The music video for Radiohead's "Knives Out" features unconventional elements for a rock music video. It tells the story of a relationship through surreal metaphors and conceptual imagery in a single continuous shot. These metaphors - like an anatomically correct heart replacing a head and cold feet representing relationship doubts - represent both the positive and negative aspects of love. Though challenging to film, the technical aspects of the single shot add to the surreal narrative being portrayed.

1. Music Video Analysis
I have decided to analyse the music video for Knives Out by the rock band Radiohead. This video
was released along with the song in 2008 and was directed by Michel Gondry. The produce music
under the rock genre, and using Nick Lacey’s repertoire of elements, conventions of this genre can
be identified.
The two main characters in the video are a male and female, they represent heterosexual
relationships and love, themes that appear in the majority of music genres, rock included.
The music video has a non-linear narrative. This is evident by the use of a television prop, that
shows flashback’s of the couple’s relationship. This
helps to create the narrative enigma and thus not
giving the audience a full story. However within this
narrative, both the positive and negative aspects of
love and relationships are represented, through
marriage, sickness and fights. This video also uses
conceptual and performance based elements within
the narrative. The performance sections of this video
also uses conceptual imagery. It features props, the
heart-head, seen previously in the video while the
skeleton could represent death; the ultimate end of a
relationship, referring the wedding vow “Till death do
us part” as this performance is at the very end of the
video while none of the characters can be seen.
The conceptual elements of this video
include overt metaphors, for example the
anatomically correct heart as a head, the
use of an anatomically correct heart rather
than the heart usual seen in media
demonstrates that the video is represented
the true nature of relationships, not the
commercialised version of love depicted in
many pop music videos. The heater for the males toes are to suggest he has or has had cold feet
at some point in this relationship and at those times not wanted to continue, this is also
representing long term relationships, specifically marriage. The operation board game being used
to depict surgery is another metaphor. Placing a picture into the heart is a sign of keeping her as
close to his heart as he possibly can. The train journey shown on the television screen represents
the journey that people take together in a relationship. These surreal metaphors to creative a
conceptual narrative is a convention often seen in rock music videos, while there are also features
that are iconic to rock music and to love, the videos theme, these include: the couple to represent
relationships, rings and cold feet metaphor to represent marriage, hammers to represent the fights
and arguments.

2. The technical aspects of this video often challenges the usual conventions of
rock music videos, the use of a single handheld camera and having the
whole video shot in a single shot would have required intense planning and
choreography, especially as the setting is just one small hospital room. There
are some aspects that would have been shot separately to the main shot and
showed either during the shoot or post production, this includes the train
narrative shown on the TV, the family under the sheets and the character’s
face imposed onto the microphone / mouse's face.