Emperor's New Clothes by Panic! at the Disco

The visual style of this video is significantly enhanced by the use of camera angles and editing. Firstly, the camera is moving constantly, always tracking the movements of the subject of the video; often it is spinning in circles around the character. This provides the audience with a sense of disorientation and adds an element of mystery to the video as they will not be able to be sure of what is actually happening. Furthermore, for this technique to be used throughout the video, is extremely unconventional therefore differentiates this video from others of its genre.


The narrative of this video is very interesting. The first scenes of this video lead on from the end of one of the bands other popular songs 'This is Gospel'. The scene shows Brendon escaping the final scene of that video. This music video then takes place following the events that happened in the video for "This is Gospel" and sees Brendon's transition at the moment when his body dies and his soul heads off into a white light. “Emperor’s New Clothes” as a person/possessor takes over as Brendon begins searching through the white light and fog, only to be dropped through a trap door down into Hell and darkness. In a juxtaposition from looking for love in "This Is Gospel," he finds a transformation into a symbol of evil and desire for power. The videos narrative finally ends after the track has finished with a scene which resembles Brendon entering the doors to hell with an overjoyed expression on his voice. This would be a shock to the audience, as the desire to go to hell is frowned upon and is never really included within music videos.


Furthermore the use of camera editing is effective in showing the stages of Brendon's transformation from a desirer of love into a desirer of power. Each time the camera leaves him to show a short clip of another element of this video (for example a concentration on the setting or background), when the camera would return, Brendon will have progressed into the next stage of his transformation. This is effective as it builds suspense, the camera blinds the audience from seeing the transformation however builds their anticipation.


I believe that this video is typically unconventional as it uses a constant tracking of the artist, which is typically not used as it can make it difficult to focus on the artist themselves. However, in this case it is effective as it represents the unruliness of his emotional state and provides the audience with a sense of mystery as they are unable to detect what would happen next. Also, the use of connotations to hell is unconventional as it is a touchy subject which is often avoided and desire to go to a place like that is frowned upon by society.


What works about this video is the effective use of camera angles and editing, the unusual technique of continuous tracking brings the sense of disorientation and confusion which perfectly matches the narrative of the song. However, I believe that the references to hell can be very controversial to a wider audience and may cause offence to certain groups of religious believers.