Video Analysis 2: Best of you, Foo Fighters

My second video analysis is of the Foo Fighters hit song 'Best of you'. The video was directed by Mark Pellington, who was the one that chose the theme of the video and not the Foo Fighters. The genre of the music is rock and this is expressed across the video with the band performing live on an abandoned hospital. The main characteristic of the video is dealing with the pains in life and making sure you make the most of this by doing your best in it.
The first 44 seconds of this video is just a close up on the microphone with Dave Grohl (the lead singer) leaning in and out of the shot singing the opening verse and first chorus. This is very rare for any music video to be like this but the tempo of the music is slow and the lyrics are the main feature of this opening sequence. The video does have some shots of imagery that represent the vocals of the song. The shots involve two young children playing, a car crash, a lion hunting, a snake attack, a zebra kicking a zebra, a snarling wolf, crash test dummies in a car crash and men and women showing affection for one another. All these shots helps to add a representation to the video that it is based around nature, youth, love and death. I feel that the video is amplifying the effect of death through nature and that you should give your all before you die.
The video does start off very slowly but when the pace of the song picks up we start to see more shots in the video. The video does cut to the drum beat but some of the shots are so quick that they don't stay within the beat but the effect still works as the lyrics are represented outside the beat. After 47 seconds the whole band start to play and this is when the shots become short and there are far more unlike the opening 47 seconds where it's just Dave Grohl singing into the microphone.
The performance of the band shows extreme passion as they are all giving there all in this performance. The record company could be looking at selling this record through the passionate performance of the band as it would shows their fans they are very passionate about this song which could lead fans to share the same feeling. The filming of the bands performance is with a handheld camera which helps to add the effect to the viewer that they are closer to the band. This is seen in most performances in music videos as a static shot doesn't give the same effect as a handheld shot because if you were at a live gig of the artist you would be moving around and not standing still.
One thing i noticed about the Foo Fighters is that they always wear jeans and a t-shirt along with trainers. This is a very casual look for a band but one that is common amongst most rock bands. However the difference between this video and all their other video's is that they are all wearing black as if their mourning. However after researching the video i discovered that the director of the video had seen his wife die a few months prior to filming. This is the reason why mourning and death are very common in this video.
Overall this music video is based around a performance by the Foo Fighters with some imagery seen in short cuts within the music video. The shots of the live performance are all handheld but the shots are cut very quickly so that we can get a view of the whole band very quickly. This video to me is all about the passionate performance given by the band and this would have been made to be this way by the director. From this video i have learnt that you have to show the band up close and personal to get a better effect, this is something i plan to do in my groups music video. This is the video by Foo Fighters for 'Best of You':