The first video I am analysing is “Radioactive” by Marina and the Diamonds.
The song was released as a single from her album “Electra Heart” in September 2011. Her record label at the time was “679” who are owned by the “Warner Group”, one of the Big Four. The song was produced by Stargate who had previously worked with people like Beyoncé. The video was directed by Casper Balslev a director/photographer who has also worked with “Lady Hawke” and “Kiss Kiss Kiss”.
Language and Mise En Scene –
The video shows strong references to American iconography in many aspects. The most obvious is that it takes many elements from movies about being on the road, travelling and places like Route 66. It looks like it was filmed somewhere like Arizona or Texas.
This is important as these films are often about rebellion which is the main theme of the video.
The video starts with the protagonist in one of the two performance sections of the video. There is one showing before the events of the video and one, the main one, after. This is the one we see now which shows the girl dancing in a desert wearing a wig which is featured throughout the video whilst the couple are running away. The girl looks distant and upset. It cuts to her watching tv with a blank look on her face to show she’s sick of where she is and ready to move on. The sunset in the desert also signifies the start of something new whilst the dark room shows the end of what was before.
The movement of the characters and the camera then pick up with the music and the girl is running around the house packing frantically. This starts the girl’s race away from her old life. At this point the before section of performance begins with the lyrics to show what she’s running from. The girl looks in the mirror, without her wig on to make the two scenes as different as possible; to show how insecure she is in her current life. This version of her is the first to say the lyrics as they are about her current life and possibly an abusive boyfriend she’d running from.
Her face is split to show she’s not whole until the new man appears next to her watching tv. He is her new other half. To emphasise that these are only half of a person they are shown in profile.
The couple then get their bags and leave in as big hurry as the girl was packing. She is seen taking a deep breath, preparing herself. The before performance section ends as the girl puts the wig on and goes back to the start of the video. The after performance continues and the girl in seen standing in her ex’s room with a chainsaw while her new boyfriend watches her destroy it. The couple drive away.
As they go over a bridge the girl looks back and watches her old life shrink into the distance. It is noticeable that at this point all of her outfits have had red in them; even in the simplistic one she is wearing red lipstick. This could connote to love and showing how she’s constantly in love, or it could show she’s constantly angry and frustrated with her life.
Before in the video the other man has seemed solemn and serious now that they’re away from the old place he immediately perks up and the couple begin to exploit their new freedom with a cycle of rebellious behaviour.
They pull into a motel where it is assumed that the scene where they watch tv together takes place. And then it cuts to them in a supermarket wearing animal masks. The boy wears a fox mask to show that he’s the one who put the thought into their escape as foxes are known to be cunning, they are also known to be sly which hints he may be misleading the girl or corrupting her further. The girl wears a frog mask to match the fact that she’s extremely insecure; frogs are not known for their beauty. However it could also be referring to the princess and the frog story where the frog is transformed into a prince after meeting his soul mate. The boy is changing her as is the freedom and she’s becoming more of a real person rather than just a half.
She throws him into a pool with a chair and laughs at him showing how she’s no longer the typical innocent young girl; she has a dark side now.
After this the previous locations are shown with the events continuing. The performance part becomes more dominant and the clips of the girl dancing in a street at night over take her dancing in the desert. The boy becomes less featured to show that the girl’s transformation is coming to an end and she is now his equal if not more powerful than him. He is shown sleeping while she watches television to maybe hint that she doesn’t sleep as much, making her more alert and stronger. The boy joins the girl in the desert for the first time and shows just as much of an independent character. As they’ve been traveling they’ve fixed each other and even though they could last without each other they chose to stay anyway. There is a noticeable shift in power as they become evenly featured.
The boy climbs on the table in a café, making reference to “Pulp Fiction” a classic American movie where two married criminals climb on the tables and try to rob the dinner. This backs up the “partners in crime” relationship they’ve had throughout the video.
Pulp Fiction (1994)
The desert scene gets later and later on in the day as the suns sets to show the story is ending. The girl takes her wig off to show she has no need to run anymore. With the running away coming to an end the couple realise so are they and the video ends as they walk away in different directions and the sun sets.
Audience and Representation-
The video represents lower class people around the age of 18-28. You can tell this as crime and scandal is used throughout the video and in higher classes this kind of thing is infiltrated in a love story less and less. The age because that is the age of the two characters and also because a lot of the movie the text refers to are also aimed at people in that age bracket.
“Pulp Fiction” Has already been discussed as one of the text the video is based on due to the café scenes in both. Pulp fiction was released in 1994 and is a cult classic, the characters are around the same age as the characters in the video and the couple in the café scenes have also committed crimes(although more serious) and are running from the law.
Another text is “Thelma and Louise” another very famous movie based on runaways. This is where most of the car scenes will have got their inspiration from as they make use of a similar coloured car and scenery. The movie ends with the two main characters dying as opposed to in the video where they part ways.
Then there’s “Little Miss Sunshine” which is based on a family road trip to a pageant rather than two people escaping the law however it still includes a lot of the scenery like the desert and the hotel rooms.
Little Miss Sunshine (2006)
Thelma And Louise (1991)
The reason these movies are so strongly referenced is because they are cult classics which means that pretty much everyone in that age group has seen and loved them. Because they are so popular by basing a lot of the mise en scene on them the director intended to make the video just as popular or strike the same chord. Also all the movie relate to rebellion, which is what the video is about and a very strong and popular theme when it comes to younger generations.
Sound –
LYRICS ANALYSIS:
Lying on a fake beach,
You'll never get a tan.
Baby, I'm gonna leave you drowing,
Until you reach for my hand.
