4TE is a new music group, so for those of you who may not know much about them, here is a brief description: 4TE is an all-female Japanese Pop inspired music group, based in the southwest of the United States. Its members include Chii (Mexican-American) from Texas, Micchi (Filipino-American) from Texas, Mei (Chinese-Indonesian-American) from California, and Jenny (Columbian-American) from New Jersey.
Each of the members are experienced in musical performance and the arts. All of the girls are former members of the Japanese pop net-idol group Oishii! Ichigo. They all have made a name for themselves on their own as well. Chii is a member of her own award-winning band called REMOTE GIRL. Jenny has her own band called Four of Spades. Yumi was the lead singer of Psycho Bando, and Micchi has her own dance channel on YouTube that has about 5,400 subscribers.
4TE's musical inspirations include Perfume, Capsule, and SHE.
Now onto their debut music video. If you haven't seen it yet, I recommend you watch it here before reading the rest of this, because there will be spoilers.
When I write formal reviews of music videos, I usually write about the song first. I've listened to both of the songs in their double A-side single. In this case however, I would rather wait until their single is officially released to their Bandcamp January 8th, so I can review both songs in the same post.
I start my reviews with my initial reactions, and then I go into dissecting the video for a deeper analysis.
Initial reactions:
-It has a seizure warning. That probably means there's going to be a lot going on in this video.
-The beginning reminds me a lot of the Baby Cruising Love music video by Pefume.
-The next shot reminds me of Chocolate Disco.
-These girls are definitely inspired by Perfume. The choreography, the music, the video set, everything.
-I like how they're all together. That makes the video look better.
-Mei seems to be the center of this video.
-There seems to be too much going on at times.
Dissection:
We can see that 4TE takes a lot of inspiration from Perfume in this music video. As I mentioned before, the opening shot reminds me of the MV for Baby Cruising Love. Their choice of colors for the background (red, yellow, and blue) remind me of the MV for One Room Disco. When the song starts to pick up the pace in the introduction, the metallic background and tons of colors is very similar to the MV for Chocolate Disco.
(Center: M O R E opening Left: Baby Cruising Love opening Right: One Room Disco opening)
(Left: M O R E introduction Right: Chocolate Disco verse)
The introduction for this music video is eye-catching. The colors and flashing lights make it so that you can't look away. It looks neat. It's candy for the eyes. The style of dance is precise and sharp, much like that of Perfume. The member who catches the most attention in the dancing scenes is Micchi. Though, that is expected, as she has a lot of experience in dance.
The close-up shots give off a light and airy feeling. The pink-ish white backgrounds contrast with the dark colors we see throughout the video. I also noticed that for the close-up shots, the girls removed their jackets/vests (which happened to be black), probably so they would give off exactly the kind of "light" feeling I'm talking about. It would have been more effective however, if Mei and Micchi changed into a white shirt for their close-ups as well. Anyway, the girls look stunning here. The vibes that I get from each member's close-up shots are:
Jenny- cool and edgy,
Micchi- beautiful and soft,
Chii- sweet and sassy,
Mei- girly and mature.
I noticed that Mei dances on her own in this video. She is by herself in most (if not all) of the shots. This is probably due to the fact that she is currently living in Osaka Japan, working with Universal Studios.
Chii's rap is one of my favorite parts of the song. The music in the background during this part swells and steadily grows in intensity. The video editor did a great job of conveying that feeling onto the screen, by using this part to break out most of the special effects, such as the collidescope effect, and the static effect. The writing of the words on the girls' face and hands was also a creative idea.
Of course I also took notice of the solo story shots Mei recorded. These show off her charm and individual personality. Perhaps each music video of 4TE's could feature a different member in the solo shots. For example, M O R E featured Mei in the solo shots. Maybe the video for Ippo Zutsu could feature Micchi. This pattern would continue with the next videos, each with a different member in the spotlight. I know they are probably done with the production of the music video for Ippo Zutsu, but I was using it as an example. It's just an idea.
Overall, I was impressed by 4TE's music video for M O R E. Their dance perfomance was great. The video consisted of many different shots, which gave it a more dynamic feel. The more shots a video has, the more exciting it is for the audience to watch. The large amount of shots probably also made it more fun for the video editor to work their magic. When it comes to video editing, you can do more when it comes to more shots (no pun intended). Even though more shots can be a good thing, it can also become distracting if you have too many, or if you don't edit them well. 4TE's video editor did a good job here with handling it.
There are a lot of special effects used in this music video, but they are used in an appropriate and tasteful manner. The amount of effects used is directly proportional to the level of intensity in a given part of the song. For example, the video doesn't have many effects at the song's opnening, verses, and bridge, because those are the parts where the song is at its softest. However, the musical break in the introduction, Chii's rap and the musical break that follows after it are the parts of the video that have the most effects, because those are the parts where the song is the most fast-paced and intense. Varying levels are very important in keeping the attention of your audience.
4TE is off to a great start. I am looking forward to seeing the music video for the second A-side on their single, Ippo Zutsu.
Check out more from 4TE by visiting their official website.
CPH4
