Florence + The Machine - Cosmic Love video analysis

Category

The category this music video falls into is a performance/narrative category, as the video contains the performance of the artist, lip syncing to the lyrics. It is also narrative because there is a link between the lyrics and the visuals as it follow through, however it is not purely a narrative video as some of the clips is just bizarre and doesn’t fit the story.

Genre of the song
the genre of this song and music video is kind of like a modern indie pop, this is mainly represented by the well known artist as well as the costumes she wears

The artist, song title and genre of music

Artist- Florence + the machine

Song Title- cosmic love
Genre of Music- modern indie/ pop

Music video analysis

The music video begins with a shot of a light bulb flashing. Florence Welch is then seen to walk through some trees with autumn leaves, and a light falls into her eye, making her scream. The video then moves on to show Welch lying on the floor in a black outfit, in a mirrored room filled with different colored lights around her. She then stands up and dances in the room. The video then moves back to Florence walking through the autumn leaves, with blue, green and purple lighting shining on her, and she appears to be lost as she is surveying her surroundings. The scene of Welch in the room of lights then changes to darker lighting, and her outfit changes into a white dress with lights. Later in the song, during this scene, leaves are seen to surround her as she is dancing. The video ends with Florence taking the light from inside her chest, and releasing it into the air, and it floats into the light bulb which started the video.

Technical codes

The music video is most likely to be filmed in a studio as you don’t see any sceneries or the weather outside. Regardless the editing of this music video is flawless as each clips flaws smoothly through the video, there is a lot of jump cuts, close ups and mid shots of the artist, there is also parallel editing as she is in two places as the same time jumping from one to another depending on the pace of song. There is also a lot of use of special effects starting from the floating light to many others including splits screens and so. There is also use of extreme artificial lighting throughout the video to create that ‘bleaching’ effect on the artist to give them that ageless look. There are also use strobes and flashing lights through out the video.

Goodwin’s theory

The music video does follow Goodwin’s theory as it has a clear relationship between the lyrics and the visuals as well as the relationship between the music and the visuals. There is also lots of close ups of the artist due to the demands of the record label to prompt the artist.