AD: Semiotics of a Music Video

The principle behind this video is to look at a largely narrative music video and the semiotics behind it.

Song: The Scientist

Album: A Rush of Blood to the Head

Director: Jamie Thraves

Premiered: 14 August 2002

Star Theory

• Chris Martin's first person mode of address is an integral part of establishing a closer connection between the artist and the audience, which falls under the theories of Andrew Goodwin - the singer acts as the storyteller of the music videos.
• As with the factor mentioned above, in the opening shot and throughout the video, the breaking of the fourth wall brings the gap between artist and audience closer, and helps support the above theory.
• In essence, the music video is a large collection of meat shots of Chris Martin, which in itself is a part of conventional mainstream promotion for music.
• By shooting the music video in the reverse narrative, Coldplay and their respective video falls under:
• Goodwin's theory of the artist(s) wanting to establish their image with conventional aspects of being creative, original and alternative
• Dyer's paradox of the artist being extraordinary - as it makes the video stand out from other music videos - and yet the artist is simultaneously portrayed as being completely ordinary: the denotations of the protagonist's costume and props showing him as an average man, dressed plainly in black and white.
• The lyrics of the song, "I'm going back to the start" establish an amplified music video:
• The protagonist is literally going back to the beginning of the narrative. 
• However, the lyrics speak of wanting to be loved, which makes the music video sway away from the literal meaning of the lyrics. The video has little to do with actual science. 
• An illustrative video could feature a scientist working on a project, whilst struggling to keep his relationship afloat.
• The grey and blue colour-grading adds to the sombre feeling of the song, which in turn could be connected with the sense of synesthesia - the mood of the video reflecting the songs tone.
• Chris Martin's grain of voice further enhances the mood of the video, and simultaneously helps establish the song as being Coldplay's - his unique voice a part of his star image.
• Quintessentially, the video consists of a classic realist narrative, wherein it becomes a short film in itself. Arguably, while this is usually avoided in music videos where a narrative fuzz is more favourable, the choice of a classic realist narrative becomes the unique selling point for the video. Thus, the music video becomes the promotional content anyway, as the narrative is memorable to the audience.

Semiotics

• The bed - an indexical sign - in the beginning of the music video signifies rest. In the case of the music video, the protagonist's lying in the bed denotes him having reached his level of exhaustion from walking and thus rests on the bed. This is a common metasymbol that audiences are likely to associate with.
• The camera's 360 degree track around the protagonist could signify the world around him spinning, the events that have occurred finally taking its toll.
• The jacket that the protagonist throws off could connote him throwing off the guilt of his girlfriend's death. 
• Arguably, this object and action falls under several of the five narrative codes suggested by Roland Barnes, these being:
• The Symbolic Code  - The black colour being a symbol of death or possibly guilt.
• The Enigmatic code - the audience ask themselves "why" he is throwing off his jacket - the ending of the music video revealing answer.
• The video in itself is a signifier of going back to the beginning of something(the signified) - in this case, "back to the start".
• The urban location and the characters included in the first half of the music video fall under the Semic code. 
• The characters all have different aspects to them that help underline the urban location - for example, the black men playing basketball (a stereotypical representation, mind) and the woman in the wheelchair - all of whom connote that this is a city of various representational groups, and thus promotes the idea of the city being highly populated.
• In connection to the different narrative codes, the location also falls under the Cultural Code - culturally aware audiences would recognise the city as London.
• It could be said that the railroad tracks that the protagonist crosses symbolises the line between nature and city, the outskirts of the forest clearly visible in one of the shots.
• However, it could be argued that the train tracks acts as the signifier to the concept of moving on - the protagonist, though moving on foot, is changing tracks in his life(signified).

Lyrics

Come up to meet you, tell you I'm sorry You don't know how lovely you are I had to find you, tell you I need you Tell you I'll set you apart

Tell me your secrets and ask me your questions Oh let's go back to the start Running in circles, coming in tails Heads on a science apart

Nobody said it was easy It's such a shame for us to part Nobody said it was easy No one ever said it would be this hard Oh, take me back to the start.

I was just guessing at numbers and figures Pulling your puzzles apart Questions of science, science and progress Do not speak as loud as my heart

Tell me you love me, come back and haunt me Oh and I rush to the start Running in circles, chasing our tails Coming back as we are

Nobody said it was easy Oh it's such a shame for us to part Nobody said it was easy No one ever said it would be so hard I'm going back to the start

Ooooohhhhhhh [4x]