Sunday 14 September 2014

DW - Semiotics Analysis - Performance

Semiotics Analysis - Performance


I have chosen Queens of the Stone Age  'No One Knows' to analyse for performance semiotics. This is because QOTSA are one of Mike Kerr's favourite bands, so Royal Blood's music takes massive inspiration from them. The video is also heavily performance based, with some intercutting narrative, allowing me to focus on one are of analysis.



Queens of the Stone Age are an American alternative rock band that conform to the genre in their music videos. They perform the song throughout the video, and Joshua Homme continues to lip sync through the narrative shots.

Iconic Signs
A series of iconic signs are shown through the use of camera positioning and shot size. Costume is key as they are wearing clothes that they are regularly seen in, connoting a familiar feel with the audience, positing them closer to the band. The band's instruments are also another example, as the audience are used to seeing them like this.  We are also shown the band's tattoos, signifying them being an individual and unique.


Social Myths
In the video, you see the band driving around in a jeep, when they run over a deer. At the time of shooting the video, the average age of the band was around 30, so they can't be deemed as youths. However, this does draw on the social myth of star's being reckless. This conforms to Dyers theory of star image, and reinforces a dominant ideology of rock stars being careless and antiauthoritarian.

The video could also be seen to have references to drugs, as the run-over deer then gets up and starts driving the jeep, running over scouts in the process. This further signifies the stereotypical 'rock star' image, and adds to the ideological idea of stars being careless.








2 comments:

  1. Good semiotics analysis Dan. I especially like how you have used stills to aid the points you've made. If you want to improve it maybe add slightly more detail to the points you've made.

    ReplyDelete
  2. well done Dan, some very good application of theory

    ReplyDelete