Analysis of Arctic Monkeys - I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor.

Background of the song
The song is the first release from British indie/rock band Arctic Monkeys. It was released in Oct 2006 and reached number one in the UK Singles Chart. The song was released on the bands first album "Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not". 


Analysis of the video 
The video to “I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor” starts with lead singer Alex Turner introducing the band and the song. He then says “Don’t believe the hype”, here he is referring to the ‘hype’ of interest and reviews that the band were receiving before the release of the song. He is self-deprecating and trying to message that the band aren’t as good as people are assuming.

To begin with a long shot is used, filming from the left hand side of the stage. This presents the audience with their first shot of the bands as a whole. After his opening introduction which was filmed using a medium close-up shot showing just his head and shoulders, Alex Turner turns his back on the audience and faces Matt Helders playing drums. An immediate bond between these two band members can be seen here.

The mise-en-scene of the video stays the same through-out. As cameras move around the side of the stage, viewers are now realising the 1970’s theme of the video. The cameras used are taken from that era of time to assist the aged effect. A very similar live video was done by the band The Strokes for their song "Last Nite", a band which are known to have a great influence on Arctic Monkeys. In an interview the band stated the idea behind the video, “We had a program in England called The Old Grey Whistle Test, from the '70s and '80s. It was a live show that a lot of great bands played on. We all liked watching the program from DVD and then we just tried to recreate that”. Other clear aspects of the mise-en-scene are the unusually brightly coloured walls, provided by the different coloured lights on the set. These lights and the general mise-en-scene of the video, including the different shots and the ways in which the artist rarely looks into the camera can be compared with the video of The Who performing on “The Old Grey Whistle Test”, a show which was the main inspiration behind this video. (Link provided below) 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPDVahx6V60

Continuing with the Arctic Monkeys video… The text appears on the screen in an old looking font as the camera uses a ‘follow shot’ to follow front man Alex using a medium shot, as he plays guitar around the stage. The excitement surrounding the song starts to build up as the guitar riffs get louder and faster. A close up of Alex playing the guitar as he takes his guitar away from the build up and plays his own set of chords is exposed.

A medium shot of Alex is seen just before he begins to sing, the microphone can clearly be seen in the left hand side of the shot. He can be seen playing his guitar in the background, slightly out of focus. When it is time for him to sing, a close up of him singing into the microphone is shown, the shot is taken face on and no eye contact with the camera is made on his part. Instead he looks to the side and past the camera, immediately along with the ‘don’t believe the hype’ statement at the beginning; an impression to the audience is given that the band do not hold a lot of confidence in their music.

During the first bridge, the drummer Matt Helders provides backing vocals, as this takes place, the camera switches from Alex onto him and begins zooming in to where is drum kit is positioned. At the end of his role, he winks towards someone on his right; this also includes a fun and cheeky side to the bands representation. As this takes place, the lyrics “Your name isn’t Rio, but I don’t care for sand” are being sung. This is a reference to Duran Duran’s song “Rio” where Rio “dances in the sand”.  The type of shot used here is called a ‘cutaway shot’; this merely describes a shot that is taken of something other than the object. In this case, the object is lead singer Alex Turner because he is singing; however the camera is showing Matt winking instead.

As the chorus is played for the first time, another close up of Alex Turner returns. Subsequently after that a long shot is shown of him performing from the side, in the background, the old cameras can be seen moving up and down the side of the stage, this helps the continuality of the 70’s program theme.

A few audience members are also in the shot, sitting at the side of the stage. This is the first time, audience members are shown.

Another close up of Alex performing into the microphone face on, again returns, this time he is out of focus and the drummer can be seen over his shoulder in the background. The camera is fixed but only focused on the drummer in the background so the audience’s attention is on him. When the pull-focus affect is applied, a shift in view brings the foreground singer into focus and with it the attention of the audience.  

A few shots later, when the second verse begins, a medium shot this time is used to show the singer and the drummer. The shot is filmed from the front on and the lead singer Alex is positioned to the left of the shot, so that an un-focused drummer can be seen in the background. A medium shot is then used to show the bass player and when Alex and Matt return into view, they are close up. Again, Alex is in focus and Matt is out of focus, however when Matt provides the backing vocals for the bridge, as Alex looks round in the direction of him as he does this, Matt becomes the focus of the shot. This then changes on his second line and Alex returns as the main focus.

A low angle shot of Alex Turner is then used, taken from the side as he finishes the bridge; this shows the significance of him at this time in the song, the build up to the chorus. The camera then pans round the side of the stage in a long shot to show each member of the band in the chorus. As the chorus reaches its climax, medium, slightly low angle shot, taken front on is shown of Alex. Subsequently, a cut-in shot is used, the camera zooms in to show is fingers playing the chords before switching to an extreme close up of his face singing into the microphone. This adds enthusiasm and interest. The camera then zooms out a little to show more of his face before zooming towards his eye, which is then quickly transacted.

As a gap in the vocals can be heard, a long shot of Alex and the drummer is seen as Alex faces him whilst playing. In addition to this the camera then zooms in to the back of Alex, loosing and then regaining focus a little. As the song builds up to the last performance of the chorus, a zoom out is used whilst the camera pans around the side of the stage to show all four band members.

At this point in the song, the drums can clearly be heard, this is emphasised to the audience by the camera using an arc shot to pan around the side of the stage and to the back where the drums are positioned.

Again a significant shot of Alex is used, taken from the front of the stage at a low angle. The shot then moves up so that it is positioned directly in front of him and zooms in towards his face. A medium shot of Matt is shown as he sings to the lyrics “I bet that you look good on the dance floor”. As the camera zooms out, an out of focus object emerges into view, this is the guitarist, Jamie Cook. The focus between him and Matt then changes and he can be clearly seen also singing along to the lyrics, both providing backing vocals.

The last shot of Alex singing is slightly low angle taken from his right hand side. He then walks out of view, the camera zooms out and a shot of the band standing still on the stage after the song has finished is shown. It is slightly low angle and taken from the left hand corner of the stage.

The general representation of the band given off in this video is that they aren’t very confident people as a band. The reason behind this being that there is very little interaction with the audience which is hardly seen at all and the very little eye contact with the cameras. They do however show a bond within each other, this is especially seen between the lead singer, Alex Turner and the drummer, Matt Helders, with them noticing each other on stage, playing close by to each other and sharing a large amount of shots as well as alternatively performing the same line of lyrics.

There is very little audience representation at all in this video as they are vary rarely shown. The reason behind this may be that a similar arrangement of camera shots is used on “The Old Grey Whistle Test” which results in the audience very rarely being shown. This may be due to the fact that the show wanted the focus of the audience at home to purely be on the music and band.