Music Video Research 3 (Concrete Angel)

Concrete Angel was a song written about a young girl who is ridden with the effects of abuse caused by her mother. I wanted to analyse Martina McBride's Concrete Angel video since it does a great job at promoting child abuse awareness, a subject close to what my group is thinking about centring our video around. The video was directed and produced by Deaton Flanigen.

The establishing shot sets the scene with a horizontal pan around two rooms where the camera appears to be moving through a doorway. I like how this shows what the two people are doing and contrasts each of their lives by illustrating how isolated the little girl actually is. In one room the mother is sitting in an unmade bed smoking a cigarette whilst her daughter gets ready for school on her own.

As McBride sings the line "She walks to school with the lunch she packed" it visually connects the lyrics to the video. It also looks like the footage has an edit that darkens it to create a depressing look.

There was a really nice transition into a medium close up of McBride herself singing. She is wearing a completely black look including a gothic looking necklace. In this case breaking her country music convention seems to be appropriate due to the tone and subject of the song.

In this shot Flanigen uses a forward tracking shot in order for it to appear as the audience is looking through the eyes of the her teacher. A makeup artist must have been hired to create the bruised look on the girls arms. This grabs the audiences attention because of the contrast between her being so innocent by reading her workbook and having such bruised arms.

This shot really stood out to me because it shows how truly lonely the girl is by the way the camera is shooting at a long shot angle. It's also a good way to incorporate the setting of the playground to give the audience a better idea that she isn't safe at school let alone at home. It also becomes apparent that Flanigen set the video in Autumn on purpose since the connotations of this season is the transition of the warn part of the year into the cold part of the year. This could also represent the coldness and vulnerability of the little girls life.

This high angle is perfect to present McBrides gothic style outfit. She is really emotive with her hand gestures as the music picks up. The colour of her long drooped sleeved outfit contrasts well with the brown fallen leaves behind her as well.

I really like this over the shoulder shot of the girl talking to her neighbour. The young boy looks as if he enjoys her company which gives a more positive vibe to the song and video, showing that he is the only thing that can make her happy, he is her only friend. This scene was shot at night in exterior conditions which means studio lighting was probably unnecessary. Before filming, Flanigen would have had to take into account the weather conditions and temperature because it would've wasted a lot of time if they set up for shooting and it was raining (making it impossible to get the footage).


The climax of the video involves a long shot of some shadows acting like silhouettes as it seems like the mother is beating the little girl. This camera is shooting at a point of view as if the young boy was watching.

The last few seconds of the video is reserved for a Child Help USA advertisement to inform the watchers that they can help people out who are stuck in the  same situations as the little girl in the video was. By watching such an emotive video it shows at first glance how much of a struggle some children go through with bullying and abuse which many people don't really see in public. It gives a phone number and a website that you can contact Child Help on which is show in white writing on a black background making it very easy to read.

How this post has influenced my planning and creativity:

• Due to being based around the subject of abuse I liked how they had a hotline with the phone number and website of Child Help at the end of the video.
• Everytime I see shadows being used I think it is a great way to make the audience feel more mystery and suspense, I would love to see if we could incorporate shadows in our video.
• I also like how the actions in the video represent the lyrics she's singing.
• This is a really hard hitting music video and I think it is important to incorporate many of the messages like the final shot to really raise awareness.