This is easily one of my favorite
music videos as far as editing and even story line. Just a little background
info about the band, Slaves is basically Jonny Craig’s bands in which he talks
about his life experiences. Now Slaves just came out this year, though Jonny
has been in many successful projects for over a decade. However, every time he
seems to make it in a good band some sort of problem usually causes the band to
break apart (mostly drugs). Now that Jonny is clean, this is almost his band
where he talks about everything that has happened in his life.
As far as the video is concerned, I believe it
is the perfect example of taking very serious and complex topics and diluting
them down into a simple to watch video. It is almost as if they intentionally
made this video simple with a lot of subliminal messages so that way if the
viewer watched it could be easily entertaining or intellectually riveting. The
first time you watch the video and listen to the music, you would probably
think its a break-up or messed up love song. On top of that it is almost as if
this is just another typical scene kid band with them playing in a room with a
random video of an attractive female cut randomly in throughout the music
video. I believe the band did this on purpose to allow them to attain that fan
base that likes music and music videos as such, but I think the editor (in
sequence with the bands actions) edited it in a way that tells an entirely
different story that the band actually wanted to convey.
First off, the
video begins with the editor cutting back and forth between a woman smiling in
a brightly lit area and Jonny Craig (the singer) in a dimly lit area with a
light or actual footage of the female behind him. Right here I think the editor
positioned these clips like this to show that the female represents the light behind
the singer. While at the same time Jonny is saying “I want to get out,” making
it sound as if he doesn’t want to be cast in the light of this female. During
this beginning, the editor does something that is ultra important. He inserts
two separate shots where the singer says “I’m sick of giving into these demons.”
The first shot is of the singer pounding his arm, signifying that the demon
is heroin. The second time the lyric is spoken; the editor throws in a shot of
the female, no longer smiling. I believe this was intentionally done by the
editor to show that the female symbolizes heroin as well. Further throughout
the video the lyrics push this point. Right in the first verse Jonny says “Another
hit, another mark. Small pinch and my whole world starts to spark. If I had
another chance, I can’t say what I’d do. The minds a tricky thing when it comes
to the loss of you.” All of these lyrics undoubtedly convey the use of heroin.
The editor pushes this point by cutting to all of the singers actions which
create this point, such as more arm hitting, gestures that indicate drug use,
etc. Near the end of the song, the editor shows a clip of the female walking
away and for the last shot he shows the singer getting up and exiting the room
with the one light right behind him. This represents to me that his use of
heroin is gone and he is no longer covered in the darkness of heroin’s light. Finally
the last thing the editor does really well is cutting at the pace of the song.
During the slow parts of the song, the editing is slow and even sometimes disguised
by fades. During the fast parts of the song he cuts quickly adding to the
heaviness of the instruments and power of the chorus.
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