Enter Shikari – Aruing with thermometers

Structure: Narrative

Director: Raul Gonzo

Producer: Stefan Anderson

Written by: Enter Shikari

The language in the video for Enter Shikari’s, “Arguing with Thermometers”, is very socio-political driven. It is mainly narrative based however there are aspects of performance which makes the video more aesthetically pleasing as it breaks up the duration of the video more evenly. This is unconventional of the dubstep genre as the artist’s don’t tend to play physical instruments however as Enter Shikari are a mixed genre band (meaning they don’t stick to one genre), they use conventions from all of the used genres and they are mainly a rock band so it is usual for them to use features from the rock genre. Most dubstep songs do not have music videos as they are not popular enough to be in mainstream charts so they don’t have enough money to create music videos. The ones that do have videos mainly have a full narrative structure to tell a story.

                The narrative of the video is the band playing a 70’s style news team reporting on global warming. This matches the lyrics and the overall tone of the song as it focuses around global warming and the oil crisis.

                There are 3 levels of digesis in the video. Firstly, the video is in a bar with people who are watching the news on TV then the camera zooms into the TV when the digesis changes to the news studio. The third level of digesis is the band performing their instruments as the band. By using more than one level of digesis they have helped to break up the video which makes it less boring for the audience and therefore the audience will be more likely to share it on web2.0 or with their peers.

                The main digesis of the video is the band dressed as 70’s style news reporters giving reports about current social and political issues such as global warming. The channel they work for is Channel 4 which is known for being left wing in agenda which shows the ideology of the video is left wing and being against the use of fossil fuels. The drummer is the weatherman using his drum sticks to point to the weather icons which appears as being humorous. The band use lots of 70’s style news room iconography to create and maintain verisimilitude throughout the video. This makes the video more effective in portraying the intended meaning which is that global warming should be taken more seriously but it is thought of as not important.

                The mise en scene of the video was effective as it used a lot of conventions of stereotypical 1970’s news teams. This helped to create the narrative of the video. The video goes against Bordwell and Thompson’s theory as they say that what the audience sees are the important bits of the story and they don’t see non diegetic material or inferred events however in the video the audience see the camera men, an autocue and the screen managers. The burning band logo creates a juxtaposition to the songs meaning as it is probably burning oil or gas to stay alight however, the image works well aesthetically which according to Michael Shore’s stle over substance theory is more important.

                The editing of the video is fast paced, which is conventional of music videos as it keeps the audience interested. It also matched the pace of the song as it is upbeat and has a high tempo. If the song was slower the editing would be expected to be slower too, to match the beat of the song. I liked the POV jump cut into the TV set at the beginning of the video as it changed the digesis from a man watching the news to actually being the news. I think that I will attempt this method in my video as I plan on doing something similar towards the end of my video.

                The cinematography in the video is nearly all the same. Medium close ups and long shots are used throughout the video to show the artists performing. Conventionally for performance, close ups would be used to convey emotion however the structure of this video is mainly narrative so these shots are used to aid the narrative style and help the verisimilitude of a news team.