Shot Count (Serena)

The Killers - Runaway

The music video I chose is The Killers - Runaway. The reason I chose it is not only that this is a typical indie rock music which is the same genre of our own music that we want to working hard on, but also The Killers is one of the most famous indie rock band in the world at the moment, and Runaway contain the characteristics of indie rock music such as its melodies and riffs is angular.

The shots I count for the first minute of music video is 12, but the over all account of camera shots would be more than 68. Because the first mines of this sound is a bit slow, to coordinate the rhythm of the music, the camera shots of the representation change slowly in the first mines. From 57 second, as the music rhythm go faster the frequency of camera shots changing becoming faster. So the account of shots would be more than the 4 times of the shots in the first mines.

The fist shot of the video is a tilt which showed the image of the star which showed us the time is night. Medium shots and pan were mainly used in this music video to show the body language and emotion of the lead singer and the performing of the band. The shots of high angle show the lead singer standing alone in the lights where out side the lights is all dark to represent the atmosphere which brings a mind to audience that people would like think about the life when they are alone specifically in night time.  The long shot the road flashing towards show that a car running on the way during the night because except the headlight of the car irradiate on the road that the surrounding are all in the dark, this image also represent the lyric of the music that someone want to runaway. Close up and rule of third were also used in the video to help the representation of the music.

The costume that the band wear are all black, such as black T-shirts and black jacket, this type of costume created the image of the band which show the band members are clam and mature which could prove the lyric of the sound 'I swore on the head of our unborn child that I could take care of the three of us'. The color used in this video mainly is black and red, red light was used when the band playing on the ground, each members standing in on a red lights square, as I said the sounding are all in black so we don't know the location.  By the side lighting, it gave us an idea that they might be inside of a room.

A creative editing are used. When the camera shooting the lead singer singing the song alone, the back image are changing from black to the cloudy sky and to the night time modern city to show the emotion of the singer and also represent the lyric. Fast pace editing and transition used to link each shots fluently.  Some effects also used to create a better vision for this music video which made the video more creative and attractive, such as the blue lights drift around the band members in the air. 

This music video haven't have a clear narrative for audience. If I were the direct I will create a easy and clear story for this music and edit it in the music video to help the audience understand the song and also to attract them.

The main audience of this music video would mainly be the people who like indie rock because indie rock is not like pop that everyone will listen to. But of cause this type of music is easy approved by audience, by the creative editing of the music video I would say that the people who likes pop also could be the audience.

The genre of this music is indie rock, a number of shots of the band performs  and the mise en scen of the video showed us a typical indie rock music video. Also represent by the musical instruments and pace of the music.

For the representation, the lights and the camera shots of the band members shows a male who has some thing that he try to prove, but the real dose not allowed. The shots of the car driving on the road show he is trying to escape and runaway from the real world. It created a good image for this music.

By Serena Chu