Analysis of Hurricane by 30 Seconds To Mars

Directed by Bartholomew Cubbins

The story line is based on a dream of the band members, set in Manhattan, the whole city empty and only occupied by the people in the music video.

the whole video is set at night and portrayed at moments as nightmares,

I fell in love with the music before watching the music video, and luckily was one of the first people to see it before its released date; the video is very extreme but details moments in dreams, from falling from a building, to surviving, and running in slow motion. The cinematography of the video is impeccable, the lighting viewed as natural and adding to the darkness of the setting.

Opening title sequence

The opening title sequence is dark with the hum of the instrumental of the beginning song; this sets the mood for whole video and this I must keep in mind for my projects main task. 

The production company is shown first. 

The director second

The Band

added on the members names

The title of the video

Translated words spoken in french

The translation 

After the white out we are fist shown a cityscape, with thunder roaring
showing a temperamental surrounding. a very iconic view hinting of the
 place the audience could be seeing as New York.

Then the letters apeare to begin the story

Far away panning across the 

Then a closer lower angle 

and then the extremely close Birdseye shot of the drain, this shows exactly where the audience is and confirms their suspicion, the birds eye shot is panning away continuing the instilling movement of the establishing shots. 

The sudden change from looking down at something to looking up is very well used to show the towering buildings, at a low angle, also showing the storm with lightning strikes across the sky. continuous moving with panning to the side, it keeps the audience waiting for the next view of the city and also it keep the shot interesting  from the level they are shot as they can seem overwhelmed by the place.

then we are shown a still shot of a building

The importance of the building is shown by getting a close up of it, like the establishing shot of the city we start from a afar then are brought closer and this is repeated here again to show that we are going into the building.

 Indexical sign 

 In the Building we see a man sleeping an a knock comes to the door, the tension is portayed well by the pet mouse's reaction in this scene. The use of an animal to show the atmosphere is used in the next scene.

The equilibrium of the person asleep 

The knock on the door is shown by the Mouse shaking in a twitch to wake up.

then as he makes his way to the door it cuts back
 to the mouse running on the wheel quickly.

When the character goes outside and no ones there he looks down and out of shot,
which makes the audience want to know what he saw, and then the camera, does not cut but follow the character by dipping down to his feet as he picks up a picture.

The camera turns to P.O.V as if we are him, this makes the audience feel placed at the time, like they are the character but we don't see his reaction which takes away the emotion of the character but then it, makes the audience react for themselves.

The tension building we are cut back to the mouse borrowing itself in an attempt to hide.

The scene builds its tension upon the mouses as if it represents the Character, when he hears the know we are shown the mouse rouse, so we can't see what the Character did but we assume because of the mouse that his reaction was about the same and we begin to link the mouse to him, when he walks to the door it walks on the wheel, and when something is unnerving it hides, this way of illustrating a person by using elemental and symbols and animal plants a thought in the audiences mind about the character, for example 'rat in a maze' the tension that had been building and also instinctively knowing of danger by an animal foreshadows in narration hinting at the audience that something is going to happen.

Point of view is also used in the next Chapter of the music video, where we follow the next character

We see a quick shot of the characters face as he riding his motorbike 

Then a point of view shot of him nearing the person on the floor,

This changes from the equilibrium to a sudden change of his ride being interrupted by someone in the road. 

Tzetan Todorov, Claude Levi Strauss and Match on action 

a simple explanation of Tzetan Todorov's theory is Beginning, middle and an end.

His theory being narrative focused on the story line  being as at the beginning would be calm, then something would disrupt it then their would be a resolve. 

While on the other hand Claude Levi Strauss' theory was more on the characters even though still on the narrative theory  Good v.s Bad. Like the protagonist usually being the good guy/superhero and the antagonist being the bad guy/ villain. In this segment of the music video we see both theories at play and also Match on action.

Equilibrium- The calm
we see our Protagonist walk into the shot,
the shot establishes placing.

the Antagonist appears behind our character.
getting closer to the characters viewing both characters at conversational angle where we see both characters we are still more pliant to our protagonist as we are much in veiw of him then the villain. we alsos get to see that he isn't aware of the person behind hhim with his shot.

Disequilibrium- The storm
Him turning around is matched from the previous to him turning around to face the Villain.

and the second match is of the swing of the hammer 

the close shot shows the action of nailing the coffin

Resolve- The wake
then we return back to the first view shot of the scene, calm and empty and still.

which is how the music video ends showing a peaceful resolved City as the camera moves away,

Narrative theory.

The story behind the video is largely based on it not being reality but a dream, it is stated in the beginning and it follows throughout the video, we follow, the three characters in three different stages, Birth life and death, as they move in this dark and twisted dream, there is no one in the video that speaks accept for the voice over’s which is very deep with messages, it seems to tell the stories in a religious sense following the song lyrics and quotes from the holy books. The video explores, sin religion, violence and sex. The unspoken desires of beings but its placed in a dream, making it hidden to reality, my theory is mostly focused on voice over’s, the narrative in storytelling, like the music used it follows the story  and gives the video no need for a lot of words or lines as it is very much told by voice over or music.

The play of Todorovs theory was pieces by small beginnings middles and ending within a larger Beginning middle and ending. so the city itself being one of them, even though it begins with the conflict its empty, dark and stormy. then at the end we see the storm has stopped, then the stories of the individuals had Beginnings middles and ends.

The villains in this video are represented by the gimp masks, their faces are covered in them so it strikes fear in he audience because of the unknown.

Genre 

  The genre that is played around is dark and very thrilling, the film seems very cinematic. Feel to it the much censored video is very eerie and uncomfortable in its sexual charge instead of it being very easy and commercial its, dark and drastic. Like the director said”The video is a surrealistic dream, nightmare, and fantasy through the streets of New York City at night where the people and places that are normally reserved for the darker recesses of this town are kind of brought into the light and celebrated. It’s like a big, giant art opening really where the freaks have taken over the town"

Representation

The representation of the surroundings is labyrinth like as the characters seem lost and we always find ourselves in another road, turning another corner, this gives the feel of the audience being lost or trapped in this world, with no escape, as we follow the characters.

The representation of people in this video is very dark, showing the deep untold secrets of people, and in this world it seems we like it’s shown to us like a normal thing.

The music in the video is very narrative but is not used throughout, but cut in between the diagetic sounds of the film and the non diagetic voices we hear, all of them being narratives in the story.

Audience

The audience usually related to the band are people that listen to the band, people who like rock music, and usually are around 12 to 30 but this video isn't for 12 year olds when uncensored, as it contains a lot of explicit content so the videos target was in the later teens and twenty's. are a mixe of Reformers due to the cult like underground fanbase.

The audience in general could be avid listeners of the band so they would be interested in the narrative a lot more than a person who hasn't heard of the band before or had stumbled upon the video.