Thursday, 30 August 2012

Florence + The Machine; Rabbit Heart Music Analysis


The video starts off with an extreme close up of Florence’s mouth with the rest of her face covered by a piece of cloth. The camera then pans outwards as the cloth is lifted into a medium close up. This draws the audience’s attention to the opening lyrics of the song. The cloth covering her face has multiple connotations such as a possible desire to be unknown (as this was one of her first videos, she could potentially want to maintain a less well-known image) or be mirroring a wedding veil which then carries implications of joyfulness and sincerity. 

 However a few moments later a mid shot of Florence shows her removing the veil. This, therefore, maybe her showing rebellion or that she does indeed want to be in the spotlight. Her costume is a light silk material which creates a flowing movement in the wind or when it is being spun. This reflects Florence's characteristics of being somewhat of a 'free spirit' as well as conforms to certain indie conventions which her music, generally, seems to be. 

The frequent use of tracking close ups and medium close up’s are regularly used throughout the music video of Florence making her constantly the centre of the audience’s attention. This potentially implies that she is also the centre of the band 'Florence + The Machine' as well. As of present, Florence Welch is the only member of the band to have stayed since the beginning; the musicians have been changed a few times. The image on the right shows a significantly detailed use of cross fading, switching from a mid/ tracking shot of Florence dancing in the centre of everyone to a close up of her hand resting on the side of her face. There are potentially many reasons why the director chose to use this editing technique however one reason could be for textual or lyrical cohesion. The song 'Rabbit Heart' repeats the line 'Raise it up' multiple times which, I believe, to have some spiritual significance. This theme is carried throughout the video as another time she is pushed out to sea on a coffin-like box which has biblical references. Therefore, this combination of directorial, Mise-En-Scene and editing choices give the impression that Florence herself is somewhat religious or has her own spiritual beliefs which she intends to portray in her videos. 
The close up shots of interments such as the one shown in the video, a harp, conforms to the indie genre as a typical convention of indie music videos is that their videos contain frequent references or shots of instruments that the band is playing. Therefore this further insinuates that Florence has an indie aspect to her. However as their isn't a strong motif of shots of the instruments it could be argued that their is a certain pop element to her as well. Thus the video itself in terms on Mise-En-Scene and editing does give the impression of a indie style and genre.