Analysation of Blinded by the Lights by The Streets music video:

With the beginning of the video starting out with a small, dialogue only scene it sets the mood for the rest which is dominated by the song. In this scene we see the lead singer of the Streets (Mike Skinner) on the phone to his girlfriend (the album A Grand Don't Come For Free is based on a relationship between the protagonist and a girl called Simone). When he loses signal on his phone and receives the text C U IN DA CORNER, it foreshadows certain lyrics within the song. Once the music starts you realise that it is set at a modern day wedding (in 2004, elements such as smoking inside and drug use are not as common or illegal today), and follows Mike Skinners evening there.


Within the video there is a lot of interesting camerawork and editing, including slow motion shots, Point of View and medium mounted tracking sequences. When listening to the lyrics of the song, you believe that it should be based within a club/pub type location (lyrics like bar lady, bouncer ECT...). The video itself can be quite uneasy at times, like when the protagonist snorts cocaine in the toilets with his girlfriend blowing a friend in the next cubical. Shots like this have a certain sense of reality to them, and reveal parts of today's society that you don’t want to see, and the music on top helps set the mood for these events. Effects used like P.O.V help illustrate the condition the protagonist is going through, the messy camera movement and use of awkward zooms and tracking help show his uneasy and high state. Another way that this is shown is in the dialogue, not every word is spoken on camera, and they slowly get less and less spoken as the song continues.


With the setting being a wedding, we see lots of mise en scene and lighting that reflects the look and feel of the occasion, lots of whites and crèmes help make the setting look realistic and professional. As the video comes to an end the lights change to a varied selection of flashing colours such as red, blue and green, this shows the change in the protagonists state and the feel of the video, representing what the drugs he has taken have done to his mind. The steadicam technique is also used in this part of the video, focusing on the protagonist face and emphasising the acts he commences. This particular effect gives the video a surreal feel, and has the actor staying still while the world moves around him, a lot like the effects of drugs and drink.


As the video comes to an end we see another selection of dialogue become heard, it consists of fighting, swearing and shouting, it then fades out with the last shot being of the protagonist lying on the floor bleeding. This helps tie up loose ends in the style of the video and gives the impression that maybe the protagonist wasn’t initially wanted at the celebration.