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Reply to Rintaro

I really like you began your comparison to these two other songs by giving some background to the technique that all 3 music videos used. I think this really helped me understand exactly why the music videos are similar because I would not know much about stop motion before I read your description of it. I like how you picked 2 songs that aren’t very similar to “The Rifle’s Spiral” in the sense that they have different stories, but they are similar in the sense that they use similar techniques to get their stories across. I like the contrast between the two songs using real people in their videos compared to The Shin’s song using all animation. I think placing “The Rifle’s Spiral” apart from 2 videos that are not the same, makes it more central. I think it is important that The Shins’ song stands alone in this case because it is the basis of our entire presentation. Overall, I thought your comparisons were very on point and interesting.

Julia Seremba

Reply to Molly

I think your description of the video and your explanation of the imagery it shows is very well described. I agree that I was confused as well at first about the video because it has such an upbeat sound but seems to be such a down and depressing type of video. I did not clearly understand the meaning until I discovered that quote from Mercer himself as well. I think based off of that quote, you did a great job of explaining what you took out of the video picking out specific parts of the video and elaborating on them. For example, I did not understand the meaning of the bunny throughout the video until I read what you took out of it and how it related to the quote from an interview with James Mercer. Overall, I think the detailed description of the video you gave is very helpful to me personally because I am trying to figure out the meaning behind the lyrics and I believe these two concepts of both the video and the lyrics work hand in hand.

Julia Seremba

Reply to Theo

I think The Shins are a very diverse and interesting band and I think you do a great job of showing this in your biography. I think you do a great job of incorporating all of the band members and explaining a bit of them, but also making sure to keep it centrally geared towards the lead singer, James Mercer, because he is essentially the one who wrote the lyrics to the specific song we are focusing on. I think including a separate little biography of Mercer’s own life within the biography of the overall group adds some variety to the overall story. I really like how you transitioned into talking about the song “The Rifle’s Spiral” and also making that a clear point of the biography and keeping the focus of this presentation on track. Another thing that I believe you did a great job incorporating is your own outlook on the song as a whole outside of the bigger picture, that being the biography of the group itself. I think including a quote from an interview with Mercer gives more background to what the song is actually trying to portray and I think it helps tie together everyone else’s presentations in this group because we all used that quote as a basis of our reflections and findings of this particular song.

Julia Seremba

Reply to Molly

When I started reading your analysis, I felt like you did not know what you could say because of the song’s and the video’s complexity. However, soon I realized I was completely wrong. I thought your analysis was really shrewd and it provided me ideas which I did not gain during my analysis. Initially I was thinking there is neither direct nor indirect connection between the music video and the song. Reading your interpretation that each character in the video represents religious group shown in the song’s lyrics and explained by James Mercer in his interview, I had to realize the music video would connect to the song itself indirectly. About your interpretation that empty chairs at the last of the video represents people who follow their religion blindly, I agree it, but I also have different opinion about the empty chairs. I thought invisibility of those followers indicates people in religions are invisibly existing over the world nearby us and in our societies. Although I showed different interpretation, I think your analysis overall is valid and reliable and there can be many interpretations about the music video and the song.

Reply to Julia

When I first see lyrics after watching the music video, I was puzzled and did not understand even a phrase about what it truly meant. The lyrics is really confusing and because of it, many interpretations can be created about it. I understood it, but I was surprised by completely different interpretation of yours from mine, which was really good because I could have known another possible interpretation that I never had thought of. Although I didn't initially get the interpretation same as yours, I thought your interpretation was also valid after reading your analysis. To add to your analysis about the phrase “You’re not invisible, now. You just don’t exist” in the song, I thought “You’re not invisible, now.” indicates that a person in the song was previously invisible, or probably socially invisible, and suffered from being invisible, and then another man convinces the person saying “you aren't going to be invisible anymore”, which also would be possible interpretation and would match to your interpretation. Your interpretation was really interesting, and it was good to know another interpretation.

Rintaro

Reply to Theo

I believe a biographical exposé is one difficult to write critique since it tends to be more factual and less interpretative. However, I think you did great job in writing critique for such a tough topic. Your exposé was detailed, but more importantly, it included interpretation about meaning of James Mercer’s background to create his band’s songs. If there was only the facts in your exposé that Mercer grew up in many places and that he was influenced by 60’ rock bands, they would have been meaningless, but you gave meaning to those facts as connecting them to Mercer’s songs. Only part I would disagree to your interpretation is where you said Mercer’s hatred of violence was shown in the music video by a magician who resolved the conflict without violence. In the video, magician activated a rabbit’s power with her magic, and the rabbit defeat malicious men with its power. I thought this power was still violent and it was triggered by the magician. However, I agree that the video shows Mercer’s hatred to use power in bad purpose.

