Tori Kelly portrays a typical young woman in her music video for "Dear No One". She follows an imaginary man through a run-down urban city center, longing for a soulmate. Though dressed casually like a rock star, her lonely demeanor and all-black clothing suggest unhappiness with love. Intercut scenes show her singing in her bedroom and on a rooftop, revealing the man was not real and she was alone all along. The gritty urban setting and her normal bedroom reinforce her portrayal as an ordinary person in the popular culture, longing for love through a song.

1. Nina Collins
Tori Kelly- Dear No One
The main character in this music video is the girl, she is
in her mid twenties and has fallen in love with the other
character in the music video who is non existant. She is
the typical pop singer, rock chick clothes; the leather
jacket and black top and shorts, however she also
supports the ‘normal’ girl look. The black clothing shows
that the lovbe she is singing about is not good, it never
works out and that she is unhappy, those are the
connatations of the colour black and the protagonist is
wearing all black. She
has very subtle make up
and quite messy hair, nothing in the video is over the top which
makes us as the audience forget that she is even a celebrity, this is
also potrayed due to the fact she is singing about not being able to
find her ‘soul mate’, we automatically think that all celebrities have
everything they want however this is not the case. Her body
language is very open and she is very casual, this gives off her
‘normal girl’ persona. As she is following a man in this video, it
shows the audience that she is part of the pop culture as the majority of those songs include love
and at one point she actually says ‘this is your love
song’ which proves to us that the video is of the
popular culture. Tori Kelly portrays herself as the
typical teen in this music video, a lot of the video
footage is of her sat in her bed with a jumper on and
she is just singing in her bedroom like every other
teenage girl does.
The music video begins with the main persona
sat up against a wall singing and watching
people walk by, she looks quite unhappy and she
is looking down at her feet and has a very closed
body language, she then see’s a man that
catches her eye, she stands up and begins to
walk after him through the building and then out
the door, along the way she sees couples
who are loved up and are happy, she looks at
them in envy and she still has closed body
language and is wearing all black clothing,
this tells us that she is still unhappy. While
she is doing this the camera cuts back to her
in her bedroom singing and also on a rooftop singing, she follows the man up a flight of stairs and
ends up on the rooftop, the same one that she is singing on when the camera cuts back, this gives us
the first indication that the man is not real and that she was there all along, when they both reach

2. Nina Collins
the rooftop she puts her hand on his shoulder, as she does this he slowly fades away to confirm that
he doesnt exist.
Throughout the music video not many props are
used, as she is walking down the street, the
producers have tried to make it look as realistic as
possible, they have used the general public to walk
around in the background, in and out of shops and
the couples who are hugging. Cars and bikes are
also used to show that it is a road in a busy urban town. There is graffiti and general damage around
the street for example of the rooftop there is white spray paint, this shows the normality of the
town. The place that looks like her bedroom is a flat or apartment in the centre of the town centre, it
is nothing special and is again portraying her as this normal young girl who
wants to find her soul mate.
Shops are closed and have
the shutters down, this along
with the graffiti implies that it
is quite a poor area and that
it is not a posh town centre.
This ties in with the mise en scene of the place, it is a
very built up place and looks a lot like Manchester city centre, however a lot of city centres look the
same due to all of the shops and restauraunts around, especially with the
graffiti and old shutters on shops, there are also bins that are over flowing with
rubbish. At one point you can see the craines and the factories in the
background when she is on the rooftop which confirms she is in a urban area.
Around her bedroom she has posters of flowers and the typical things you
would expect to be in a teenage girls room such as lots of pillows and statues.
In this music video the camera does a lot of tracking
backwards, this is because it is following the main
protagonist
through the
city and she is
just walking towards the camera. During the scenes in
her bedroom there was many close ups on her face to
show the emotion, the saddness in her face, during
these shots the background was blurred so that the
audience focous on her face and nothing else. When she first sees the man there is a mid shot with
low key lighting so that the audience can see her and the man in the same picture so they can
understand that he has caught her eye and that she is
going to walk after him. There are many over the
shoulder shots to show what is going on infront of her
and it gives the audience an ideo of what the main
protaganist can see and what she is doing, this is used
at the end of the music video when she puts her hand
on the mans shoulder and he fades away. There is a lot of cutting in this music video, it cuts back to

3. Nina Collins
her in her bedroom and on the rooftop and then back to her walking down the street at different
points, this makes the video quite fast paced which reflects on what is happening in the video. The
audio is quite fluent throughout and she is singing music from the pop genre.