Music Video: Research - Music Video Analysis

To get full effectiveness into our music video I need to analyse current official videos in the same genre (Power Pop) of Stacy's Mom.
The videos I'm going to analyse are:

1. Fountains of Wayne -> Stacy's Mom
2. Jimmy Eat World -> The Middle
3. Bowling for Soup -> High School Never Ends

Fountains of Wayne - "Stacy's Mom"

Storyline

The storyline to the video follows a young boy who gets close to a female friend just to be around and see the girl’s mother more. The boy does jobs around the house to watch Stacy’s mother doing things such as getting changed and swimming in the pool. At the end of the video Stacy catches the boy fantasising over her mum but thinks he is in love with her.

What is good about the video?

• One thing is that Stacy's Mom is really pretty, so the storyline is easier to understand, this means instead of us having a guy dressing up as Stacy's Mom, we will use a girl. This will make it more realistic and as the audience are mainly male then they would prefer a "hot" Stacy's Mom (2:27-2:43)
• Another good thing is the fast cutting. This is something we will try to incorporate, such as the 3 crashes (0:24), we could flash up 3 images of Stacy's Mom.
• Also it has comical value which we will want to also have, with the young boy crashing into things and the facial expression of the masseuse (1:55).
• One last thing to note is the band's outfits. They are all wearing matching suits, this is something we could do, i.e. matching outfits, making the band seem like a tighter unit.

Jimmy Eat World - "The Middle"

Storyline

The video features a fully clothed teenage boy who attends a house party at which Jimmy Eat World is playing, only to find everyone, except the band, in their underwear. Much of the crowd is making out, but the boy is excluded. Finally, out of frustration, he starts to strip to be like the others, only to bump into a teenage girl doing the same thing in the wardrobe he is in. The kids keep their clothes on and leave the party, arms around each other, as the song concludes.

What is good about the video?

• The most obvious thing to take away from this video is the nudity/sexuality of the typical American teenage party. As this video was recieving a lot of playing time on MTV, especially on "Total Request Live", it shows this is what our target audience wants to see, again emphasising the need to change to a real Stacy's Mom
• Also added on, is that it has comic value, such as the boy in the pool with his clothes on (1:49)

Bowling for Soup - "High School Never Ends"

Storyline

After watching the band as kids fail at a talent show expecting everything to be different after High School, it fades to present day at their High School Re-union, where they are playing and realise nothing has changed, and get their own back on the popular people who bullied them as kids, which we can see as flashbacks.

What is good about the video?

• One good thing that we haven't seen before is that the video starts with a story, however this would be difficult and unpractical to film
• Though the way it cuts from the story and the bands performance is good, and something we will definately look to put in the video
• With the band performance we can see that they are really enjoying, having fun, doing tricks(i.e. spinning guitar around), which we could easily do in the music video as we will only be doing an air band performance, so we could just pretend to do it.
• Again as in the Fountains of Wayne video, the band has matching outfits for the performance, so this will probably be a good thing to also do. As well as in the story scenes, they are wearing casual clothes, which is also a good idea.