The music video ‘Lightning Bolt’ by Jake Bugg uses editing
to mirror the vintage genre of the rock music as certain edits have an added
black and white effect which provides an old, vintage feel to the music video.
The use of this reinforces Jake Bugg's personal preference for old bands and
doesn't favour modern music which is why the black and white effect is used.
Another effect used on some shots is a film effect which reinforces the
nostalgic tone included. This along with the hand held technique in terms of
filming portrays the music video as a home video which adds a personal touch
whilst appealing to the audience. The video consists of montage editing as each
edit is a shot of something different that doesn’t have a meaningful link to it
which makes the music video both an abstract structured video with a
performance narrative. The use of montage editing ensures that the video looks aesthetically
pleasing as a range of different locations are displayed throughout the music
video. Due to this, there are lots of jump cut edits used to ensure a variety
of different situations and places are shown for example a jump cut is used
from Jake Bugg walking down a street to him looking through records in a music
shop; the two shots have no relation but appeal to the audience as it is music
related [1].
The mise en scene such as setting creates the urban tone to
the video and reflects the old ‘rock and roll’ genre through the use of
graffiti which implies that Jake Bugg is quite rebellious and strays away from
the law however, graffiti is usually stereotyped with hip-hop music which
possibly breaks conventions of rock music videos. This reinforces Tessa Perkins
theory that stereotypes are not always rigid or unchanging as graffiti is now
stereotyped across a number of music genres. The graffiti is shown in a long
shot of Jake Bugg, leaning against a wall playing a guitar. The ideology of
this is that Jake Bugg is unruly as he is casually stood against the wall;
showing he does not care about the consequences of graffiti [2]. The props used in
the video follow formal conventions of music videos as for the guitar Jake Bugg
is playing throughout the video as the audience expect instruments for the
artists to play to add to the performance effect and match the genre of video.
The guitar is the most prominent prop used which helps reinforce the
performance narrative of the video whilst adding the effect of a match on
action shot because the audience will relate the sound of the guitar playing to
the guitar Jake Bugg is seen playing. Jake Bugg's costume in the video also
reinforces the genre conventions; he is wearing a popular Fred Perry jacket
which is associated with the mod and indie genre, jeans and also trainers. His
clothing is very casual which creates realism as he wouldn't wear extravagant
clothing in the music video if he wouldn't wear it in real life. Other times he
is seen wearing a hoodie which again emphasises the stereotype of rebellion;
hoodies are associated with chavs who are stereotyped as going against
societies rules which also applies to the indie genre as it doesn't conform to
the popular products and expectations.
The majority of camera shots in terms of cinematography are
tracking shots to follow either Jake Bugg around the city or to film different
streets and buildings. Due to the focus on the area, there are a lot of
establishing shots to give the audience an idea of the genre of music and the
emotion of the song. In this case, the emotions portrayed through
cinematography are quite positive as there are many close up shots of old, historical
buildings which imply Jake Bugg is intrigued by the city. There is also a
number of pans use to emphasise the amount of interesting places there are in
the setting and allows the audience to admire the town whilst looking at it in
an artistic way. To focus on the performance aspect of the narrative, there are
lots of shots of Jake Bugg walking down a street, lip synching to the lyrics
whilst the camera tracks backwards to unsteadily, the effect of the hand held
camera is good because it encourages the audience to feel as if they are
walking along with Jake Bugg.[3] To capture the height of some of the buildings, a
tilt upwards is used to emphasise the tallness of the architecture around which
looks aesthetically pleasing. There is also an interesting use of still shots
as they are used frequently of building and streets however it has been filmed
in a car or some other kind of moving object as it is very speedy. Another
still shot is used, capturing a tram speeding past. This is done to maintain a
constant feeling of movement throughout the video.
Finally, the sound becomes mixed types as throughout the
song the song changes from diegetic to non-diegetic. This is due to the fact
the video uses a performance narrative as well as an abstract narrative which means
that some edits the audience see Jake Bugg sing along with the song which is
then diegetic and other times he doesn’t which then changes to non-diegetic.
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