Music Video Analysis

Semiotic Analysis of Music Video
Song: I’m Not Okay (I Promise)
Artist: My Chemical Romance
Location: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIS2sHPs-wQ
Length: 3:29
Section Used: 0:00 – 3:29

All representations are encoded by the producer (Hall, 1980); different representations are encoded to build an effect known as the verisimilitude of the diegetic world. In this essay, I am going to show how the producer encodes various representations of “class” in the music video for the song “I’m Not Okay (I Promise)” by American rock band My Chemical Romance. The target audience for this video is teenagers who are at school or college, and therefore identify with some of the themes in the video. The most important aspect of the video in terms of representation is the Mise-en-scene.

The identity of the band and of one side of the binary opposition is immediately introduced at the start of the music video. The lead singer (Gerard) and lead guitarist (Ray) are immediately in costumes of school uniforms. This immediately shows that in this video they are students. The ties that they are wearing are red and black, connoting the edgy punk rock feel of the band and this combined with the long hair of the band members connects them as part of the class or stereotype of “rock/alternative” types.

This is later cut to a shot of the binary opposites of the stereotype –the “Jocks”, or “sport types”. The uniforms and combed back hair as opposed to the band members’ untamed hair gives the jocks a very pompous effect.

After the initial shot of the band members, there is an instant cut to a shot of a swimming pool, this joined with the band members uniforms connotes that they are obviously in a typical American school.

The cuts to the band playing in the garage throughout the song show the bands importance, and therefore shows a more favoured rocker side, as they are playing music, something which is considered as talented and admirable.

The camerawork in the piece is mainly quick cuts and pans. This is used to make the music video more exciting for the viewer, though the upwards tilt onto the main band member is perhaps the most important element of the camerawork in the music video. It connotes that Gerard is in fact more important than the audience, giving him a status of power.

Another important part of the camerawork is the extreme close up of Gerard’s face during one section. There is a part in the song, when he is singing “I’m ok”, that the extreme close up of his face shows his sarcasm therefore links with the opposition in the video as it shows that the Jocks actions are making Gerard and the band members angry and sad and makes them want revenge.

The editing is an extremely important part of the music video, not because of the binary opposition that it helps to create but because of the captions. There are quite a lot of captions throughout various sections of the song. These all relate to the storyline, and related to the viewer, specifically in the first section where captions such as “if you ever felt”.... and then the words alone, rejected, confused, lost, anxious, wrong, wronged. These go on and are used to create a sense of connection with the band with the fans, which are typically of the rockers side, and often have a lot of these feelings built up, and therefore this connects with them.

The main element of the music video is in fact the diegetic music, and this is linked with the video to progress the story of it. There is a pause in the music which is not in the CD released audio version where Rhythm Guitarist, Frank and a girl are acting romantic. The outcome of this little cut is for comic effect, and highlights the effects written in the closed captions.