Analyzing Music Videos

Hey Brother by Avicii

Diegesis:  This video depicts two boys growing up during wartime in America.  The young boy imagines his father (who passed away in the war) as the older brother he never had. 

Flashback:  Throughout the video there are flashbacks to the Vietnam War.  

Genre:  This video is narrative genre because it is telling the story of a young boy growing up without his father and imagining what it would be like to have his father there. 

Focus:  At the beginning of the video (from 0:07 to 0:11)  there is a shot of a picture on the boy's bike.  Everything in the shot is in focus except the picture, showing the unknown.  The boy wishes he had known his father, but all he can do is imagine what it would be like.  

Mise-En-Scene:  In this image, and throughout the video, the main colors are red, white, and blue.  This represents patriotism and is especially important for the young boy because he lost his father who was fighting for his country.

Highway 20 Ride by Zac Brown Band

Auteur: This song was co-written with Wyatt Durrette who had been through a similar situation himself.  As a child, Durrette's parents were divorced.  Zac Brown had been through a divorce himself.  They were able to use both of their experiences to create this passionate song and music video.  

Editing:  The video goes back and forth between clips of Zac Brown driving down the highway and videos of his son growing up.  This shows both of their journeys and going through milestone events without his dad there.  It shows how disappointed Zac Brown is to be missing all of these parts of his son's life. 

Story/ Plot:  After going through a divorce, Zac Brown would drive every other weekend to go visit his son.  This song about the difficult and painful time that he went through when he rarely saw his son and the worry of missing out of many of his son's milestone events.

Scene/ Sequence:  From 0:48 to 2:46 it is flashing back to all of the memories of his son growing up that he missed out on, from his first day of school to his high school prom. 

Shot:  From 0:27 to 0:29 the shot is showing Zac Brown as he is driving down the highway to visit his son.  His face is dark and the lighting is all in the background.  This shows the darkness and pain he is going through in this situation.