Rintaro

Reply to Molly

I think your analysis of the video was very well done. You and I had similar initial impression of the video, assuming that the song would be less upbeat and ‘happy’ sounding than it actually is. As far as this video being a way for the band to break away from the normal song and music video styles, I can agree with you. “The Rifle’s Spiral” is definitely a unique song with an odd video to accompany it. You said in your analysis that the video was more prominent than the sound. This is something I would tend to disagree with. I consider myself an active listener and when I listen to a song or watch a music video, I pay close attention to the lyrics and the music in the background. So, I think which one is more prominent would depend on the person watching. As far as the actual video, there were a lot of thing that you noticed that I did not. Specifically, the part about the bunny eating the magician at the end was something you talked about but I never gave a second thought. You interpreted that as his showing no mercy for the people around him. I found that very interesting and it also corresponds with James Mercer’s own interpretation of the song. So I think you did a great job on the video analysis for “The Rifle’s Spiral.”

- Theo

Reply to Julia

I found your analysis of the lyrics of “The Rifle’s Spiral” very interesting. Your interpretation of the lyrics was a bit different from mine. I did not think of the lyrics as a person trying to manipulate someone as you did. Honestly, after reading the lyrics I was very confused and not sure what it all meant. To me it sounded like someone trying to be accepted or to find their place in society, and changing themselves to fit in. After doing some research on the song and its lyrics, I can understand Mercer’s true intentions. But if I had done an analysis on the lyrics it would have been quite different from yours. I do not see this as a bad thing; in fact I think it is really cool. The fact that we can both look at the same set of lyrics and come up with two completely different interpretations is impressive and shows how good of a writer James Mercer is. The lyrics of “The Rifle’s Spiral” are pretty complex and can be interpreted in many ways, and I think yours was well done.

- Theo

Reply to Rintaro

I really liked your analysis of the music video for “The Rifle’s Spiral” and how you compared it to other videos. I did not notice at first that the music video was made with stop motion animation, but once I read your comparison it became more obvious. I think it was a really good idea to choose other songs whose music videos were also made with stop motion animation. After watching the music videos of the other two songs you chose, “Strawberry Swing” by Coldplay and “In Your Arms” by Kina Grannis, I noticed that they used the same type of animation style as “The Rifle’s Spiral”. This was a good similarity to make between the music videos. Of course, the videos are not exactly the same, and it seems like you did a pretty good job of noticing the differences. I like how you pointed out that both “Strawberry Swing” and “In Your Arms” use real people in their music videos as well as real objects like the jelly beans in “In Your Arms.” This contracts the video for “The Rifle’s Spiral” because that video uses all digitally animated images rather than real objects. “The Rifle’s Spiral” also differs from the other two music videos in the fact that it creates an “unreal world” for itself. I did not actually think about this when I was comparing the videos myself, so I found that very interesting. I did notice, however, that the music videos were all very different from their lyrics, as you mentioned. Overall, I thought your comparison was solid and you did a good job choosing songs to compare to.

- Theo

Reply to Theo

I learned a lot by reading your biography of James Mercer and the band. There is a lot of history that goes into their music and that is more apparent after reading this biography. It is interesting to learn about how they used their past experiences to write their songs. The cultures that Mercer was exposed to has shaped his perspective of music. After reading your biography I can clearly see why the band went in the direction they did with their music video. James Mercer's interpretation of his video and lyrics is probably cause by his exposure to so many different cultures. Maybe after seeing many different religions and different cultures he see religion as an unimportant thing in the world and has formed a strong hatred for it. His background is obviously the most important influence to his music but you also mentioned the music from the 60's and that is also very apparent in his style.

Molly Dickerson

Reply to Julia

We had very different interpretations of the same quote by James Mercer. I found it very interesting to hear what you had to say. I can definitely see where your point of view is coming from. I think it is interesting to hear how differently people can interpret an ambiguous thing like this music video. There definitely will be many perspective about the same thing considering the video ended up having an underlying meaning that was not meant to be clear to the audience. I thought it was interesting how James Mercer wanted you to have to think about his music instead of just hearing it and understanding it. I found it interesting how we had very different interpretations and that is showing how the lyrics and the video are not very compatible for perspectives but might come together in the end to show the same message.

