ELVIS DEPRESSEDLY//N.M.S.S
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N.M.S.S (No More Sad Songs) by Elvis Depressedly is a performance/conceptual video. It is extremely similar to Neck Deep's a Part of Me; the setting, the shots used and the appearence of the people shown in the video are all very conventional of the genre. However, N.M.S.S has an extremely different colour palette - the colours used in N.M.S.S are much colder than that seen in a Part of Me which gives it associations with old VHS and video tapes and presents the audience with a sense of nostalgia.
The imagery of the water on a brook, flowers and the trees accompanies by the fog are conceptual and emotive and amplify the care free and nostalgic feel of the song. Also, these images of wandering through forests with friends and exploration of nature puts the audience in the position of sharing these moments with the band and builds that relationship between artist and fan and allows them to really identify with the music.
The video cuts to the beat the majority of the time which allows the audience to truly engage with the music, this is also another reason Indie artists ude conceptual videos; a lot of stress is placed on the music itself rather than the image and production of the band/video so a conceptual video allows for the audience to interpret the imagery in direct realtion to the music rather than appreciating them as two seperate entities.
The majority of the images seen in this video have positive connotation such as the flowers and the dog. However, these images are sometimes layered with more unsettling imagery that totally contrasts with the natural imagery seen behind it. For example; china dolls, wrestling footage and plastic skeletons are shown in reds and oranges over the top of the muted footage. This leaves the viewer confused about the meaning behind the video and enages them further by the sudden violent imagery at the end - the video becomes postmodern as the meaning id left to be determined by the viewer themself.
The use of superimposition in this video is very interesting to me and i would love to incorperate it into our final outcome. I also really like the use of hand held footage and the 'home movie' feel it gives to a video - it makes the video feel intimate and personal to everyone who watches it.
Similarly to Neck Deep's a Part of Me the band members pictured in the video wear muted colours and baggy jumpers and beanies which is a look that is seemingly very conventional among the artists in the indie genre. Further more, once again in a similar way to Neck Deep's video that I analysed the male gaze is not at all noticable - Delaney is seen in an almost identical outfit to Matt aside from wearing leggings instead of jeans, and there are very few close ups of either of them so it leaves their emotions and representation mostly to the imagination of the audience.
A lot of the footage in the video is blurry, I feel as though this is done artistically to further emphasise the raw nature of the music and it's music video. Arguably though this also gives the video a dreamlike quality which accompanies the conceptual and ambiguous nature of the music video.
Only straight cuts are used in this video and the cuts are quick, this makes the video feel fragmented as though the viewer is watching a series of snapshots take place, This further alludes to the idea of the video being conceptually dream like. It once again draws the audiences attention to the music rather than trying to follow the narritve.
In conclusion, in this video Elvis Depressdly present themsleves as raw and unfiltered much like Neck Deep. They use conventional techniques and imagery to draw a connection with their audience through thier music rather than their high production and complex videos which is conventional of pop videos.