Concept Video Analysis

This is a music video by the band “Snow Patrol” who represent the indie genre with the song called “Run”. I decided to analyse this song by Snow Patrol because they are an extremely popular and successful indie band and this genre proved to be the most popular in our questionnaire. This one in particular is a concept video with performance aspects and there is an obvious connection between the video and the lyrics. The target audience for this music video is mainly the age group of 16-24 years which is a relatively young audience and there are features in this music video that relate to this age.

The lyrics to the song are both inspirational and touching. The emotions the song is trying to portray are about love and loss, in situations you have to leave the person you love and there is nothing you can do about it. This is an exact issue young people and the target audience can relate to. At a young age relationships are split up due to university, different career choices and many more reasons people are forced to make decisions to separate and these emotions are expressed through this song “run”.

The concept is linked to the lyrics in this video for example “ light up light up” is shown by the main singer lighting up the scene with a fire torch which gives a sense of beacon and represents that there will be light at the end of a tunnel, some hope that things will get better after such heart break. And also, when he sings 'Louder, louder, we'll run for our lives' it's like they are wanting to escape from everything else and just stay how they are at that moment, like their lives will not be the same without each other.

The camera angles used throughout the video are effective in expressing the concept of heart break at sadness for example at the very start of the video there is an establishing shot of the main singer with a motor bike, it is a wide view shot which emulates that the main singer is so small in comparison the large setting and big world around him, and therefore makes him appear smaller which is related to sadness as when people are upset their personalities become smaller.

As the video moves on there are several close ups of the main singer moving to a high angle shot, this is the performance aspect of the music video where the singer is singing directly into the camera . In particular the singer is used as a performer in “run” due to him being attractive to the younger generation, a bit like the male gaze theory refers to the tendency of media to view its subjects through the eyes of heterosexual men, the women are seen as a somewhat sex object to sell a product. In this case it is the other way round, the lead singer in the band is seen as “attractive” and thus selling the band “snow patrol” and making the video appealing to watch.

In terms of mise-en-scene the setting is a very dark background clearly filmed at night which contrasts with the fire torches to make them stand out. The open space of being outdoors and in a field gives an impression of freedom and the concept that there will be light at the end of the tunnel surrounding all the darkness. The dark and dull colours shown in clothing too, also emulate somewhat of a dark and sad mood for the audience, these colours relate to a tragedy and unhappy emotions which the song is trying portray therefore a mood is set from the very start of the music video.