The music video for Foo Fighters' "The Pretender" features an energetic live performance of the band. The video uses fast cuts, letterbox format, tracking shots, and zooms to create a dynamic, almost electric atmosphere. It depicts a rebellious, defiant performance by the band against a backdrop of protest and confrontation with police. As the song's chorus is performed, police first appear behind the band then grow increasingly annoyed by their defiance, culminating in riot police rushing to confront the band.
1. Foo Fighters – The Pretender
The music video for this song is definitely a type that would go under ‘rock music videos’ genre style
umbrella. The performance is the main part of this video as it is quite common for rock genre. It is
very powerful, there are a lot of pan shots, tracking shots and zooms. The letterbox format and fast
cut montage even enhance that dynamic feel. Two shots
on the right have an interval of around half a second one
after the other. It starts with the shot on the top, and
then it cuts to the bottom scene, although it starts with
the shot having Dave Grohl (vocalist) on the right and
finally it pans to the composition seen in the bottom
screenshot. It all happens very quickly and is a part of the
heavy guitars introduction. Also, any rapid moves are
usually accompanied with guitar drops sot it all works
perfectly to create that alive, almost electric
atmosphere.
The music video is driven with quite a rebellious idea just
like the song itself but it still does not illustrate it exactly.
The chorus ‘What if I say I'm not like the others?What if I
say I'm not just another one of your plays?You're the The time interval between the two shots above is
around 0.5 sec. During that time there is a change of
pretender. What if I say I will never surrender?’ distance and a pan shot.
illustrates the idea here. There is an atmosphere of riot
here, kind of a protest against the authorities. The band
members, especially the vocalist are very aggressive
and they sound like they have a reason for it. From the
start of the video there can be seen a black line going
across the whole hangar. As the chorus goes in for the
first time the first police officer appears just behind the
line, standing frontally to the
Close up of Dave Grohl singing the chorus
band. After around 50 seconds, when chorus is
sang for the second time the officer seems to be
annoyed with the defiance, shouts in anger and the
whole riot unit joins him. The third time chorus
goes in, the unit starts running towards the band in
attempt to ‘sort them back in order’. A clear
Riot police running towards the band in attempt to
'silence' them
relation between the rhythm, lyrics and the image
can be seen, although not a clear illustration.
Therefore this music video is an amplification of
the lyrics.
The red screen which stood right behind the band since
the start of the video suddenly explodes, overwhelming
the police officers