Molly Dickerson

Reply to Rintaro

The Rifle’s Spiral is a very interesting music video in the genre of animation. Like you pointed out, stop motion animation gives the audience the chance to view a complexly different and interesting world. Many videos like it do the same, they create their own world the way they want to see it. I like how you compare these worlds to the house in Hansel and Gretel, it is something that will attract many because of its interesting and unique qualities. It is interesting to see all that goes into stop motion animation music videos. You pointed out that the producers for The Rifle’s Spiral uses a non-human being. I never would have thought that a detail like that could have such an impact on an audience’s interpretation. A detail like this could cause someone to like or dislike the video. This seems like a stressful process for the band. One minor thing could change the future of their music. I feel like I learned a lot from reading your comparison. Music and Music videos seemed to be a basic thing to me before hearing your research. I never could imagine all the work that goes into something like this but clearly it is their passion to make something that appeals to everyone.

Molly Dickerson

Comparison with other music videos.

“The Rifle’s Spiral” is a song by American rock band The Shins and was released with the studio album “Port of Morrow” in 2012 ( “Port of Morrow (album).” ). Its music video is animated by stop motion, an animation technique to make stationary objects appear to move on their own with piecing many photographed frames together ( “Stop motion.” ). Stop motion animation is utilized in many music videos to create new unusual world. “Strawberry Swing” by Coldplay and “In Your Arms” by Kina Grannis are the one whose song was given its own world by stop motion through music video. Their videos are widely different from the animated music video of “The Rifle’s Spiral” but are somewhat similar to it.

Music video of “Strawberry Swing” is a story about a hero who initially looks ordinary, but then becomes superman and tries to rescue a woman from an evil squirrel. The video is composed of flat painting backgrounds and a real person who acts as the hero. Music video of “In Your Arms” depict interaction between imaginary nature of the world as continuously changing backgrounds of the video and Grannis who sings during the video. The video is composed of the background of 288,000 jelly beans and a real person, or Grannis (Ben). Both stop motion videos are composed of the same materials: flatly drawn background and real person. However, music video of “The Rifle’s Spiral” is completely different. It only uses dolls and other artificial objects, and the world perceptible through the video is drawn by three dimensional images.

The difference occurred as a result of pursuing most suitable styles for each video. In “Strawberry Swing” and “In Your Arms”, use of real person in the video is essential because the videos created a story or a world which viewers want to participate in; all people should have once hoped if they were a hero, and world of jelly beans, which is like the candy house in “Hansel and Gretel”, should attract them. Watching a real person being involved in the video, viewers feel as if they are the hero or one of a story’s characters. In contrast to those videos, “The Rifle’s Spiral” is the work important to not use a real person in its music video. Music video of “The Rifle’s Spiral” is a completely dark fantasy. To maintain its unreality and mysterious atmosphere, the video must has been composed of a non-human being. Also in order to make its world appear to be real, the animation should be smoothly flowing pictures, or a continuous sequence. When a real person join to a stop motion animation, keeping continuity of movie becomes difficult and odd movement from frame to frame lets viewers realize that the video is unreal. We can see that the music video of “The Rifle’s Spiral” differs from other music videos in order to illude viewers that unreal world of the music video is real.

Although MV of “The Rifle’s Spiral” differs from other two MVs in ways of creating their worlds, they are similar at how the video reproduce the song’s lyrics. MV of “The Rifle’s Spiral” is about battle among magicians (“Magic Battle Competing for a Rabbit! The Shins’ Fantastic Stop Motion MV ‘The Rifle’s Spiral’ by The Director Jamie Caliri.”); however, “The Rifle’s Spiral” itself does not sing anything about magicians. Their dark moods are common to them but they can be recognized as different works. MVs of “Strawberry Swing” and “In Your Arms” do not embody their lyrics as well. MV of “Strawberry Swing” draws about the same themes as its lyrics: longing and partnership (“COLDPLAY LYRICS: Strawberry Swing.”). Nevertheless, it does not still faithfully reproduce original story in the lyrics. “In Your Arms” sings about lovers and its MV does not show any story, but still their moods correspond with positive atmosphere (“KINA GRANNIS LYRICS: In Your Arms.”). All of these MVs are independent works and they have their own worlds. This means that stop motion animation in MV itself is valuable and should be recognized as individual work. Existing difference between video and lyrics in “The Rifle’s Spiral” is usual in stop motion MV, and MV of “The Rifle’s Spiral” cannot replace neither the video nor the song with anything.

