Texual Analysis 1 - Shake Me Down by Cage the Elephant

  The song 'Shake me Down' is about nostalgia, regrets, and phases of happiness and sadness in life.  The message of the song is, that despite how testing life may seem, you have to have try to stay strong and positive, grasping onto a glimmer of hope no matter how hard it is to find. // ''Even on a cloudy day, I'll keep my eyes fixed on the sun''  

The video's narrative is closely linked with the lyrics, telling the story of an aged man's death, showing his life flashing before his eyes in a series of memories, before he reaches the end of the vision and meets his deceased loved ones 'on the other side'.  I've decided to analyse this video in particular for several reasons.

i) There are overlaps in the genre of this band and RHCP, therefore I can identify conventions within the music videos of the 'alternative rock' style of music, and apply them to my own product.

ii)  The two songs' meanings play on a similar theme; having regrets in life, reflecting on things, death and loss, nostalgia etc.  Furthermore, the moral of Shake me Down is something I would like to incorporate into my video. Through analysing this video I can find interesting ways to represent these themes.  

Moodboard

I have created a moodboard to summarise the imagery that comes to mind when listening to the song.  Analysing the lyrics helped me to invoke more ideas as I looked into the messages that the lyrics were trying to portray.  I have considered several elements of mise-en-scene in creating this moodboard, including location, props, casting, iconography/imagery.  I have maintained a pale, drained colour scheme as I feel this reflects the mood of the song visually in a similar way to the emphasis of 'Porcelain' does audibly.  

I may create more moodboards, using my own images, once my ideas start becoming more refined within each of the elements of mise-en-scene.