DW: 'First Fires' by Bonobo ft. Grey Reverend - Narrative and Media Language

First Fires' is a narrative music video for trip hop artist Bonobo, with vocals provided by Grey Reverend; it is taken from his most recent album, 'The North Borders'. 

Narrative

• In terms of narrative, there are two theories that can be applied: Roland Barthes' and Bordwell & Thompson's. Roland Barthes stated that a narrative consists of multiple codes or strands, that interlink to form "a weaving of voices"; from this, he developed five codes: enigma code, action code, semantic code, symbolic code and cultural code. The most noticeable in this video are the enigma, semantic and action codes. 
• The audience are constantly being given situations in the video between the two characters that establish numerous enigmas; why are they fighting? are they married? why has the woman gone to a club? why has the man gone to a burning forest? what are all these flashbacks? alongside all of this is the fact that in reality, there is no narrative closure at all, in fact all of the aforementioned questions seem to combine to form one: what happens next? This is what establishes a repeatability factor for the video, and is why it is so effective for the song. 
• The lyric, "like a first fire" seems to allude to some of the pragmatic meanings for this video and is also physically amplified by the images of fire. Fire has the connotation of burning, hot, flames and so on, words that are often used to describe a new love or a new passion. The audience see shots of the couple when they appear to be younger, when they had just fallen in love; when this is juxtaposed against the shots of the man and woman alone as a separated couple, one can assume that the video revolves around the couple looking back and lusting for their early romance. The sequence of the car in the ocean has the connotations of love being washed away; when put in to contrast of the sequence later when the couple are messing around in the sea this suggestion is furthermore emphasised.
• Despite no dramatic, fast paced action, there are certain shots in the video which evoke emotion and are extremely strong. This predominantly comes from shots of the couple apart at locations that we later see them together at, as a flashback. A vicarious relationship is formed between the characters and the audience, a suspense that makes the audience wonder and want the couple to reunite as it shown to them how happy they once were. More than anything, mise-en-scene is the reason why these shots are so effective; classic romantic locations such as the forest, the beach, the club are all used to create verisimilitude in relation to this couples relationship. 

• Bordwell & Thompson's theory stated the difference between story and plot in the diegetic world of the narrative. They did this through their creation of the 'Fabula' - the chronological series of events shown i.e. the story - and the 'Syuzhet' - how the events would happen in real time, i.e. the plot. 
• The syuzhet for this video would be the transition between the couple being together to when they are apart. When they were younger and first in love; the audience see them cuddling by a fire, playing around in the sea and so on. We then see them separated, noticeably alone due to the restricted framing and the blocking of other extras that could have been present. The change of emotion between the shots of them together and apart shows the downfall of their relationship, they were once happy and now they are quite simply alone, revisiting places that once made them happy.
• The fabula on the other hand, is what creates disjuncture and actually makes this video a work of art. There is no logical line to the video if the syuzhet is not considered, in fact it takes a few watches to fully understand it. There is an amalgamation of shots showing the couple as in love, and then not together. As a result, there is a constant change of emotion and a constant breaking down and re-establishment of both happiness and sadness. It seems to represent the ups and downs of their relationship; revealing their joyful moments that then got crushed by their fights and splits. The final shot of the man alone seems to suggest that the relationship never got back together, but because of the earlier stated enigma code, the audience can never be totally sure - reflected by the fabula, how they keep changing between together and apart. This is where the art and disjuncture comes from, the audience are completely thrown by what's going on in the video, yet each shot and sequence represents a different emotion which, is what art is all about.

Media Language

• Due to Bonobo being a singular artist and in fact a DJ, as with all of his videos, there is no particular presentation or promotion of artist image - other than that his music has a distinct emotion or message he wished to get across. Considering this, the key theme that is in 'First Fires' is love and loss - something that as an audience of people who are more than likely to have a relationship of sort in their lifetime can relate to. 

• Camera techniques are fully utilised, the framing in particular is excellently composed. The vast array of close up shots seem to lie heavily in the romantic scenes where the couple are together, which connotes intimacy and love; this is then juxtaposed by the long shots and mid shots of the man and woman as individuals when they are apart - due to the lack of other extras in the frame, this suggests loneliness felt by each character since the split. Camera movement also plays a key part in evoking emotion in the video. Whilst there is a lot of pans and tilts of the scenery and of the characters, the most affective shots are the ones that are tri-pod shots; the ones that are perfectly still and focus on one single image, which tends to be one of the characters. The contrast between the movement and the stillness alerts the audience as to what to focus on; this ranges from a piece of scenery, to a close up of a characters face. These are the shots that are most the emotional in the video - as all concentration is devoted to this character or object, the connotations of which provoke happiness or in some sense, depravity. 
• There are no over-riding special effects or complicated editing in this video, yet the way it has been edited is excellent in reflecting the theme of the song. The slow pace of the editing alongside the match of cutting rate to the song's beat anchors the speed of the song rather than speeding it up; it is as slow as the song itself and therefore portrays the emotion in the track and spotlights the audiences attention to each frame and each movement to grip and move them. There is a definite change in colour grade as well; there's an orangey, warmer wash to the happier scenes and a blue, cold wash to the sadder ones. The connotations of these colours to their corresponding emotions pinpoints the visuals meaning, giving a further degree of understanding to the audience. 
• Mise-en-scene, as briefly touched on, is important to the conveyance of the characters change in emotion. The same locations are used but either in different lighting or just generally shot differently. The happy scenes are shot with rich lighting, with the couple positioned so they are close together in plain, ordinary costumes; this reflects the characters being in a relationship and being together, as they are dressed similarly and positively lit. This changes when the couple are split: there is less lighting given so the scenes seem more distant and colder, the costumes are different and there is a strong sense of solitude. Most striking is the change in the use of fire; when they are together it is a small fire in the woods to keep them warm at night, lighting up their cheerful faces. When the man revisits the forest alone there is a much more sinister use of fire, here it is used to burn the forest down as if burning away his memories - yet somehow the lighting seems colder despite the orange glow reflecting on his face, it contrasts more than it compliments. 

• Whilst different to most videos of today, there is a definite intertextuality between this video and how we treat relationships as a society. Here, is shown the peaks of a relationship -  something that is quite certainly common of music videos in popular culture. Also, the pitfalls of a relationship is shown - again, something common of music videos in popular culture. Rarely, however, do we see the aforementioned combined to create an enigmatic situation that leaves the audience wondering, what happens next? To reiterate an earlier comment about this video being art is once again relevant; the fact that is creates so much confusion, that there is a vicarious relationship to the characters and a visceral pleasure for the audience through the creativity of shots and content, certainly makes it artistic and far from commercial.