GROUP 48: Music Video 2007/8

The Pipettes - ABC



Camera work:
This video uses both tripod mounted camera work and hand held camera work. For example the establishing shot of the merry go round uses a tripod but the footage of the girl swinging round the pole is hand held. The mixture of these two techniques is effective because the tripod gives the video a professional feel while the hand held camera work brings a freedom to the video that suits the genre.

Shots are mostly either medium-shots or close-up. Close-ups are used effectively when the singer is lip syncing and also at times on the pick on the strings, giving credibility to the performance aspect.

Performance:
Though the close-ups were affective it was unfortunate that they high-lighted the poor performance aspect of the video. The girl often look uncomfortable in her role and didn't bring any energy to the video. The boy looked comfortable in his smaller role as the guitarist.

Editing:
The parallel editing used in the video suited the genre; the live performance side in particular linked the video with the genre of the song and the fairground side brought fun to the video.

The green screen was used effectively on the performance side, though slight green tints could be seen around the people this is hard to avoid and it was generally well done.

A mirror effect was also used early on in the video which was good because it was quite stylish, however, it did seem out of place. It is also black and white but there is another section of black and white so this was more grounded in the video.

The section of the video were stills are used to spell out ABC and then people appear on the "one, two, three" is wicked, it's interesting and suits the video because it's fun. This bit is well edited because each scene change occurs on a word.

Settings:
Both green screen and the fairground were used through-out the video.

Genre conventions:
The live performance and close-up on lip syncing and guitar playing fit genre conventions for this type of music. They have made their video fun and upbeat which suits the song.