Tuesday 30 August 2011

Music Video Deconstruction 5

Song: Butterflies and Hurricanes
Band: Muse
Year: 2006 (video posted 2010) 



  • Muse are an alternative rock band from Teignmouth, Devon, in England, and they formed in 1994. 
  • Muse have released five studio albums: Showbiz (1999), Origin of Symmetry (2001), Absolution (2003), Black Holes and Revelations (2006), and The Resistance (2009). The band have also issued three live albums, Hullabaloo Soundtrack (2002), which is also a compilation of B-sides, Absolution Tour (2005), and HAARP (2008).
  • The video for Butterflies and Hurricanes was the last single taken from Absolution. 
  • The video also has a very unique way of shooting, incorporating timelapses as well as other techniques.
  • It begins with a wide, landscape shot of a mountain range with a timelapse of the sky changing; immediately, various types of equipment that would be found at a live show in the open air, such as scaffolding, rigging, lights, musical equipment and more.
  • Most of the production is pieced together with footage from their tour for the album Absolution, and it is all a performance-based video.
  • After the establishing shots, the camera quickly brings the viewer to the attention of Matt Bellamy, the bands frontman and vocalist as the intro ends and the vocals of the song begin.
  • There are lots of shots of Matt vocalising and these are portrayed through a variety of shots like close ups and mid shots, with the occasional high angles and low angles.
  • Butterflies and Hurricanes, and indeed Muse themselves focus a lot on bass; this means there are lots of shots of Chris Wolstenholme playing his bass in pivotal points during which it is the lead instrument.
  • Lighting plays a huge part in this video; the whole production has a large array of purple, blue, yellow, pink and white lights surround the band as they begin to play.
  • Lots of Computer Generated Imagery (GCI) is used as well, as parts of the stage begin to construct themselves, and them moving around behind the band. 
  • When the drums come in, a dutch angle that slowly tilts clockwise is used, slowly, to synch with Dom Howard, the drummer as he plays.
  • Throughout the majority of the video, the timelapse of the sky is used continuously; the band play at the front, the stage is built using CGI and the sky streams bright colours overhead, in keeping with the "Hurricanes" aspect of the song's title.
  • Once the song is in full swing, there are a series of fast tracking and panning angles revealing an audience, obviously live footage from the Absolution tour, mixed with scenes of mountains and other various landscapes using CGI.
  • During the large classical piano part, there are mixed shots of other, more urban areas, such as sky scrapers depicted with long shots forming a binary opposite of Matt as he is shown by a mid shot. There are also effects on his piano, such as various objects coming off it such as snow and petals. 


Unfortunately Muse's record label have deactivated embedding so I can only post the hyperlink; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzCKrwOme2U

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