1. Music Video Analysis – Spanish Sahara
The video I have chosen to analyse is ‘Spanish Sahara’ by the band ‘Foals’. The
reason I have chosen this video is because I think the camera movements and
edits are suitable for the song. The first shot starts with a white screen which
gradually fades into a wide shot of a huge snowy landscape. As the fade finishes
and the whole shot is clear, we can see a man walking far in the distance. This
shot lasts for 1:04 which is unusual for a music video but it is suitable because the
first line of the song is “So I walked into the haze”. The video and lyrics work hard
in hand to convey that the man in the video has been walking for a long time into
‘the haze’. The mise en scene of this shot also shows that it is very cold and tries
to emphasise the idea of being alone.
The next shot is synchronized with the
guitar chords that are being played and
straight away we see a close up of a
man laying down on the ground
looking into the camera. We assume
that this is the man who we seen
walking in the previous clip. “Now I see
you lying there”, is the line of the song
which is sung over this scene. In this
case the man we see lying on the floor
is the front man of the band ‘Yannis
Phillippakis’.

2. The next number of shots are all scenic shots showing bits of ice and the waves in
the sea. We also see a plastic bag floating in the water which looks like it has
something in, however we do not know what this is yet. Depending on what song
we decide to do our music video, we might use this as inspiration and get some
scenic shots to go in ours as well. It works well in this song because it is slow and
it gives the feeling of time passing.
The
next
image
is one
that
we see
a lot in
this
video.
We see the singer in a close up shot
where we can only see his face and a white background behind him. In the shot
he is singing the words to the song. In this shot the singer is staring straight into
the camera which means he is making direct contact with the audience. We also
see the wind blowing his hair as he sings which again emphasizes the cold
atmosphere that he is in.
The next shot refers back to the
plastic bag in the earlier shot.
We now see the man dragging the bag out of the sea by a rope and as we get

3. closer we finally come to see that there is in fact a dog inside the bag. This shot
accompanies the repeated lyrics, “forget the horror here, forget the horror here”.
We as the audience do not know why there is a dog in a plastic bag or why he is
dragging it out of the sea. The music video never actually explains why this is
happening so it leaves a lot to the imagination of the listener/viewer.
After this shot there are a number of other scenic shots which show the sea
covered in bits of ice. These images could again represent the cold surroundings
that this man is in.
The next number of clips show the man dragging two dogs in plastic bags with
him through the massive landscape in which the video is set. We don’t know
where he got the second dog from but that fact that he is taking them with him

4. could mean that they were his dogs or even just because he felt sorry for them.
We see the struggle he has climbing up the hill with both of the dogs but still he
perseveres and continues to take them with him. We do not know what he is
going to do with them yet. At this point the music is building up and getting
louder.
Finally as the music comes to its peak
and the whole band come in, we see an image of a fire where the flames are
burning quite high, it is not until a couple of shots later that we see Yannis stood
between two fires, which we assume are the two dogs that he has found. This is
quite a powerful scene as it works well with the music and the lyrics that are
repeated throughout the extended outro of the song, “I’m the fury in your head,
I’m the fury in your bed, I’m the ghost in the back of your head”.

5. As the music starts to come to an end, we see the fires starting to burn out and
we go back to some more slow motion scenic shots of the area around. A couple
of these shots are shown and then the screen fades to black to bring the music
video to an end.