Lee Sanders

T-206 Midterm Project

Song: Born To Run

Artist: Bruce Springsteen

In the day we sweat it out in the streets of a runaway american dream

At night we ride through mansions of glory in suicide machines

Sprung from cages out on highway 9,

Chrome wheeled, fuel injected and steppin out over the line

Baby this town rips the bones from your back

Its a death trap, it's a suicide rap

We gotta get out while were young

`cause tramps like us, baby we were born to run

Inspirational/Visual Aesthetic

The song “Born to Run” by Bruce Springsteen gives the listener various scenes of trapped

youth. It gives the sense of a small town that has all ready shown all its colors, and the two

young people in the song feel that they need more out of life than the town has to offer. They

have grown tired of the mundane of their daily lives and they feel a calling to break free. My

visual inspiration is a picture from the film Friday Night Lights. It is a film about a small

town’s high school football team in Texas. For this town, these 14-18 year olds are treated

like celebrities and also suffer the pressures of professional football players. The whole theme

of the movie is about growing up too fast and finding that you have your whole life ahead of

you while at the same time also being past your prime. For these young men, football is their

whole life. The moment their football careers are over, they find that they have lost their

sense of purpose. This particular picture is from a scene in the film when the main characters

have completed their senior year season and have felt like they have outgrown their own

shoes. They realize that they can either move on and move out, or be part of the town’s cycle

of washed up football stars that live and work in the same place they grew up and root for

their old team. The town becomes a trap for them and I found that the visual and the general

mood of the song had a very similar tone of the need to break free.

Design Process/ Explanation:

When listening to “Born To Run” by Bruce Springsteen, I wanted to convey the sense

of the transition from being trapped to being free. The song does this in a way where it has

slow verses but begins to build for a rousing chorus. I wanted to find a place that felt like a

prison to me, and what better place to start than my cramped room. When the sun begins to

set in the afternoon, the light brings attention to my blinds. I found that the use of horizontal

and vertical lines in the shot bring a very clear illusion to jail or a sense of confinement. The

open fields beyond the window work particularly well to show the freedom outside.

To convey the “claustrophobic” mentality that the youth’s feel in their small town in

the song, I went to my workspace to show a living area that is very cluttered with little room

to move around in. I used a high angle shot to make this area feel inferior, just as the youths

in the song find their town to be inferior. I wanted to amply the effect of being bigger than

where you live by looking down on the living space.

What’s “Born To Run” without a pair of Nikes as a visual? This is not as cheesy or as

literal of a metaphor as it may sound. I put them on the door handle because I wanted to

convey a sense that they are just waiting to be used, but have not been put on just yet. Again

using a high angle shot, I wanted to portray a sense that the viewer is in control they have the

power to put on the shoes and run away. The aesthetic is about that desire to break free, not

the actual act of doing it. I wanted to give a message that says “The shoes are there. What are

you waiting for? Put them on and run.” The question is not how they should leave their

hometown, but when.

My next picture is a shot of an open door. This was particularly tricky because I

wanted a very specific contrast between light and dark. It had to be very bright outside and

very dark inside because I wanted to evoke the simple human emotions of good and bad

(light and dark). I had to play around with the lights and wait for the right time of day where

the light would not shine into the house but it would still be bright outside. I was able to get a

sort of “light at the end of the tunnel” shot that I was very pleased with. Obviously the

symbolism here is that the town in the song is represented as a bad place by the dark tones as

an insider looking out. The world beyond is covered in light and looks much more appealing.

Finally the last shot is of an open road. I went on Jordan and debated whether I

wanted a high angle shot looking down the street or a low angle shot looking up the street. I

eventually went with a slightly low angle shot of the street going up and curving. I went with

the street going uphill because I wanted to convey the sense that these people still have a

mountain of life to climb because they are young. Looking at the street sloping down gave

too much of an “all downhill from here” mentality that I felt clashed with my aesthetic. I also

had to find a particular point on the street to find where it curves out of the shot. I did not

want to have a straightaway because I felt that the uncertainty at the end of the road was an

important visual to include. In this picture, the viewer is both free and uncertain about what is

ahead.