The Kooks - Ooh la
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The Kooks
Genre: Indie (Pop)
Introduction
Plot: The band are in Paris, the city of romance; possibly signifying love and relationships from that single image at the start. This video is primarily based around the lead singer walking around the city with his girlfriend. He is seen in scenes of happiness with his girlfriend or partner for instance the girl laughing whilst taking a picture of him.The video shows the relationship between these two people; the ups and downs of it and the fact that society doesn't appreciate her as much as he does. It also warns her about what could be seen as a 'celebrity' lifestyle and to stay the same. Alternatively, the video can be perceived as sending this same message to the audience e.g. the fans who watch the video. The video ends with the audience understanding that the girl actually dies. This explains the vintage and nostalgic feel of the video, as this is in the past and he is reflecting on her life. The following of the storyline gives the video repeatability, as the auidence may not be able to piece the plot together on the first viewing.
Audience: It attracts the (target) audience because the message from the video and song can easily be related to by the teenage audience. Also, because the genre of the song is indie, most of the audience will base some aspects of their life on the conventions of this genre. For instance: indie kids tend to be trend setters in terms of fashion and look after their image very well, they will therefore appreciate the location (Paris) because the city is renowned for it's fashion reputation. Also, because of the complex storyline that I eluded to earlier. It deals with themes that the target audience can relate to: love, loss, relationships, loneliness, not feeling appreciated.
Similar/Different Video to those in the same genre: This video is slightly different from other videos of this genre compared to Arctic Monkeys who focused on performance videos like "I Bet That You Look Good On The Dancefloor" and Razorlight with "America". However, it does share similarities to Indie band Glasvegas, whose "Daddy's Gone" video maintains a vintage, old looking video with grainy images parallelling the the mise-en-scene within this video.
Conventions: This video is down in a black and white hue throughout, this a convention of Indie. Also, images of the artist are shown throughout for example:
Song Lyrics: "The world just chewed her up, and spat her out" - No-one appreciates her but him.
"And don't be a star, it's such a drag" - Talks about society and people opinions and distorted perception (of the music industry and celebrity life/culture.
He is sending a message to the audience, this is shown by the lead singer looking at the camera as he sings these lyrics. This makes the message personal to the audience as it is coming directly from the star of the music video. These lyrics relate to the target audience because there is mention of not getting too involved in this celebrity lifestyle and the audience of this genre will be young, fashionable people. These is the demographic that are most susceptable to this sort of behaviour/ideaology. When the lead singer sings straight to the camera he is conforming to Horton and Wohl's Theory; which is the idea that fans have a parasocial relationship with the artists
Artist's Name: 'The Kooks' - This may signify to the audience that the band is a little bit odd or different. Possibly taking reference from the word 'Kooky' which means strange or crazy. In the context of the band, this could then speak about their character, attitude or simply their music.
Image of the Artist
The image the artist is trying to portray is a casual, fashionable look that the audience can replicate. This would be the leather jacket, skinny jeans and sunglasses, complete of course with the addition of his guitar:
This will help attract the audience as many follower's of the bands music are often (if not always) influenced by the way the band dress. This shows the band's clothing and image is an integral part of the
indie genre conventions. They may lose support from fans if they started to dress emo, in all black with heavy dark eyeliner.
The mise-en-scene creates a vintage feel to the video for instance the black and white hue used along with props such the old style bicycle:
These are all generic conventions of this genre. As discussed before, the location of the video (Paris - indicated by the image of Eiffel Tower, to establish the location quickly) Props such as the acoustic guitar indicate the band are going for a pure and natural sound not to be influenced by heavy sounds of the electric guitar. This completes the image for an indie band as they cannot choose/style their own clothes and fashion religiously and then use an electric guitar. This instrument has connotations of 'cheating' the audience as the sound made by the musician isn't actually the sound heard, once it has been amplified or altered in some way. Using acoustic instruments is not necessarily a convention of indie music for instance:
Camera Angles and Editing
The video starts with numbers shown and you can hear the flickering and bleeping like it is processing the video onto the screen from an old projector of some kind. Right from the start we are introduced to the idea of vintage or possibly nostalgic video (looking back) and at the end of the video the feeling of nostalgia is justified because of its ending. It then has 5 or so seconds worth of an introduction (before the music for the song plays) this is a sort of pre-song scenario. It is the band on a talkshow live on TV and they are spoken to in a language they can't understand, this clip demonstrates themes of humiliation and the world being against you/looking down on you. Some of these themes are demonstrated later on in the video. It could be said that this moment at the start of the video has the aesthetics of a TV commercial adhering to John Stewart's Theory.
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| This shot gives the video the aesthetics of a TV commercial because of the enhanced lighting used. |
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| Close up is used on the star's face, giving the audience somethingextra at the start of the music video. The audience may also be familiar with this sort of set up which helps generate intertextuality. |
There is a dissolve technique used, sort of 'burning a page' technique. This is when one shot is burned through which then leaves the next shot in the sequence. The shot, once dissolving, reveals what seems to be the word 'fin', which is 'the English word finished' in French. As the dissolve technique happens at a high tempo (together with the rest of the video), the word and therefore the connotation is hard for the audience to make out. This again, gives the video the repeatability factor allowing the audience to watch it multiple times and not become disinterested.
This now connects both the narrative and the location of the video together. The french meaning is used to continue the French link/theme within the video of the location and then romance and love.The word 'finished' in modern English culture can have the meaning of death i.e. they are 'finished'.
According to Andrew Goodwin's Theory, close ups should always be included and that is exactly what has happened, they are quite frequent mostly concentrating on the artist's face(s) or their instruments. There is also an interesting shot where the artist/singer and his girlfriend are playing, this is seen through a piece of camera film, adding to the old and therfore original feel. Side shots are used, aswell but this is part of the narrative and not the performance where this shot would typically be seen.
Representation
The woman in the video can be to be both represented positively and negatively in this video. She is seen being with the lead singer, laughing, being good company and generally enjoying herself. There are a series of shots like the one through the washing machine that depicts her in the centre of the door, which could be viewed as idolising her.
Also, the lead singer is seen buying flowers from a shop, presumely for her to show his love for her. There is a crane / high angle shot used to set the feeling that she getting away and the pursuit for her continues. Alternatively, you could view it that the woman is being representatively negatively because as the lyrics suggest "She was such a good girl to me" / "The world just chewed her up, and spat her out". She has been good to him but perhaps no one else (the world doesn't seem to like her).
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| Voyeuristic Shot used. This idea comes from the theory of Sigmund Freud. He suggests the viewer gains pleasure looking at someone as a 'sexual object' (when the object is unaware of being watched) |
In one part of the video the woman is riding her bike and when the crane shot used (possibly indicating that she looked down upon) the lyrics "the world just chewed her up" are sung. Again, showing the negative representation of her. I think this representation of women is a fair reflection so young people can relate to this because you are loved by some and hated/less appreciated by others. This representation may interest viewers, therefore giving it the 'repeatability factor'. This is when the video can viewed several times and still entertain the audience.
Sound
As this band is from the indie genre, there music will be fairly live. By that, I mean they will have produced it with the intention of making the song sound good to a live audience when played in concerts. The sound is not altered at all in the video. It is not a good idea to include these extra sounds/sound effects in music videos that are not in the airplay version because again, they will be difficult to reproduce live. It also gives the audience different expectations of the song, which may mean a negative reception from fans.
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