Textual analysis of a music video- Two Door Cinema Club, What You Know

Textual analysis: Two door cinema club- What you know.

For my second textual analysis of a music video I have chosen to look at Two Door Cinema Clubs’ song ‘What you know’.  I have chosen this particular music video to look at because it is of a similar genre to the song I am going to do my music video on, so looking at this video will give me some ideas and inspiration of things to use in my video.  The song is off the band’s debut album ‘Tourist History’ and the single was released on the 7^th of February 2011. The genre of the band’s music is described as alternative rock.

The whole music video is shot in one studio. The whole studio is white and this is used effectively as many colours are used throughout the video in the form of the costumes and props, this lets the audience focus purely on these rather than the background.  The video contains the band members on podiums playing their instruments; this clearly shows to the audience that they play their own instruments which will be an important part of what the band does. The video contains many female dancers who perform a routine that fits in time with the beats of the music. At the time of 9 to 13 seconds a female on rollerblades hits a drum to the timing of the drum beat, this makes the audience focus on this beat and they will know that the main part of the song is about to kick in. 

When the lyrics start there is a close up on the lead singer, Alex Trimble, singing. This shows to fans and people who may not know a lot about this band that this is the lead singer of the group. There is also subtle story being told between the lead singer and a female. This could show that this music video is both performance based, this is shown through the female dancers performing as well as the band but the video could also be described as narrative as a story is now being told through this contact from the lead singer and a female actor. The colours and styling used of the dancers are pastel shades and not particularly modern clothes, this suggests to the audience that the band is trying to re-create music and sounds from a different era.

There is a repetitive part of the video where a sequence of dance is repeated by a different group of girls. This shows the audience that the song is one that you can get up and dance to and was intended to be enjoyed in an active way. The fact that the lyrics in the song ‘Don’t want to be alone...’ are repeated frequently could then correspond to the fact that in the studio the band isn’t alone and in fact surrounded by many girls. Most of the shots used throughout are long and medium shots, whilst the close up seem to be only used for the different band members and the most important female actor.

Some sequences are then put into darkness and slow motion. This is then a complete contrast of the previous video and probably used to keep the viewer entertained.  The song ends by also going into darkness, this suggests the end of the song as it resembles when the lights go off to end a play in a theatre as an example.