Track title: ANIMALS

Artist/Band: Maroon 5

Vocalist: Adam Levine

Music Album: V

Released: August 25, 2014

Track/Music video length: 3:51 minutes

Genre: Pop Rock

Producer: Shellback

Music video director: Samuel Bayer

Record Label: Interscope

Song Writers: Adam Levine, Shellback, Brnjamin Levin.

Format: CD single, Digital download.

Country: U.S.A

Music video type: A mixture of performance, narrative, and concept.

Lead actors: Adam Levine, Behati Prinsloo.

Side actors: Other member of Maroon 5 band and Sam Farrar

(a touring member).

Narrative  

Passionate love or lust feelings for a woman can drive some men crazy. On the other hand, some men have a strange kind of mentality (unusual intense feelings-very emotional and egoistic) and they think that it is going to hurt their ego if they fail to chase the woman that they want to be with/make love with. Such men start doing strange things to get that woman that they want (this includes criminal acts like stalking, hunting, rapes, murders-violence against the women).

Concepts  

This music video includes the concept of :

*Beastiality

*Crime in romance 

*Objectifying women 

*Glamorizing violence

*Sexual nature of the humans and animals 

*Lust

*Power of the male gender

*Voyeurism 

*Wild/evil side of love/romance

Themes and Atmosphere

Themes are dark, bloody. Atmosphere is wild, lusty, romantic, cruel, and passionate.

Performance: Lip syncing by the vocalist and lead male actor "Adam Levine".

Target Audience: Adults (18 plus group-who belong to middle, upper middle, and middle class social groups of the urban areas) who like to watch voyeurism, romance, wild sexual acts, romantic criminal acts. People who like the wild side of love and lust.

Representation: The music video represents middle/upper middle class social group of the society. The male protagonist is in power-who does strange things to chase the woman that he wants, and then finally they both end up in bed with each other.The song is also from the point of view of the male protagonist, where he talks about his plans to do stuff (make love) with the woman that he is seeing, and he is very sure about his success in this case-this shows the male dominant society, where women are under the power/control of men.

Ideology

The main ideology of this music video is lust and sexual nature of the humans, which uncontrollably comes to every human being. Secondly, rejection in this case might hurt some people's ego and they might get engaged in the criminal acts to achieve their purpose. Moreover, there is always a wild side of romance in which one person is more dominant while the other person suffers and follows the dominant one's lead. The person who's passionate above his crush usually gets involved in anti social things which are socially unacceptable, and he might harm the others in this craziness. The feelings of love and lust are complicated and confusing, and they make the person unpredictable.

Synopsis

The music video begins with a girl (played by Behati Prinsloo) entering a slaughterhouse, where Adam Levine's character works. After she leaves, a love-strucked Levine begins to stalk the girl by following her in the streets and standing outside in the pouring rain just to see her. He also watches the girl when she is asleep and takes many photos of her which he later trims and places on wires around a dark room. There are scenes of a shirtless Adam Levine singing the song inside a meat locker and using animal dead bodies as punching bags. One evening, Levine follows the girl into a nightclub, where he tries to talk to her. Though the girl is flattered by Levine and his interest in her, she still spends the evening talking to her girlfriends instead of Adam Levine. Eventually, Levine is left with no luck, so he goes back to fantasize about his crush. The final scenes shows Levine and Prinsloo kissing passionately and making love—fully naked and covered in fake blood.

Animals certainly has a controversial story line opening with the Victoria's Secret model-Prinsloo walking into the meat vendor to make an order

 

Glamourising violence: The Rape, Abuse, 'Maroon 5’s video for Animals is a dangerous illustration of a stalker’s fantasy'

 

Scary snaps: The video then shows her stalker's character (Levine) taking photos of his target from outside her window before somehow he manages to get inside and stands over the sleeping woman

 

Bloody end: Unable to get Behati's character to fall in love with him, Adam dreams and fantasize that they are together making love as gallons of blood pours over them.

 

"Extra diegetic gaze"- looking into the camera/making and eye contact with the audiences.

"Andrew Goodwin's theories"

"Genre characteristics"

Maroon 5 is a pop Rock band. So this music video (ANIMALS) represents the codes and conventions of it's music genre.

Tattoos on the star's (Adam Levine) body.

Dark colours, setting, and lights.

Emotional, wild, and rough Mese-en-scene

"Relationship between music and visulas"

"Emphasis on looking"

This theory of Goodwin can be applied to the entire music video, because there is a strong relationship between the music and the visuals throughout the music video. When the music is fast and loud, wild scenes, fast camera movements, and more cuts and used. However, when the music is slow and calm, peaceful scenes, less cuts, and slow camera movements are used.

This music video revolves around the theory of "emphasis on looking", and I have already discussed it in the previous slides (in the " Visual pleasure theory").

"Intertextual References"

There are intertextual references from Eminem's "Love the way you lie" music video. 

"ANIMALS"

"LOVE THE WAY YOU LIE"

Male following and chasing the female

Passionate romance and love making.

Vocalist looking into the camera-lip syncing with the passionate and emotional expressions. Dark and wild background/setting.

High angle shot used to show the male and female protagonists in bed. Females lying in the same pose, wearing almost similar clothes.

Seven E Carlson's theories

Binary Opposites

Girl's character-Innocent, calm, lively, positive, victim.

Boy's character-Evil, lusty, wild, negative, dark, criminal.

This video is all about the "male fantasies". And there is a soft core pornography in this music video (sexual acts, naked actors, objectifying woman etc).

Michael shore's theory

There are intertextual references in this music video (as we have discussed before). 

John Stewart's theory

Commercial exhibitionist

Victoria's secret angle Behati Prinsloo acts as a commercial exhibitionist-shows her body.

Objectifying women

Laura Mulvey's theory

Active male and passive female. Male gaze fantasizing about female figure. Female seen as an object to please the men.

Technical codes

Codes and Conventions/Mese-en-scene

Lights: Low key lights are used in 90% of the scenes. Warm indoor lights in club/bar scene (yellowish lights). Only the first two scenes are shown in high key lights, in which second scene is in outdoor day light and first is in indoor tube lights.

Camera Shots

Following are the shots and camera angles which are used throughout the music video.

Medium close

Close up and extreme close up

High angle shot

Locked down shot

Long mid shot

Over the shoulder shot

Low angle shot

Close up

Long mid shot

180 degree angle shot

Colour themes: Red and black throughout the music video, white, blue, and dull yellow.

Dress codes: Very casual rough clothes (jeans, vests, cropped tops, sleeve less denim jackets etc), and Partially clothed in some scenes (Lingerie, tank tops, vests etc). Dress colors are mostly white, black, and jeans blue.

Setting: Very wild, bloody, dark, wild, depressing, disturbed, Lusty. Meat store in indoor tube lights-1 scene, Streets during the cats and dogs at night (rain)-many scenes, Dark bed room at night with dim lights-many scenes, Night club with warm lights-1 scene, roads and streets in outdoor day light-1 scene.

Expressions: Male lead-Wild, desperate, lusty, passionate, seductive, camera eye contact with the audiences. Female lead-Soft, lively, seductive, neutral, amused. Side actors: neutral.

Symbolic codes