Pink Floyd - Another Brick In The Wall

Another Brick In The Wall

Much like many of Pink Floyd's other songs this focuses on controlling, dystopian societies. In particular this song focuses on schooling especially the strict boarding schools at the time (1979). Pink Floyd are well known for the art and style of there band which even led to them having a V&A exhibition which I was lucky enough to see.

Codes

Sound

Diagetic Sound: There is far more diagetic sound in this video than in most other music videos. This is typical of the band and is down to the brief cutaway scenes between versus which include dialogue segments. We also get lots of other visual cues to sound such as the train at the beginning as well as how the drum beats line up with the spanking seen before the first chorus.

Dialogue: As I mentioned before there is far more dialogue in this song than most as throughout the song we hear the teacher shout at the students as well as the students response. This is keys it hammers home the message the video is trying to push about education at the time.

Visual

Colours and lighting: The colours are very dark in the video with little to be seen this is to add to the atmosphere. It's meant to make you feel uncomfortable so that you empathise with the children. Empathy is a great way to get a point across and so it is used effectively here. It's also noticeably dark throughout the video. This is a theme of Pink Floyd and links back to the idea of a dystopian society.

Shot Duration: The shots are cut to the beat throughout the video so the length of the shot depends on the music. There is a variety of long moving shots that act as a reveal such as towards the end where the children fall into the meat grinder. It is unclear until the end what is happening until it pans down to reveal the grinder.

Clothing: Clothing is key as everyone wears very typical and period relevant clothing. The children wear very typical school uniforms for the time with all boys wearing shorts and all girls wearing skirts. The teachers wear very boring clothing showing their repression. The masks worn by the children is a metaphor for the uniform. It represents the idea that the uniform makes everyone look the same just like the masks do.

Technical

Editing has been mentioned before such as the way on screen action is shot to the beat of the music. Not much in the way of visual effects were used apart from in the huge crowd where the furthest back children were actually drawings at it was unnecessary to gather that many real children.