The video depicts the true story of two young friends growing up in the shanty towns of Manila, Philippines. One friend discovers breakdancing and uses it to avoid gangs, while the other joins a gang and ends up drug dealing, killing, and being shot. The video aims to emotionally impact viewers by showing the difficulties the children face growing up in poverty. Unlike typical videos for the genre, it tells a story through characters and scenes rather than showing people singing and dancing in a club.

1. Analysing
Rudimental
‘Not Giving In ft. John Newman & Alex
Clare’

2. ‘Not Giving In ft. John Newman &
Alex Clare’
O The music video depicts the stories of two
young friends growing up in the shanty
towns of Manila, Philippines. One discovers
breakdancing and uses it as his way to avoid
danger and the gang life, hoping it will lead
him to something better. The other friend is
grasped by the gangs and ends up drug
dealing, killing and eventual being shot. The
aim of the representation is to capture the
audience over the emotions of the story.
Showing the difficulties the kids have to go
through.

3. ‘Not Giving In ft. John Newman &
Alex Clare’

4. ‘Not Giving In ft. John Newman &
Alex Clare’
O The video is not what you would expect to
see from the drum and bass pop genre. It
depicts a story as opposed to a bunch of
people jumping around in a club. There
are no actual visuals of singing in the
video. Instead it can almost be seen as a
short film. The story told is based on a
true story. The activity in the video is
atypical of the genres usual pieces, as it
contains no performance.

5. ‘Not Giving In ft. John Newman &
Alex Clare’

6. ‘Not Giving In ft. John Newman &
Alex Clare’
O The characters are present to tell an
emotional story. The whole video revolves
around a large period of their life. Without the
characters the story would be lost and the
video would not have the same touching
affect. Rudimental want the video to touch
people in emotional ways. As artists of the
drum and bass pop genre they have taken a
completely different approach in their videos.
They want the audience to feel like they are
their with the characters and are experiencing
what they experience as it takes place. The
video has a real life aspect and is very
believable.

7. ‘Not Giving In ft. John Newman &
Alex Clare’

8. ‘Not Giving In ft. John Newman &
Alex Clare’
O The video takes place in the shanty
towns of Manila, Philippines. The characters and
the lives they live are framed as being very difficult
and poverty is shown as real problem. The
representation of their area is very natural as it
really exists and the story is true. This is often not
the case in other videos of the same genre, which
represent an idealised version of reality through
fake sets, stories and characters. The foreground
of the video tells the story of the two boys however
throughout the video the background shows the
lives of many others. Whilst we do not learn about
these other characters we are shown snippets of
what they live through and deal with in their
everyday lives.