The song is about a girl who is in love with a boy who is no good for her. This is the poison of radiation that is being referred to throughout the song.
Radiation emits a glow which could be the meaning of “Fake beach" showing that the boy is not originally as natural or real as she though he was.
When she says “I’m gonna leave you drowning” it’s because she feels let down by the lies and wants him to feel her pain. However she knows if he showed her the slightest sign of affection or interest again she would go running back “Until you reach for my hand.”In the night your heart is full
And by the morning empty.
But baby, I'm the one who left you,
You're not the one who left me.
When you're around me I'm radioactive.
My blood is burning, radioactive.
I'm turning radioactive.
My blood is radioactive.
My heart is nuclear.
Love is all that I fear.
I'm turning radioactive.
My blood is radioactive.
In the bridge and chorus she talks about how the boy is hot and then cold towards her which she finds confusing, “In the night your heart is full and by the morning empty”, and wishes he was more honest with her about who he is. She then sings “I’m the one who left you” to talk about the events of the first verse where she hurt him to get revenge.
She then sings about becoming radioactive herself which means that the boy is making her dangerous and damaged like him. The “my blood is burning” means that they’re in an angry and unhealthy relationship but neither wants to do anything about it.
She talks about the relationship becoming so corrosive that she’s begun to fear love itself yet it’s addictive because the glow is so beautiful. “Love is all that I fear.”
Waiting for the nightfall,
For my heart to light up.
Oh baby, I want you to die for,
For you to die for my love.
“Waiting for the nightfall for my heart to light up.” Is referring back to earlier in the song where she said “By the night your heart is full and by the morning empty.” Basically the night is when the boy is kind to her and their relationship is somewhat happy so she spends all her time longing for this.
“For you to die for my love” is the girl saying again how she wants to punish the boy for mistreating her but it also means she wishes him to love her so much it becomes unbearable for him.
This is the same as the previous bridge and chorus only this time it has the added lines of “Ready to be let doewn and now I’m heading for a meltdown”. To show that now she’s starting to realise that they can’t go on like this forever and eventually she will get her heart broken.In the night your heart is full
And by the morning empty.
But baby, I'm the one who left you,
You're not the one who left me.
When you're around me I'm radioactive.
My blood is burning, radioactive.
I'm turning radioactive.
My blood is radioactive.
My heart is nuclear.
Love is all that I fear.
Ready to be let down.
And now I'm heading for a meltdown.
This is about the girls last night with th boy after deciding that they don’t have much of a chance. She sees him and all her old feelings are brought back “Tonight I feel like neon gold”. But then she’s reminded that they are almost over and she feels afraid. “I take one look at you and I grow cold.” After this the choruses continue and so does the pattern with the couple spiralling closer and closer towards the end.Tonight I feel like neon gold.
I take one look at you and I grow cold.
And I grow cold.
And I grow cold.
The video takes place after the song when the girl has found her new man, her escape, and they run away together, yet she's still thinking of her ex and singing about him. Now she's the destructive and damaged one and the cycle continues.
When you're around me I'm radioactive.
My blood is burning, radioactive.
I'm turning radioactive.
My blood is radioactive.
[X2]
My heart is nuclear.
Love is all that I fear.
Ready to be let down.
And now I'm heading for a meltdown.
Sound in the video -
Apart from the song there is no sound used in the video which could be because the director wanted as much attention on the lyrics in relation to the video as possible.
Editing –
The editing of the video make use of cuts only for transitions but uses a few interesting techniques. The cuts are made to match the beat of the song so the video naturally gets more intense as the song does so there’s a nice rhythm to it.
The video is set over the course of a few day/weeks using continuity editing but the video is edited in such a way it makes it look like two days, or a weekend like in Thelma and Louise.
It starts at day and shows them packing and leaving then they’re at the motel where its night then they go out in the day again, then by the end of the video it’s night when they part ways. I believe the day at the beginning shows the start and the sunset and the end shows the end of that couple, however the night in the middle is used to make reference to the lyrics where it talks about the night at that point in the song.
Match on action is used quite a lot to keep the movement of the video in pace with the song, mainly in the dance scenes but also in others. For example when she’s on the bed and moves the chainsaw down it cuts to it going through the bed.
Ellipsis editing is also used for the same purpose especially in the beginning when she is getting ready and packing.
Overall editing is used to keep the story in time with the song and preserve the beat.
Cinematography -
The camera movement during this video is very active as, along with the editing, it is used to increase the video’s rhythm and pace. To do this the camera is steadicam to give it the feel of a documentary, making the characters feel real and therefore more relatable. This video doesn’t aim to make the musician built up into a celebrity but to make them understandable and applicable.
Close ups are used a lot as they show more emotion which is important for the above reason.
The camera tends to follow the characters within the shots, for example in the café the boy throws the ball to the girl who catches it, the camera follows the ball, all in one shot. At the beginning the girl would run in and out of shot to exaggerate the fact that she’s running away. There are a couple of shots where the girl moves towards the camera and it backs away to give the impression that she’s scary, this relates to the earlier discussion about how she’s been turned dangerous and into poison.
The cinematography is used to make the boy more understandable as well as a lot of the shots are Point of View shots from his perspective. This is another reason why there are a lot of close ups of the girl, as the boy is now the one being corrupted, his thoughts revolve around her and her only.
As the “day” gets later on the camera gets more unsteady to show the couple’s link is fracturing. Many of the shot start to go in and out of focus to show them losing each other and drifting apart.
In the last shots of the girl she goes increasingly distorted before cutting completely to black to show her and the boy have finally lost each other.
Word Count: 2,465
