http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmYT79tPvLg
LDN reached number 6 in the UK charts IN 2006 and was her second single released from her debut album 'Alright still.' Therefore, Lily Allen was a fresh face to the alternative music scene, which is why the music video made such a big impression, particularly in terms of Lily's image.
In LDN Lily Allen has one costume through out the video, she wears a long red prom style dress with white and red Nike trainers. Teaming a dress and trainers was a very unique style choice which created an instant identity, Lily Allen will always be associated with this particular look a sit was so original. Lily wears her hair in a messy bun with a thick full fringe, the trend for fringes soon became popular again after Lily hit the music scene. A trade mark of Lily Allen's appearance is her big gold chunky jewellery. In LDN Lily wears large gold hoop earrings and gold chains around her neck, this look is typically associated with 'Chavs'. But girls across the country went crazy for Lily Allen's unique accessory choices which still remain popular in the high street
The narative of the video is very simple yet still very visually effective. Lily walks out of a record store and continues through the streets of London, she has a skip in her step, her head held high and a big smile on her face which contrasts with the music lyrics- which are about the negative behaviour that goes on in the streets of London, such as; mugging, prostitution, violence and drug abuse to name a few. All this is shown in the video by actors in the background, however, Lily views all this through a positive perspective and this is particularly conveyed through the use of colour. For example, a long shot is used to show Lily walk from one side of the screen to the other, in front of her as she walks are very bright colours, such as a house which is bright green with yellow cutains which has elegant flower pots and a white picket fence out side, which stands next to a red telephone box. A female is seen looking down from the top window of the house and appears to be getting serranaded by a male who is looking up at her adoringly. But as Lily reaches the other side of the screen, the colours behind her change to dull greys and the female is dramatically chucking clothes out of the window to the male in the street who is in his boxers holding a bin liner of belongings. Colour is a very important factor to any music video and that is clearly displayed in LDN as it defrenciates between Lily's posative perspective and the realistic negative one. Although there are many bright colours used to show the positivity, the most dominant colour is red. Lily wears a long red dress and the fact that she is in nearly every scene makes that colour stand out the most. Also various props are red or have some detail of red which makes the colour more symbolic in the video.
Although simple shot types and camera movements are used for the video, the editing techniques make the simple shots look visually effective. Close ups and mid shots are used to show Lily Allen's facial expressions as she sings the lyrics to the song, long shots are used to show Lily's body movemements aswell as the background scenery extreme close up cut ins are used to show Lily's feet skipping along the streets and cut out extreme close ups are used to show objects on the street floor change as Lily walks past them, e.g: a red sweet turns in to a cigarette but and a pen turns in to a needle for drug use. The camera movement is very smoothe and very still which emphasises Lily's movements. A wipe transition is used across the screen to show the change in perspective and colours.
You could add screen grabs from the video as you talk about certain shots.
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