Weekly Blog Post 6

Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble’s video “Couldn’t Stand the Weather” employs a specific structure that contributes to the logos of the piece and it helps develop their ethos and pathos throughout the video.

One aspect of the video that contributes to logos is the concept of time. The video progresses in a very chronological manner, but it is sped up. From the very opening scene in which clouds begin to cover up the sunset and they are obviously moving at a faster pace that normal clouds would be moving in. Then as it gets cloudier, rain drops start to fall and then it gets faster as well as windier. Not only is the weather, which is a background occurrence for parts of the video, paced quickly but the people arguing, which is the central and analogous part of the video, is also in fast forward it seems. The people are speaking or yelling at a much faster rate than people normally would or that you would see. Because time is something no one can stop and the passing of it is inevitable, to have it go even faster contributes to the idea presented by the song that a final “storm” (argument) is inevitable when you can’t “stand the weather” (the bad relations you are having with other people), with the lyrics as referenced to in Weekly Blog Post 4.

Another aspect that is part of the arrangement of the video what the camera allows the audience to see. When the music begins, every object that is introduced including the sun and the instruments being played is very large in the screen. Then the camera zooms out and the audience can see the entire band playing for a bit which is necessary in a video that actually shows the band performing. Then for the rest of the video, the camera only focuses on one or two characters at a time. When Stevie sings, it zooms in nearing to his face and when the camera shows the people arguing, all the audiences is allowed to see are their faces and the background flag behind them. Also, the people are arranged symmetrically so that you see the exact same amount of one person arguing as the other. This combined with a zoomed-in effect brings the focus to middle of screen where their words are figuratively collecting as they yell at each other.

These features contribute to the ethos in the video in the way that the band is the first group of the people that the audience is introduced to and also the only thing in the video that is shown in real time instead of the quickened or high speed of the weather moving and the people arguing. Also their use of the goggles and the fact that they can stand up the weather and still play establishes their authority that they are able to relay this message to the audience.