It is hard to position where The XX - Islands music video fits into what category, in my opinion it is between a performance and a narrative, the dancing going on behind them acts like a slight narrative. The best word to sum up this music video is repetition, with the same piece of dancing going on behind and around the band all the time. The dance below go's on through out the whole video, however this part is the right at the start, through out the video dance members and band members, break out, and in my opinion i think it relates to the line "so now i'll never explore", they are breaking out of their usual routine, in a way it is strange how they end up all leaving, with lines like "i don't have to leave anymore" heavily used throughout.
The picture above is generally what you see throughout, with the addition of fire near the end, and people leaving gradually, so as you can see the video is mainly set in black and white, it adds a traditional and sophisticated style to the video, it also ties quite nicely with the bands own dark goth like style.
Through out the video the band look more and more bored as time goes on, they look extremely out of place, possibly this look is brought on by them not being able to relate to the dancers around them, their scruffy laid back look in comparison to the sophisticated upper class look, for example the hair and make up, one of the boys hair is scruffy and all over the place, in comparison to the dancers who have identical gelled comb - over type haircuts. He is the first to leave the sequence of dancers/band members. However the other male band member has similar hair to the dancers, it may just be a coincidence but he is the only band member to remain through out the whole song. Its like he's accepted.
In terms of camera shots and angles, The XX in this video only really use one camera shot, and repeat it many times, it starts with a close up of two people kissing, and gradually zooms out very slowly. Although the music is very slow and calm, a cut is used to end the the dance sequence, it lets the audience know that the sequence has ended. This is how the music video starts from this initial shot the camera does slowly zoom out, revealing everyone else.
Shot sequences in the video are below. In the video these are the main four shot sequences as these four shots are used again and again in the video, but are always slightly different, for example band members leaving, dancers leaving, band members moving around, looking around at their surroundings. However there surroundings do not change or differ from the strict regime apart from the last part of the video, (see picture 5 below) fire roars around their surroundings, they are trapped, yet the two remaining continue
with what they've been doing. In the last thirty seconds of the video, the video is shown in slow motion, emphasizing the emptiness of the room around the two remaining humans after everyone has disappeared, it also pushes the message across about how trapped they are, with the fire raging around them.
As you can see by the shot sequences above, the video is filmed all in one location, it would be stupid to have the video filmed in a different location to the one that they are filmed in every second of the video, it would confuse the audience. Having it set in the same place all the way through really pushes through the idea of repetition through out, and the fact that they are trapped.
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