All My Life - Foo Fighters

This music video by Foo Fighters is very heavily performance based. The opening shots of the music video show the outside of a theatre, and immediately give the name of the band to the audience within the first few seconds of the video, and the camera tilts down to show a big stadium. This then cuts to the band walking in slow motion with their instruments towards the camera, and the music begins to play as they are approaching the stage - because Dave Grohl is such a recognizable and famous face, showing him early in the video again demonstrates that this is a song by Foo Fighters. The camera fades to black as the band walk up to the stage, and this gives the cuts of the camera a very smooth feel, as the blackness is used to help remove some of the lead up to the stage, so we don't see the whole thing. This also works in time with the music, the fading out and walking match up in time with the sound coming from the guitar that plays on its own at the start of the video.

Dave Grohl actually only begins to sing in time with the music at about 18 seconds into the video, and this is one of the only entropic features of the video - the fact that the music is playing before it shows them playing. An arial zoom shows the singer beginning to sing, and he is the only thing lit up on an otherwise dark stage. The camera revolves around Grohl for the intro, giving close up and mid shots, as well as an angle showing the neck of his guitar (the other musicians are visible, but not the main focus of any of these intro shots).

The music kicks in and the pace of the video increases to match the sound, so the shots have gone from being slow and staying on one member of the band for a long time to being very short and quick shots and going to each member. A wide veriety of shots are used, such as low angles at the guitarist's feet, showing him playing the music, and another ariel shot as the banner that shows the logo for the new Foo Fighters album drop from the ceiling, and then a extreme long shot showing the full band with their logo in the background, to promote their music. As the music kicks in the singer jolts backwards and out of shot from the side on camera view, and the lighting increases quickly, also in time with the music. A fish eye shot is used quite a few times in the video, and is frequently used in Foo Fighters videos when they are playing to cameras, like it is a signature shot that they use in most of their performance based videos. The fast paced shots continue like this for the rest of the video when the music is playing quickly, and during the gaps in the quick music, the shot and the length of how long the camera stays on Dave Grohl revert back to how they were used in the intro of the song. Slow motion is used during a break in the song, again when the song goes back to how it was played at the start of the video. This time, however, the whole band is shown playing as if the song was still being played at the fast tempo, just slowed down (as opposed to just the lead singer being shown).

As the music begins to increase again in pace, the type of shot changes to one that hasn't been used so far, where the stage is lit from the floor and the shots are changing extremely quickly. This type of shot illuminates the musicians directly and gives a feel of speeding up and suspense, as the rest of the stage is darkness. The band is then shown silhouetted in front of a red background as the music begins to kick in again. As the stage lights up again the lyrics are shown on the background to the stage, and the shots continue to jump around the stage showing the music.

I feel this video is extremely redundant because it is mostly performance based, however the band and director do try and make it more entropic by using strange shots such as the fish eye and the silhouettes, as well as a wide use of lighting techniques (from the floor, behind them, etc). In relation to other videos by Foo Fighters, where they may dress in drag or involve other famous musicians and actors, such as Jack Black, this music video is much more redundant.