Music Video Analysis - 'Scientist' by Coldplay

The music video is a narrative based video that is told in reverse, the music video shows lead singer and his girl friend driving, they get into an accident and rolls down a hill consequently the girl goes smashing the windshield and dies. The lead singer (Chris Martin) walks out of the car and directs himself out to the forest and into the city. The video was initially shot in normal direction however Christ Martin sang the lyrics in reverse; the video was then played backwards.

Analysis of ‘Scientist’ by Coldplay

The video starts with a zoomed shot of the lead singer (Chris Martin’s) eyes, the camera then gradually and slowly zooms out of his face. The viewer is ambiguous of where the setting is. As the camera zooms further out it reveals that he is lying down on a mattress, this then leads to a dissolve transition to an aerial shot where we see the setting to be an urban desolated area. The clothing that the artist is wearing is very plain; the reason for this choice of clothing is to fit the slow tempo of the music as well to represent his emptiness, as if he is now in a blank state and identity lost this is also connoted by the location he is in. Following the aerial shot there is a dissolve transition to a mid pan shot, the camera slowly moves away, the main focus of this shot is to show the artist’s facial expression and body movement, to this point the viewer knows that the video is going in reverse due to the peculiar movement that is taking place. This visual image relates to the to the lyrical phrase of “let’s go back to the start”, this illustrates to the audience that whatever happened to in the past has lead him into this circumstance and we assume that this video will unravel his previous situation to what caused him to end up where he is.

The camera pans around the artist, this movement allows the audience to see the main character from all angles, this centralizes the artist and puts the audience to his full attention, and this would fulfill the demands of the record label by publicizing the artist. As well as this, it is also builds to a suggestion that he is wandering freely and following no direct path. Mise en scene is quite significant in this video; there is cutaway to a cyclist performing 360 wheel pivots in slow motion effect which reflects back to the slow tempo of this song, this cutaway further indicates the character’s location. A dissolve transition again occurs, this transition is used often in this video as it could signify a past event and also relates to the tempo.

Unlike most music videos this does not have frequent cuts and does not cut in sync to the beat of the song, instead camerawork is used in a variety of ways. A common shot that is used is a tracking shot; this is used to present the artist but to also bring the audience with him to the previous locations he had visited which unravels the enigma of how he to the place he is in now. The tracking shot also breaks the fourth walls making it seem that the artist is speaking to the audience, hence creating a form of communication with the audience as if the artist directly conversing to the viewer. The tracking shot also creates a more dramatic scene which is needed for this type narrative music video, using this type of shot also maintains the slow tempo of the song by keeping the camera slow and sometimes still in order to capture the interesting reversed movement, people, and the location without the viewer being distracted by the camera movement. The tracking shots films the character in different high streets, there is also the use of slow motion in combination of this tracking to create an emotional and dramatic effect and again contribute to the tempo. The character wanders place to place which suggest that something is troubling him; again with theses shots there is focus on mise en scene and other people’s activity for example, there was a scene that showed four men playing basketball as Chris Martin is seen walking through the game.

 Later the singer walks through the rail tracks with the same use of tracking shot and mid shot, there is then a dissolve black following an establishing shot of the artist moving through a clearing and into the abandoned forest, this shot highlights the sudden distance of the artist and also his loneliness. The video went on to showing Chris Martin in the forest seemingly distressed, during this scene there was a disconnection for day time to night time suggesting the character spent the night in the forest, usually with a dark lighting or scene set at night connotes the idea of mystery, or something unpleasant. There was another use of pan shot of the artist of him holding a tree while he emotionally looks around; it then cuts to a mid shot of him running to the camera in reverse however it seems as if he is running into the darkness, which could amplify the idea of him being trapped in his sorrows. Following this there is an interesting mid-shot of the artist watching the leaves fall to ground in reverse, making it look like the leaves are fluttering back to the trees which looks a unnatural and in way quite peculiar, this shot could reflect the abnormality in the artist’s life

The sequence returns to daylight, the video followed on with a shot of a black polo shirt on the ground; the polo gets thrown back to the air and into Chris Martin’s arm where we see him in a full body shot while the camera pans to the left, soon after there is a mid shot showing the artist redoing his buttons on his polo. Once again the camera tracks the artist who is now wearing polo and walking out the forest and into a clearing, an interesting shot is then shown of woman laying down while we see Martin walking behind her, the audience acknowledges that this woman is significant and suggest there is a relation between the artist and her. This follows on to the artist going into a black car with no windshield while the camera moves around it. At this scene we introduced to the female character, the editing used here is particularly clever; the female physically flies in reverse back into the car, the windscreen of the car reaffixes itself and the car roll reverses up a hill onto a main road, the camera here in this scene is in sync with the pace of the music. As you will notice the clothing of the characters is black as well as their car which represent the idea of death or grieving which could be the main concept for this song.

Overall I would say that this music video is amplification, due to the fact that the visuals relate to the lyrics of the song for example “oh, let’s go back to the start” which could be interpreted as Chris starting at the end and then going back to the start before his girlfriend died, also there is a line in lyrics where the artist sings “But tell me you love me, come back and haunt me” this could suggest the how the artist still loves her and he hopes that she’ll come back and haunt her just so he can be with her in some way. His notion of looking if often direct and he is portrayed as an emotive and passionate figure, this is also reinforced by his costume of basic black or white suggesting he is easy to read, open, and is very black and white. There is lots of close up and mid shots of the artist looking at the audience creating and inescapable connection which could be because of the demand of the record label to give more recognition for the artist.