Reece Johnson

Music Video Textual Analysis: Foals- Olympic Airways

Olympic Airways is a song from Foals debut studio album Antidotes and falls into the Indie/Alternative genre. The video for this song is a mix between a performance and a narrative video with elements of both working well together to create a video, which, in my opinion, works well and has given me inspiration for my own final piece. This song is generally about the theme of escapism. The song name suggests this, as Olympic Airways is a reference to a Greek Air Company, which is Yannis (the lead singer) home country. There are also further elements, which illustrate this theme visually throughout the video. This video follows many conventions found in videos of the same/similar genre such as a natural environment as a background, a performance from the band and elements of mise en scene to reinforce the genre to the audience (clothing, hairstyles, props etc.). However, the video also defies conventions found in music videos from its genre with the use of some unusual and quirky props that would not be commonly found in other videos such as the childs tricycle, hula-hoop and mattress. Although these props may have been used for a greater purpose (maybe to symbolise and illustrate certain things to the audience) they go against conventions of Indie/Alternative music videos, as they would not be commonly used within them. Also, the shots of the band smashing up the props defies conventions of Indie/Alternative music videos and is something that would be found more commonly in more heavy Rock videos oppose to Indie Rock genre that Foals fall into.

Throughout the video there are many simple relationships created between the lyrics and the visuals. For instance, the first line of the song Suns up, we wait the sun is out whilst a band member is sat is field and appears to waiting. This immediately shows to the audience that the video is not disjunctive and is relevant to the song and lyrics. Furthermore, throughout the lyric disappear, disappear, disappear a band member is falling onto a mattress which could be a

Reece Johnson metaphorical way of showing to the audience that he is trying to disappear which then fits into the lyrics playing over the visual.

The camerawork in the video consists of many different shots. There are close ups of the band playing the instruments and of the singer lip syncing which is very typical of this genre and is expected from a performance video. Also incorporated are long shots of the band, which add a new dimension to the video and give the audience a wider angle of perspective. There is a mixture of static and panning shots throughout the video, which is again a convention, found in videos of the Indie/Alternative genre. The shot length in Olympic Airways is generally longer than heavier rock music videos due to the pace of the song and this works well and fits the music. The video on a whole is an amplification video as the band are metaphorically trying to escape by causing carnage and disarray within a forested area which fits in with the meaning behind the lyrics through a creative interpretation by the director. Therefore, the audience will have to look slightly further into the video to grasp the meaning behind it making it an amplification video oppose to an illustrative video.