video coming into there concert to make the band seem more famous than they are.

The target audience is teenagers aged about 14 - 21. As mostly all the crowds and partys they have in their music videos are teenagers aged 14-21 so they are the type of people who listen to it. Some responses ive found online for the video ' LOVE SUM 41
they are sooo orignial with their music videos' 'best video clip ear
yeah' so it looks like they were successful in making a video people like

The promo promotes the band quite well as there is shown alot of dolls of famous people arriving to watch the band play. Making the band look very popular as all these celebrities are going to see them. I feel it will fulfil the expectations of the audience who are fans of Sum 41 good. As this video is alot like other videos that they have done before. So in conclusion this video is very original idea as I havnt seen it been done anywhere else. It works very well even if they are using dolls. Its an interesting music video to watch and it is very unlike other videos out there. So overall I like this video and it is very well done and produced.