Digital Media Review #2

The music video I chose was “Phantom Power” by Diagrams. The narrative starts off with a teenage boy packing up a suitcase to leave his girlfriend. He then drives off to destroy the stump with the heart engraving. This unleashes a wave of emotions regarding her, which haunt him into stopping. By the end of the video, he has realized the flaws of the relationship, and finally cuts the stump once and for all, ending the relationship. The visuals are synchronized perfectly based on the emotion of the music. For example, when the music picks up at 1:03, it is timed to the frame in which he hits the stump, giving the moment a dramatic impact.

The art design aides the telling of the story. The entire video is animated, which helps us to sympathize with the characters because they look adorable. Our protagonist has blue hair and wears blue clothing, symbolizing his depression. Meanwhile, his girlfriend (or should we say ex-girlfriend) has red hair and wears red clothing, symbolizing the fact that she stirs up conflict in his life, as does a fire. The coloration of the video helps us see the kind of characters that inhabit the narrative. As a side note, the character design reminds me greatly of Animal Crossing: Wild World, which may or may not be intentional. Either way, that was a good call because quite a large portion of kids played Animal Crossing in their childhood and can automatically connect to that visual look from the onset of the video.

The mood of the music is integral to the narrative. It features spacey vocal effects with high reverb, soft synthesizers, and a whistling chorus. These all contribute to a reflective tone, which resembles how one feels when going through a breakup. The music has an almost transcendent touch to it, which brings the video to a new level. The emotions all wrapped up in the sounds reflect just how hard this must be for our poor protagonist to go through with. The lyrics also give a great deal of insight into the impact of the story. My personal favorite would have to be this: “If I persist/In seeding all these pressure drops/In germinating thunder storms/Will you remain so perfectly preserved”. This is a beautiful set of lines because it establishes the mental struggle of the protagonist. If I stay with you, will you be exactly like you are in my head right now? We all know the answer to that question, unfortunately.

The impact of the video is to tell the story of the emotional heartbreak of breaking up with a serious romantic partner. This is a story I resonate with, because in high school, I broke up with a girlfriend of almost 2 years, and honestly, it was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. This video impacted me so much because it was so accurate to the feelings you experience when you go through this kind of event. Most people seem to think that breaking up with someone is easier than being broken up with, but I think for people like me, this is not the case. This music video captures the essence of that story in an artistic way, which is why it was powerful.