The Killers – Shot at the night

In The Killers music video for Shot At The Night, in terms of character, there is a female character who completely matches the character conventions for female representation in the genre of pop. She matches this stereotype as she is similar to that of a ‘damsel in distress’ she is shown to be lonely in the video as she glances longingly over people kissing in the hotel she works at.

She is shown to be at her job as a maid which carries connotations of females. In relation to this she is fashioning dull colours, her body language is strained and suggests she is tired at what she is doing, again, atypical of pop music videos as girls are mostly shown as sexual in pop. The music video is also conforming to the conventions of a pop video with the ‘boy meets girl’ storyline being a significant factor in the change in mood for the video towards the middle to the end. As the female character properly meets with the male character, her colours become vibrant, she is shown to be having make up applied juxtaposing what she was wearing in previous shots. She wears a yellow dress and pink heels, which suggests happiness and comfort. When she ‘escapes’ her job, she begins to rebel against what she had previously been doing on camera, for example she gets on the male’s motorbike, takes part in karaoke and smiles a lot more, her body language and facial expressions suggests she is happy. In terms of the male representation in the video, it is again conforming to pop music videos, he comes along and ‘sweeps her off her feet’ and supposedly changes her life into something where she doesn’t have to be a maid in a hotel anymore. He also is costumed in quite a masculine manner with his shirt and suit jacket on and he is driving a motorbike too , which have connotations of masculinity.

The narrative to the video is in chronological order and is clearly structured, with small snippets of narrative enigma where there are shots of the night sky and the lead singer of the band performing. This video overall is a narrative paired with performance from the lead singer, Brandon Flowers. Flowers is typical of the pop genre as he looks like a ‘bad boy’ he is wearing a leather jacket and his hair slicked back, quite a conventional style in pop music today.