Analysis of Music Promo: Fatboy Slim 'Weapon of Choice'

Throughout this music video, there are many long shots and extreme long shots in order to show the whole dance routine that the actor Christopher Walken is performing. This lets us see his whole body rather than just certain parts of his body, for example we do not need to see his expression so much so it does not matter that there is little focus on his face.

At the beginning of the video, the shot starts as an extreme long shot of a waiting room or reception area in a hotel. We can see the actor sitting in a chair slighty off-centre. This works as an establishing shot as we see the surroundings he is in and we know that he is on his own. We can also not hear anything in this shot so we know that the hotel is likely to be empty or closed for some reason. 

The next shot is very similar, as we see the man slightly off centre and in the same position. This is a long shot and it can now be seen that he seems to be bored or waiting for something. It can be seen that the camera is gradually getting closer to the man and the viewer waits in suspense to find out what is going to happen in this quite plain and dull environment.

This is the third shot in the sequence of slowly getting closer to the character so that now it is a mid-shot. We see he is wearing a suit and seems to be bored and perhaps even sleeping. This may imply that he works at the hotel and has had a difficult day and this is why he is staying here even though it appears to be closed. This is also when the music begins to play and the idea that something is soon to happen is justified when we see that he starts to move to the music.

For the majority of the video when we see the man, mostly long shots are used that are composed with Christopher Walken in the centre as he dances cheerily to the music. It emphasises how unusual it is that what looked like quite a dull and uninteresting man would dance so ecstatically and so well throughout a whole building with loud and modern music playing.

There is a short section of the music video that is quite comedic when the actor leaps off the side of a higher floor in the hotel and flies around one of the rooms in his blissful state. High angles are used here to see the extent of the ridiculousness of the events.

All aspects of mise-en-scene seem to be used in order to show how normal this environment is thus how unusual it is for the man to start to dance so extravagantly.

 

 

This is seen in the three stills above: the man in the suitacase rack, the trolley carrying towels and the bell. These are all typical objects to be found in a hotel and he uses some of them within the dance to emphasise the strangeness of what is happening. This is also seen by the costume and the setting. The man wears quite a plain grey suit so even he does not look extraordinary in any way. The hotel also looks like a very normal hotel, and would not be a natural place to start dancing around. The lighting in the video is quite low-key to give the impression that it is the end of the day the hotel is closed for some reason and this man would be the only person there.  

The artist- Fatboy Slim- is not featured in this video; it soley shows Christopher Walken and his dance in the hotel. The lyrics of the track do not seem to relate to the events in the promotional video. Howver the main repeated lyrics are 'Check out my new weapon, weapon of choice' which may be referring to the character's dance moves as his weapon of choice. It also repeats 'You can go with this, or you can go with that' which seem to suit how the man is free to do what he wants in this building.

The genre of this song would be said to be Big Beat or Dance. In other videos of this genre you would often find the extreme long shots to show all of the dancing going on. Dance muysic videos tend to have humour in as well like this one does, for example another Fatboy Slim video is called 'Right here, right now' and shows the whole of evolution in a few minutes until it reaches present day when there is an overweight human being. He also made a video for the song 'Praise you' which shows a group of people dancing in a really unusual style in the middle of a cinema with unsuspecting people around.