Music Video Analysis - Sia

Sia – Chandelier

Directed by Sia and Daniel Askill

This video is very strange in how it portrays a little girl’s life. The whole length of the video is choreographed so that this little girl is dancing throughout this virtually one take video. The young girl sports an iconic blonde wig, which is symbol of the artist Sia, and features in practically all of her music videos.

The video starts with shots of different rooms of a supposed empty house. The frames are slowly zoomed in, and the rooms appear deserted and isolated; as though they have been left there just to collect dust.

The rooms are very basic only having what is absolutely necessary such as a bed, sofa and a table in the bedroom. The only articles that hint that this is a child’s room are that of the drawings adorned on the wall.

The music starts with quick beats and a cut to the doorway of the bedroom, where the camera was positioned previously. The sight of this girl which camouflages into the background (since she wears a skin coloured leotard) would startle the audience, as she uses her hands and feet to keep herself up in the doorway where she stays motionless, gazing deep into the camera lens.

She jumps from the doorframe onto her feet and almost stumbles; the camera cuts to a shot of her feet on impact, emphasising her actions. The camera tilts up from her feet to her legs, and the camera cuts again to a closer shot looking towards the doorframe.

The camera pans around as she moves towards the chaise lounge, the whole time she is dancing to arranged choreography, but seems as though it is improvised as she feels the music.

The camera cuts to the beat to different angles of the girl whilst still dancing. She similarly moves at the same time to the rhythm of the music.

The same camera angle is used as she pirouettes around the room and lands on her bed.

The director hints at the ‘Exorcist’ movies, as the little girl seems to crawl backwards on her hands and knees with her face the wrong way round from her body, her movements seem to be very erratic and quite disturbing.

The young girl does more ballet moves, as the camera seems to track her as she prances around the bedroom.

The bulk of the video is presumably shot using a Steadicam to smoothly move around the set, however the camera is placed onto a tripod so that it can move from room to room without too much agitation.

The little girl enters the kitchen where it seems to be blackened out and seems to be very filthy living conditions. The young girl seems to be outraged as she slams her head on the table.

The young girl rubs her belly and acts as though she is pregnant, with the audio in the background ‘Sun is up, I’m a mess’ this may be hinting at how the young girl was treated by her mother.

The little girl then performs the splits while still imitating that she is pregnant. This would be quite an unnerving sight for the viewer to watch as dancing while being pregnant, especially doing the splits isn’t very advisable, and also watching as a young girl doing this is almost sickening. However this may highlight how the young girl was brought up in the world of show business, and her family seeing the hardships of fame.

The camera pans around the room as she dances on her tiptoes; then leaving the room, waving goodbye, while the girl never with her back facing the camera. This again highlights the type kind of show her family has to put on. As though they have to put up a false identity.

The young girl is then seen kicking the walls in a very overdramatic manor. The camera seems to almost rush to her aid at the sight of what she is doing once the ‘curtains have fallen’ at the end of the show. This corridor seems very dark with no light, underlining what it would be like in the backstage of any theatre.

The dark and the light shots juxtapose from the dark lights of the ‘backstage’ corridor area, to the bright lights of the ‘stage’ living area.

Where the little girl seems to love the attention, she moves slowly down the curtains, as she waves goodbye again to the camera.

The camera then slowly moves out through the doorframe into the darkness where the little girl stands there, peering into the camera and curtsies consecutively with an evil grin embellished on her face.

This final shot is split up into thirds where the first and last third is almost pitch black while in the middle strip of the shot is the little girl who blends back into the flesh coloured background yet again, waiting for the audiences return.

The camera lingers as the girl catches her breath, and the shot slowly blurs.

To conclude, not only are the camera, editing, sound and mise en scene important in creating the impression of what the audience sees, but also the composition of the actors can play a key role in how professional your video looks. The choreography of the actors can also be used to tell a story all by itself, which is truly remarkable.

The target audience for this artist is most likely to be teenage girls, which would be able to feel the emotions the artist feels in this song

The star Image of the artist Sia, is very complex, Sia is rarely seen in her music videos and when she is performing. However she has an iconic blonde wig which many of her performers wear during her music video or concert, to show her presence.

The Target Audience of this artist mirrors the target audience of the artist for our music video as they both are directing themselves at young girls, these girls seem to relate to the lyrics the artist is singing.