Bastille - "Pompeii"

Bastille (stylised as BΔSTILLE) are an English alternative/indie rock band from London. First formed in 2010, Bastille began as a solo project by singer-songwriter Dan Smith, who later decided to form a band. The four-piece consists of members Dan Smith, Chris "Woody" Wood, Will Farquarson and Kyle Simmons. The name of the band derives from Bastille Day - an event celebrate on Dan Smith's birthday, July 14th. In December of 2010, the major record label EMI Music announced that they had offered Bastille a record contract with Virgin Records. 

Pompeii:

http://vevo.ly/soqS13

Above is the music video for Bastille's biggest success so far: Pompeii. 

The narrative of the video (in a nutshell) is the lead singer of the band, Dan, and the the protagonist of the video, is in an abandoned city and seems to be seeking refuge. He encounters several people along his journey, all with black eyes - this symbolises their innocence being taken away from them in some way, shape or form. Dan then begins to run away from these characters, denying the truth that this has happened to the world he lives in as he wanted to remain innocent and retain his idealistic view of the world. At the end of the video, he must accept the injustice and imperfection of his life now, and he turns to the camera, joining the other characters in having black eyes.


The video begins with the back of Dan's head, looking out onto the city that he once knew and still loves. The band's name and title of the song is then placed onto the screen in an acrostic style, something the band is famous for doing as they do it on all of their single releases. The "a" of Bastille is a triangle, a branding technique that the brand uses throughout their CD covers and merchandise. The typography is very simple, being in capital letters and in white to demonstrate that the band are focusing solely on the music they produce and are not trying to sell their image to their fans. This is something that is a common factor in other bands of Bastille's "alternative electronica" genre.

The camera then cuts to a close-up shot of Dan, looking sorrowfully out onto the city. As the audience can now see Dan's facial expression, they can see exactly how he feels but are still questioning the situation as they do not know what exactly is going on. The colouring of the video throughout is very bleak, having a "grey wash" effect, the saturation of the video being decreased and the contrast slightly heightened. This effect reflects the tone of the song, as the lyrics are about the eruption of Mount Vesuvius and how it destroyed the city of Pompeii - this being a metaphor for Dan's sense of realisation that the innocent world that he once knew has been stripped of everything that was once pure.

The video then continues with a series of long shots to establish the location, and allow the audience to see the isolated conditions which Dan has been confined to. 

The darkness of this shot allows the audience to see that Dan is hiding in the shadows, not wanting to be found by anybody because he believes that the world outside will do him no good and he is the only remaining "good" person. The tattered mattress and old brick walls reinforce the idea the world around Dan is crumbling before his eyes. 

The above long shots help set the scene for the video, as no signs of life are present around the abandoned town. The gloomy lighting as well as the low angles of most of these shots also help set the scene. I hope to include long shots such as these in my own music video, as I plan to use a lot of landscape shots. 

As the camera follows Dan cycling through the city alone, the once steady handling of the camera turns quite shaky as if to suggest that someone is following Dan, or perhaps reflecting Dan's terrified mood. This style of camera handling is continued throughout the rest of the video.

Dan is then finally confronted with those who have lost their innocence: 

The editing of the eyes makes it obvious that the people above are totally different to Dan, allowing the audience to see what Dan has been running from all this time. Whenever he sees a person with blackened eyes, he clumsily runs away from them and heads towards another part of town to get as far away as possible. The people who have lost their innocence as seen in relatively normal, "everyday", casual clothes, whereas Dan is dressed in all black. Having the protagonist in all black could foreshadow the end of the video, where Dan finally succumbs to the injustice. The medium close up shots used to present the characters who have lost their innocence allows the audience to feel as if they are the ones standing right in front of them, not Dan, and this allows the audience to feel as if they are a part of the video and ultimately encourages them to continue watching the video - this will then force the audience to listen to the song and acknowledge Bastille's music. 

He notices that his eyes are slowly darkening, and the bleak scenery that was once around Dan changes. It is no longer nighttime, and the bright, rural backdrops which Dan is in allows the audience to compare the now "darkened" Dan to the world that he once knew. 

This particular extreme long shot perfectly demonstrates this perfectly:

This medium close up shot of Dan, looking out into the river (which has connotations of washing away his sins, trying to break free from the darkness) is particularly poignant to me as I believe it expresses everything the character has been feeling throughout the video in a simple gesture. When people are stressed or nervous, as a coping mechanism they grab/massage the back of their neck. By having Dan do this, the audience can then begin to fully comprehend the situation that he is in emotionally.

The video ends with a close up shot of Dan, having the bright background behind him to once again allow the audience to compare his new and old life. His darkened eyes are now fully visible to the audience, and they could not see his entire face when he first began to notice his change. This shot sums up the video, as it incorporates everything Dan was running from and everything he craved. This shot reinforces the idea that the world's innocence is being lost to the audience and they can interpret this message in any way they like, meaning they can apply it to their lives and people from all age ranges can watch this video and appreciate its message.

I really liked this video (and I absolutely love Bastille). I think it is original, and is not completely focused on having the band's frontman singing. It does occasionally have clips of Dan singing, but he is never singing to the camera - it is as if he is trying to make sense of the situation to himself and he is simply talking aloud. The video is mainly narrative driven, and since I want my video to be fully narrative driven I can gain inspiration from this video and can also appreciate the storyline and ideas behind it. 

I also found this really cool video, where the band talk about creating the song and the video, and you get to see the "behind the scenes" action. The link is below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VALSmAUosK8