RM - The Smiths - This Charming Man Deconstruction

Artist: The Smiths
Song: This Charming Man
Genre: Indie Pop
Audience: 30-55
Year Released: 1983

Morrissey being the centre of attention
whilst swinging flowers around

The Smiths’ “This Charming Man” is a performance based music video, featuring the band making an appearance on the Riverside television programme surrounded by flowers on the floor and lead singer, Morrissey, swinging a bunch of flowers around.

Opening shot

The majority of shots that feature in the video consist of close-ups which tend to focus on Morrissey who is lip-syncing. As well as this close-ups of other members in the band are used throughout the video but not as much as Morrissey. These are two common conventions in music videos. As well as this there are periods in the music video where the shots pan. An example of this is at the beginning of the music video where the shot pans along the ground (at the time the audience is focussing on flowers scattered along the ground) until Morrissey comes into shot, the shot pans up to change the focus onto the lead vocalist. Panning in this music video is tended to be used to change the audience’s focus amongst the band or the band’s surroundings. There are also no shots of the band together until the second to last shot which features the entire band with exception to Morrissey who features in the final shot alone.

Fade in and fade out effects being used

There are also some special effects used in this music video. The effects consist mainly of fade ins and fade outs. This allows for more shots to be used but also it is used to change the focus. However there aren’t as many special effects that a secondary audience viewing today would expect. This is due to that technology was more expensive in the 80s than today. Despite this the primary audience that this video is targeted for wouldn’t expect it to be full of videos. The target audience for this video would most likely be for 40 – 50 with a secondary audience of 15 – 24 that grew up listening to it because their parents played it in the car or around the house.