Underdog - You Me At Six

You Me At Six are an English rock band formed from Surrey. The band have been a huge success since their debut album back in 2008, entitled Take Off Your Colours, and they followed it up with their second album, Hold Me Down, which is the album Underdog was released on, in January 2010. The band have had success spanning to a clothing range, and have also become well known amongst many rock fans of this generation, sighting inspiration from other bands such as Blink 182.

The cross narrative/band mode of address

The music video begins with a red background with little lighting, and the camera in a mid shot on the drummer, who begins to play. This causes the camera to zoom gradually out, revealing the band's album artwork(and most noticeably the band's name),that can be seen on the left. It is after a quick cut to a left pan of the drummer from another angle, that the camera switches to a straight mid shot of the whole band, in which the lead singer begins, as the lights come on at the same precise moment, all the while zooming in.
This precedes several quick cuts that range from close ups of the singer, incorporating the mode of address convention, to pans of the singer, whilst the set can be seen in shot also, revealing some of the backdrop that include spotlights for example, a key aspect of mise-en-scene, to reverse angle shots that shows the band playing from behind, again panning, at fast pace, to fit the style of music. This continues, with a brief slo-mo cam at 0:22, until 0:30 when it cuts to a girl wiping away a tear in close up, and anothercut to a close up of a two people kissing (see second highest,left side, of stills).

 The next shot is a zoomed out version of the close up with the crying girl, it is now a mid-close up and as the camera switches focus, it is revealed she is crying over the two people kissing, who are in a long shot. Intertwined cuts show the band singing, and zoomed pans towards the couple kissing, with red remaining a primary colour throughout, suggesting love is a key theme in this video.
There is a brief cut to the girl crying suggestively 'sorting herself out' so to speak in a mirror, with the camera trained on the mirror, before a knee-high shot is seen of a girl walking to the boy who was kissing moments earlier, this is in slow motion, all the while intertwined with quick shots of the band playing in close ups and pans.
A brief cut back to the mirror shows the girl is still there, before we see the boy and girl who were kissing, now arguing. The colour scheme suggests the crying girl is the 'good' character due to the white, background with blonde hair, with the couple 'evil' due to dark hair and dark setting.

More quick cuts show the band, the girl in the mirror, and the 'evil' girl evidently leave the boy and sit on stairs, zooming in between each cut, before she walks away off camera. There is more focus on the band for a few shots before cutting back to the girl in the black dress, now on stage, who begins dancing, with very fast cuts between her and the drummer, in time with the drums, as she begins dancing the camera shot is switched to a long shot to see her full body as she dances, all the while quick cutting to mid close ups to highlight emotion as this is evidently a key scene. This continues, and it becomes easier to notice that all around the girl dancing is dark, except for her stage, which is filled with lighting due to lots of fixtures around her. The cuts get faster and more high angles are used as she dances, before cutting back to her with the boy, seen kissing again, this time in a close up and in slow motion, contrasting the high paced cuts used moments before. The girl with blonde hair is now seen walking past, evidently upset and again slightly in slow motion, before it cuts back to the girl in the black dress, looking on in the direction the blonde girl is heading, with a knowing look. She then proceeds to walk away from the boy, leaving him confused with the final shots of the band, as the lights go out.