Summer Homework - Task One

Florence and the Machine

Florence Welch

2007 - Present 

Record Labels: Moshi Moshi, IAMSOUND, Island

Over the summer I have been researching Florence and the Machine because I really like her style of music and think I could make a really good narrative video to one of her songs.

A way Florence identifies herself, in her videos, is with her ginger hair. She uses her hair colour as a trademark! In society ginger is the hair colour you would avoid but Florence wears it proudly and has done since she first started and became well known. Her hair colour is important to her fans because it shows people that Florence isn’t afraid to challenge stereotypes and stand out and I think her fans and target audience would aspire to her values. I also noticed that her hair is often highlighted in her videos. The locations, costumes and props are used to accent her hair, for example, in “Shake it out” the back lighting is orange and the costumes are plain black which draws attention to the most colourful thing, her hair.

Florence and the Machine’s genre of music is mainly indie, pop and soul. Similar artists are Lana Del Rey and Lily Allen. I think each of these artists have their own style which shows throughout their music videos.

Lana Del Rey’s music videos often use homemade clips, which are mixed, and a small storyline is created. For example “Video Games” is made entirely of homemade film and although it contains many random films there are still a few stories to follow. Her videos cut quite fast, use lots of zooms and close ups and are often not in chronological order.

Lily Allen’s music videos are usually quite surreal. They mostly follow a narrative.  Her songs are more often than not about typical day-to-day problems with society and her videos reflect her lyrics. For example in “LDN” we can see the world as it is and the world as she imagines it. Other videos such as “Alfie” emphasizes the convention that all teenagers are lazy, stay in bed all day and drink. So overall her videos show the hideousness of our society and she tries to get a message across. 

Overtime Florence’s videos have developed in technology, props, costume and plot and I think that in each video she has shown her fans more about who she is. Her first ever music video released was “Kiss With A Fist”, there is a substantial difference compared to “Spectrum”, her latest video. As you watch her videos, from the earliest to the latest, you can see that the technology has improved. From “Kiss With A Fist”, a simple film, filmed in the studio with minimum props, to “Dog Days Are Over”, where the quality of film is lacking but a few effects were used, such as slow motion, to “Spectrum” with four costume changes, bright lights, dancing and a wide variety of camera shots. The technology and the quality of the videos has improved each time. I think that through each video Florence has shown the audience more and more about whom she is and developed her own style which is unique to her.

I think that Florence’s music videos breaks more conventions than she conforms to.

A convention of music videos is the main character tries to get the attention of the opposite sex, whereas Florence is not trying to get a mans attention, she’s just being herself, dancing, singing and not caring. Her videos are always about her and no one else.

Another convention, for mainly female artists, is that they often wear skimpy clothes and dance seductively. Florence challenges this convention, as her outfits don’t show a lot of skin and her dancing isn’t very provocative. For example in “Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up)” she is wearing an atypical long dress and dancing contemporarily.

In her videos Florence creates her own conventions.

A convention, I believe, Florence has created is that she must wear bizarre outfits. In “Dog Days Are Over” she is, originally wearing a suit but then changes into a clownish, all in one outfit. This is very Florence but not conventional to female artists.

One of the conventions of her videos is a strange atmosphere; she always has a strange setting filled with random props and crazy outfits! For example in the “Spectrum”, she begins on a throne with a spinning chandelier, a flower vase and other random objects surrounding her.

Another convention she has created is her method of dancing. Her dancing is very spiritual and hippy, holding hands and jumping around, never routines. She does this in almost every video, so it has become very conventional to a Florence and the Machine music video.