RS - Muse's Music Videos

Muse have released five studio albums from various different genres and from that released several music videos on each of the albums since 1999. There first music video was from their debut album and was called Uno. Most of the music videos are a hybrid of two of Goodwin's types, usually a narrative with performance footage cross cut into the narrative for effect however concept + performance has been used on different occassions.

Showbiz - 1999 Like I said before, Muse's first music video was for the song Uno which was off the album Showbiz. The song actually has two music videos, however after research there didn't seem to be a reason as to why. 

The first music video is very very basic and is a concept/performance music video. Basically the video contains footage of the band members stood still in the frame whilst passers-by just walk off in the rush hour. The music video also has performance footage from the band soundchecking in for the performance aspect. The editing is very simple and could easily be repeated in our coursework. The "strips" on the bands logo can be clearly distinguished throughout the music video around each of the clip which again can be achieved by us. Overall the budget appears to be very low and could have been done in just one day of filming. The budget is low mainly because the band has only just started out so there is no following as of yet. Looking back on the music video in 2005 Bellamy and Howard were "embarrassed"

Influence from the Muse logo 
(see logo to right)

The "strips/bands" above 
+ below the "Muse" text

Here is the first music video for the song 

Narrative side to the music video

The second music video for the song is still fairly low budgetted however it does have a narrative side to it along with the performance side. The narrative side to the music video is of a girl searching for the band performing (which is cross cut inbetween the narrative). On several occassions the girl appears to be at the correct door however opens it to find nothing or even a huge drop off which she luckily manages to stop herself from falling.

Origin Of Symmetry - 2001 Muse's second studio album saw a release of new music videos and also an increase in the budgets due to their success from Showbiz. From this they could go to further lengths with the music videos and achieve a greater result.

SFX in the music video

New Born from Origin of Symmetry clearly shows the increase in budget by the fact that right from the start there are sfx used, also they filmed the crowd on a screen and added them in seperatley after which is a long way from standing in a street with people walking past. In an interview Wolstenholme said "I think it was the first decent video that we did". The music video is a hybrid between a narrative and performance which is fairly typical for the genre.

An interesting fact about New Born!:When Muse played on the TV show "Live and Kicking" (ironic name!) the BBC producers asked Muse to mime the song. Instead they decided to swap Chris and Dom around to different instruments and Matt just proceeded to mess around. They have done this on countless occassions when asked to mime on TV shows and most notibly in 2009 when they all swapped instruments on an Italian show which can be seen here. They see the whole miming thing as a complete joke and pointless. They only use miming on music videos. I think some other artists today should do the same!

Thermal Imaging Camera effect

Absolution - 2003 The music video for Stockholm Syndrome saw a different angle to the range of music videos from Muse. This video is a concept combined with performance and is very unique. The music video has been shot entirely with thermal imaging cameras to give a very distinct shot. The concept side of the music video is basically pouring/dripping water onto the band members face along with just messing around to give a very cool effect on the thermal cameras whilst the majority of the video is performance based and nothing much else. The budget has been raised again as they are using these special cameras. 

Performance - lip syncing

There is another music video for this song which has been released for the US and is a performance/narrative hybrid music video. The basic narrative is the band are playing on an American chatshow and performing to the show audience. The video uses sfx and stuntmen when the chaos happens on the chatshow and there are a fair ammount of extras used within the video. The budget would probably be higher than the UK version of the song due to the sfx and the props they use within the video to destroy everything within the location.

Performance in front of a green screen

Black Holes and Revelations - 2006 2006 saw Muse releasing a music video which is almost entirely using sfx. Invincible is a hybrid between a narrative music video and performance footage. The performance side is cross cut between as usual.  However the majority is filmed infront of a green screen and uses sfx to great effect. The narrative for the music video is based on the theme park ride "it's a small world" and it basically runs through the events of the history of the world such as Ancient Egypt, Rome and World War 2 then the end is some sort of madness between all the time periods. The performance footage is of the band riding on this theme park ride whilst playing their instruments within the boat.

Behind the Scenes type shot

The Resistance - 2009 2009 saw the return of a fairly basic music video however with a more recent touch to it. Like the old Muse music videos it seems fairly low budget and the location is fairly small too with not too much happening however there are the few sfx with the text. The music video is a hybrid between a concept and a performance video because of the band playing to the cameras etc. There are interesting shots where it shows some sort of "behind the scenes" shots which are very well framed and look good, which we could take inspiration from. The music video is for Undisclosed Desires.

Multi-layering

B-side videos There are a few examples of B-side music videos. In your World is an example which is fairly simple apart from a few sfx which have been used in the editing software. The basic idea of the music video is a performance video which has footage from Hullabaloo (2001 live DVD) cross cut with studio recording. Multi-layering has been used in the video along with a few strange video effects were Bellamy's face goes sort of see-through which could be hard for us to replicate as I am not sure how it is done.

Camera on the headstock

Another example of a b-side video would be Dead Star. This was made back in 2002 and you can tell because of the very low budget feel to it. The video only cost £50 to make and was filmed on Sony Handycams, however filmed in Winston Churchill's house! The video was colour graded to give it a dark and grainy effect. There are a few nice examples of the camera on the headstock of the guitar which could be used by us in our coursework on the performance footage. The music video is performance based and features the band performing in a basement so it will not have taken long at all and with that budget it is perfectly achieveable by us. I think because of the fact it is a b-side they just wanted to rush the video and get it out there. The editing is very fast though so if we wanted to have similar results we would need tonnes of coverage!