First Of The Year - Skrillex Music Video Analysis 1

Music Video: First Of The Year (Equinox) – Skrillex

Genre: Dubstep


The narrative of this music video is of a sinister looking man stalking an innocent appearing child. However the child appears to be possessed by a demon and attacks the man.

The music video starts with a close up of a man’s hands with a key prop of a sweet. The camera then moves upward to show a close up of the man’s face. It then cut to a shot of the man from behind revealing his location at a children’s playground.

It is common in music videos of this category to cut to different shots in beat to the music. This is demonstrated in this music video often.

After this there is a cut in beat with the music starting to a mid shot of a young girl skipping down the road. The mid shot reveals objects behind her, in this case the man. The man follows the girl down this road and down some steps into a cellar. During this there are cut shots of close ups of the man’s face and mid shots of the girl, these cuts occur in beat with the music.

In the cellar, the lighting becomes dim in contrast to the bright natural lighting they had when outside. This suggests the possibility of something sinister might occur, the mid shot of the man displays him in the new setting and then cut to the beat again of him using the key prop of what might be chloroform which reveals the mans intentions.

Then the music video cuts the a shot of the girls chest revealing a baby doll’s arm in her dungarees pocket, as well as a cable leading down from her face. Then it cuts in beat to a medium shot of the man looking sinister as he approaches the girl. It then cuts again to the beat to the camera moving up to the girl’s face to show her using a key prop of a red phone. After, there is a shallow depth of field shot of the rest of the phone in her hand with the man out of focus in the back of the shot.

After this there is a mid shot of the man facing the girl. It then cuts to a close up of the girl’s face that looks up toward the camera and then screams words in lip sink with the music.

The music then takes it up a beat and the music video shows the man being thrown about in the air, believed to be done by the girl who until this point appeared innocent, and now seems to be possessed by a demon.

Goodwin’s theory is put into place in the video, as the music demonstrates some genre stereotypes of the dubstep. The visuals relate to the music itself the editing of the video goes with the music behind it, there are no lyrics to this song so the sound portrays all the emotions and relates to the audience. There are no close ups of the artist as the artist does not appear in the video this goes against Goodwin’s theory because even though he is a relatively new artist he does not get the recognition in his own video as other genres would.

All the shots appear in slow motion of the man and also rewind to fast-forward while matching the rhythm to the music. The effects around the girl are good considering how they used visual effects and used them in beat to the music. This is a common thing to see in this music genre, as it is a major characteristic in the dubstep music videos.