UNKLE - Another Night Out (Feat. Mark Lanegan) pt.2

With my lyrics interpretation out of the way, I can properly analyse how the video uses and matches with the song and its words.

Mise-en-scene:

Despite music videos being a totally different kind of media to the film opening sequences that I looked at last year, they share key concepts - one of which is the mise-en-scene. An important feature of mise-en-scenes is the colour scheme used throughout the video. In this case, 'Another Night Out' features a totally black and white colour palette, one which denotes darkness stifles out brighter colours. This in turn connotes that the character we follow throughout the video is living in a bleak world, he doesn't see much happiness. However, as connoted by the lyrics:

On a graveyard train

Hauling away

Drowning to die

Down four fathom five

To wear the hallowed crown

He isn't bothered and instead revels in it by 'wear(ing) the hallowed crown' and becoming a great boxer - a profession which is seen as dark and violent. In fact, there are very few times when the character is not focused on boxing, and in these moments he looks very uncomfortable and even still looks as though he could be at least thinking intensely about his passion. He looks up to the ceiling and seemingly can't sit still before lifting himself up from the couch and throwing practice punches into the air - as shown below in GIF format.

This is already great use of the montaging technique - which is useful for building characters in music videos, where you are very limited in time. It shows that the character doesn't have leisure hobbies and is only focused on being the best at his 'dark' profession.

Throughout the video the mise en scene continuously provides us with images and moments which help to further connote the character's restlessly violent life. We are given scenes of him bench pressing, doing sit ups (followed by punches into the air each time), sparring with trainers in the ring, clenching his fists, and even is seen applying a type of wax (Vaseline?) to his body, which is rippling with muscles and tattoos, which would stereotypically indicate living a rough and tough life - some might say that he uses the muscles and tattoos to make others scared of him in the ring.

When the fight begins, the main character of the music video is seemingly beaten, he doesn't land many (if any) shots on his opponent and the fight isn't going in his favour. Then, sticking with the music and lyrics as it starts to pick up pace and get louder, the fighter's fortunes also seem to kick in. It gives the impression that the fighter's experience lifts him (he looks much older than his opponent) and he is able to use it to find out how to beat his opponent. We see brief flashbacks of the fighter's preparation for this fight as if he is recalling that he couldn't have gone through all of that for nothing. The protagonist bursts out of his corner for the next round and manages to fight back against the previously superior opponent until he is knocked down onto the floor and the protagonist wins the fight. It runs with the lyrics 'To wear the hallowed crown', as he becomes his own king of the boxing ring for that moment in time. It then cuts back to the shot of the character looking at himself in the mirror, with his fist clenched onto the table. His fist slowly unclenches, connoting that he has relieved himself with his boxing win.

Camera:

While I can't exactly provide analysis of sound... for obvious reasons - what I can provide is one for the use of the camera throughout the music video.

In a music video where there are dozens of camera angles thanks to sequencing and montage techniques, it's difficult to take account for all of them. One of the more prominent camera angles is the one which focus on the character's eyes. It is used on more than one occasion throughout the video, some are close ups and others appear to be extreme closeups. Sometimes it appears that they are only focused on to coincide with the lyrics (the ones which talk about eyes) although they could have further meaning. In some, there is a twinkle of light shown in the character's eye. Although the lyrics and song seem to paint him to be some kind of fighting machine and nothing else, the twinkle would connote a sense of life and light inside him, perhaps signifying that he is more human than just a bringer of pain. In the first eye shot around 45 seconds, this 'human twinkle' is quickly knocked out of him by a shouting sparring partner, who is also shown in a close up, taking up a lot of the screen and is therefore represented as a powerful being. It is possible that the protagonist has been sculpted into being less human by these powerful influences.

As mentioned earlier, the mise-en-scene and camera work together on several occasions. There are other close up shots which focus on the protagonists hand as it clenches before his fight. It is a clear indication that he feels a lot of anger built up inside him, which is something that boxers could be said to purposefully do when they want to pump themselves up for a fight. Either way, it connotes that tension is building around the character and his hate is building for his opponent.

Other close ups include:
- His face while he is bench pressing, showing the grimacing pain he is going through but in some ways enjoys as it relieves him.
- His face as he looks at himself in the mirror, tensing his muscles. It shows that what he sees in himself is a muscular fighter, and possibly not much else. There are quite a few similar mirror shots, which could connote that he likes this image of himself.
... and more.

There is also use of tracking shots following him from behind him as he walks into the arena. These shots show him steadily and confidently focused as opposed to looking around nervously, connoting his calmness and experience which end up serving him well.

Editing:

There is a hella' lotta' editing in most music videos and 'Another Night Out' makes no attempt to be different here.

You could say that the video is one big montage, but I would say that some moments are far more 'montage-..y' than others. Montaging and sequencing is used to tell the same story in 5 minutes that other formats like tv shows or films would take far longer to tell.

For example - the character is at first shown sitting in his chair looking uncomfortable with his free time, it doesn't take long before he is on his feet throwing punches into the air. In the next scene, he is depicted in a boxing ring sparring with a trainer. This connotes his longing for the sport and how he usually gets things that he is obsessed about - which in this case - is to train for his next fight.

In music videos such as DJ Fresh's 'Gold Dust' montages are used to keep with the rhythm of the beat in the music. That is still the case at times in this video but to a lesser extent as the music is much slower. Instead, the more montagey moments are used to show the passing of time during his training for the fight, connoting that he went through a lot of ordeals to prepare himself. It is also used during the fight to single out some of the harder punches thrown by either side - to emphasize how rough it was.

Slow motion is used consistently throughout the video. Some of the time it is used to exaggerate the impact of the punches as it would show the rippling of the skin while other times it might be said to reflect the slow pace of the music. It could also reflect how lacking the protagonists life is. It appears that he trains, fights, but doesn't really think about anything else - despite having what might be considered a 'fast' profession, his life is actually fairly slow paced and predictable.