As you may know, I am a Video Editor – and one of the things (probably the main thing) that inspired me to work in television post production was actually music videos.

Music videos are one of my favourite things in the world and I spent hours and I MEAN literally hours when I was growing up watching them Even now in the modern world, I can find myself getting lost on YouTube watching music videos for hours on end – they are an addiction.

This month we are going to be taking a look at the music videos of Alkaline Trio. I have been listening to this band on and off since I was a teen but I had never seen their music videos. It was only when I met Matt Skiba last year and he was so nice to me that I started to take a huge interest into all of his music. The band have some really great videos but since I only discovered them recently I thought it would be a nice contrast to last months feature band.

Alkaline Trio – Mercy Me

Why did you choose this particular video?

I only saw this video for the first time last year and it is wonderful – I am a Motion Graphic Designer as well as a video editor and I really admire this video for the creativity. I haven’t really seen graphics of this style before and I really like the way that the real life members interact with the animated puppet style versions of themselves. There is so much to like about this video and everytime I watch it I always see something new that excites me from a graphics perspective. Everytime I watch it I try and work out how everything was created because that is the nerd that I am.

So, what is the narrative?

From watching it I cannot see a very clear narrative but there is a lot of walking and trying to fix things, so I am going to focus on that as a narrative structure.

Favourite parts of the video?

I like the fact that the first shot of the video as a lot of different ways that it can be looked at in regards to what it actually is – to me it reminds me of a necklace that was popular in the early noughties, I am not sure if that is what they were going for but it is what it reminds me of.

The main focus on the whole video is Matt Skiba walking on these long black sticks that keep appearing – it is a really interesting concept because of the way that he walks and the way that it sort of acts like the rhythm that is fluid throughout the song. It also sort of keeps the pace up in the video as well and sort of creates a sense of narrative because when it goes away from this it re-enters in the smallest gap on the screen to bring the pace back.

I really like the bit when the band members try and drill their puppet selves into the floor (maybe the decent to hell? This is a band that talk about hell a lot in their songs as they have an interest in satan) There is one shot where Matt starts using an electric drill on himself and then another band member walks in and he gives him this look – it is dry but it is really comical and then the other band member tries and it goes haywire. It is a fun little part of the video.

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