Source

“COLDPLAY LYRICS: Strawberry Swing.” A-Z Lyrics. Web. 13 April 2015.

Coldplay Official. “Coldplay – Strawberry Swing.” YouTube. 30 May 2011. Web. 13 April 2015.

“Stop motion.” Wikipedia. Web. 13 April 2015.

“Port of Morrow (album).” Wikipedia. Web. 13 April 2015.

“Magic Battle Competing for a Rabbit! The Shins’ Fantastic Stop Motion MV ‘The Rifle’s Spiral’ by The Director Jamie Caliri.” White-screen.jp. 10 May 2012. Web. 13 April 2015.

Parr, Ben. “Kina Grannis + 288,000 Jelly Beans = Epic Music Video.” Mashable. 3 November 2011. Web. 13 April 2015.

“KINA GRANNIS LYRICS: In Your Arms.” A-Z Lyrics. Web. 13 April 2015.

Kina Grannis. “In Your Arms - Kina Grannis (Official Music Video) Stop Motion Animation.” YouTube. 2 November 2011. Web. 13 April 2015.

Molly Dickerson, Video analysis

At first this video seemed somewhat ominous but then the music started and it had an upbeat tempo. I thought that maybe the video was just a different approach to their song that was probably similar to other rock songs. This video could be a way for The Shins to break away from the regular, played out rock video and stand out to their audience. The words were hard to hear so it was difficult to understand the meaning. I figured the tune didn’t match the message because the video was more prominent than the sound. There were many opinions about this video but there was a quote from the author himself, James Mercer. It was almost unbelievable to see what he had to say about his song but it became more apparent the second or third time I watched the video. The video starts off with a seemingly harmless, underappreciated magician. She casts her spells to create an “audience” that will witness her amazing talents. It appears she is lonely and maybe wants an “audience” to see what she can do. A few moments later she steals a bunny from three mysterious magicians by making the bunny appear out of her hat. This is the moment when I started to understand that “[t]he song is written from the perspective of somebody funding and paying for suicide bombers…” and it also bring out James Mercer’s “disrespect and fear of religion”. The three mysterious magicians represent one group that is holding the bunny captive. They are like a group or religion that is forcing their beliefs on others and not allowing them to explore anything else. When the other magician takes that bunny from them she is representing a group or religion that is appearing to help those trapped but really not giving any more freedom than the others. Later on in the video, the girl and the bunny get trapped and she has to use her magic to turn the bunny into a monster to save them. The bunny destroys the three stark magicians as the girl escapes her trap. The bunny shows no mercy for her and swallows her whole. This show some connection to a suicide bomber showing no mercy for anyone around them. The girl, representing the religion that “saved” the bunny, shows how those who run the religious group can turn their followers into monster with their “magic”. After the girl is swallowed she reappears to her invisible audience to take a bow. This time with hundreds of empty chairs in front of her. These empty chairs represent all of those who follow their religion blindly and are misdirected by their group. Magic is something that many believe to be fabricated. Mercer is showing his beliefs towards religion by using magic because he also believes religion is something that is fabricated.

Source- Mercer, James. “The Shins’ James Mercer on the new “Port of Morrow”” Interview. Magnet Magazine. 27 Mar. 2012. Web.

I see this song as a way for someone to manipulate someone else into doing something bad. Almost like peer pressure, I get the vibe that the point of view of this song is trying to achieve something through the wrong doings of another person. From further research, I discovered that this song is written from the perspective of somebody funding and paying for suicide bombers to engage in such horrible activity. The song seems to be telling this ‘suicide bomber’ that what he or she is doing is not wrong and is a good choice and uses their upper hand to influence them in such a way to go through with what they are doing. When James Mercer says, ‘You’re not invisible, now. You just don’t exist.”, I understand this line as him saying that although this person may kill themselves, they will not be forgotten, they are just not physically on Earth. I believe this is a very important line of lyrics in the song that also helps to support the idea that this person is trying to convince someone else that harming them or performing such a violent act is socially acceptable.

Sources: - "MAGNET Web Exclusive: The Shins’ James Mercer On The New “Port Of Morrow”." Magnet Magazine. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Apr. 2015. <http://www.magnetmagazine.com/2012/03/26/magnet-web-exclusive-the-shins-james-mercer-on-the-new-port-of-morrow/>.

-Julia Seremba

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