CONTEMPORY vs CLASSIC

Queen : Bohemian Rhapsody (1981) -------- Rita Ora : How We Do (2012)

 

 

VS

 

 

Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody is entirely performance based, there is no narrative whatsoever and this is the first difference to a contemporary music video. Bohemian Rhapsody was one of the first major music videos and in this time a video was used to perform and promote the song, therefore a narrative was not generally included. Queen's video uses a lot of special effects and this would have been a major breakthrough for music videos in the 1980's, they are perhaps what makes this video so iconic to the band.

The video itself is very dark in lighting; the shot right at the beginning with the four 'floating heads' is portrayed by top-lighting to the faces. This usually gives a glamorous ecceft on the subject of the shot by creating shadows onto the nose, mouth and body, however in this group shot the band has a more sinister appearance. There are a few shots like this where the background is in complete darkness and all you see is the performer and their instrument, the brightest that the video gets must be in a shot where the band are on stage. The connotations of the video being mainly low lighting are depressing and dangerous or sinister. I think this connects with the lyrics of the song which are not particularly happy, they talk about throwing life away and wishing to have never been born.

 

This shot shows a special effect, others                                                  

include partially dissolving into different                                                            

shots so that both images can still be seen

and duplicating an image onto the page

multiple times.

 

Many of the shots are also Silhouettes, this in particular shot is narrating the lyrics which read "I see a little silhouetto of a man..." The silhouette is of Freddie Mercury as he is the main feature in this video, probably because he is the lead singer and videos more or less focus on the singer and not so much the musicians.




On the other hand, Rita Ora's video for How We Do which was released in 2011 has a different approach to the music video. Like Bohemian Rhapsody, How We Do is also performance based, however there is also an element of narrative in there which the main video cross cuts to throughout. In terms of lighting and colour, the video is much brighter and includes loud colours which connote a more light hearted storyline and denotes fun. We see Rita Ora in a number of different locations during the video, one where she is alone and it is purely performance, another where she is at a party and the last is at what looks like a studio with people throwing paint everywhere. This video also includes special effects just as Bohemian Rhapsody does, however Queen's video would probably not have a black and white effect as How We Do does because the 1980s had not long seen colour appear on screens so a black and white effect may seem like a regression. However, in the current day and age music videos include effects such as these because it is so rare now to see it.
There are also shots of the action at a UV party which is very modern, the colours are ultraviolet and so this affect on the video makes it even more lively and colourful to watch.

 

 

In conclusion, Music videos have evolved and become a lot more high-tec over the years. For example, How We Do has a better quality picture than Bohemian Rhapsody and the colours are a lot brighter. The film sets also look as if they have become higher budget too. Queen's video would have been very high budget for the time in which it was created, however in comarison to Rita Ora's video we see that it is infact very basic whereas Rita is filmed in different locations and in different costumes in almost every take.