The document provides information about the American rock band The Fray and their hit song "How To Save a Life". It discusses the band's origins, musical style, and record label. It then analyzes the music video for "How To Save a Life", noting its simple storyline and themes of loss, grief, and sadness portrayed through various characters. Shots become more frequent and editing intensifies as the song builds, mirroring the escalating emotion. Neutral lighting and color, close-ups, and words on screen emphasize the mood of sadness and message of acceptance.

1. The Fray
How To Save A Life

2. Band Information
The Fray are an alternative/pop rock band from Colorado, USA. They formed in 2002,
and ‘How To Save A Life’ was the bands second single from their first album, which
was released in 2006. Alternative pop/rock is a sun-genre of rock music. It emerged
from the ‘underground’ music in the 1980’s. The ‘alternative’ sound refers to the
genres distinction from the more mainstream music.
The band have been signed to Epic Records since 2004, which is a record company
managed by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary large Japanese media
conglomerate Sony Corporation. The label was originally formed in 1953, to manage
some of the smaller, newer artists that couldn’t be taken on by Sony’s other label
‘Columbia Records’. Epic now manage all genres of music, of all different popularities.
Some of the other artists managed by the label include Michael Jackson, Avril Lavigne,
Celine Dion, and ABBA.

3. One of the main ideas of the videos is
simplicity- There is no complex storyline,
although themes of death, grief and
sadness are clear. The colouring and lighting
used is also very neutral the video is easy to
keep track of because of the simple
composition of the shots. The video
includes various people who all seem to lost
a loved one – This message is created by the
use of camera shots, lighting, visual effects,
and the characters played by the people in
the video.
As the video progresses, you can see the
intensity of emotion building, as the song
does. Towards the end of the video, the
emotion changes from intense grief,
towards more people remembering their
loved ones-They seem to start accepting
what has happened and start moving on.

4. There is no particular story line to the video, although there seems to be themes of
loss and sadness, which fit in with the lyrics of the song. It includes various people
throughout the video, who all seem to have experienced some sort of death or
trauma. There is a strong performance element to he video- particularly the lead
singer who we see playing the piano and singing. However, they are not performing to
an audience, they are in the same setting as the other characters. This is to perhaps
make them look more relatable, as if they have gone through the same experiences as
the other people, and are in the same position.

5. There is a lot of jumping between camera shots, for example close up,
medium shots, and full body shots. This allows us to see the emotion in
characters, as well as body language and props used.
There seems to be no to very little camera movement happening in the video,
especially during close up shots. This allows the viewer to register and focus on
what is going on. There are some shots where a small movement may occur, for
example during a high angle long shot of a group of characters, what looks to be a
slight whip pan occurs. This shot is slightly out of focus,

6. One main effect which has been used throughout the video is
slow motion and fast forward. There are various shots which
seem to have been either slowed down or sped up. This
becomes more frequent particularly towards the end of the
video, creating an effect of disorientation/continuity. This
perhaps represents the uncertainty in the characters lives, or the
disruption that they have faced. It also could build a sense of
visual confusion for the viewer, whilst building up the intensity
which the viewers are supposed to feel at the end of the video.

7. As the intensity of the song builds up, so does the composition of the video. For example, the
cuts between shots become much more frequent, and the duration of shots also decreases. This
means the pace of the video is increased, which helps to intensify the emotion in the video, as
well as increasing the excitement of what is going on for the audience.
This works well, as although the video has a simple storyline, many different characters are used.
This allows the quick editing to be effective, as the audience recognize each person they see from
previous points in the video, and they then acknowledge the fact that they may be weakening or
becoming more emotional. Because we recognize the characters, it makes it more emotional to
see them becoming more upset.

8. The video contains montage editing. This means that two shots are out one
after the other which have no relation to each other. For example, there is a
large performance element throughout the video, although this is juxtaposed
with what seem to be ‘random’ other shots which are inserted into the video.
These are some example of two shots which have occurred one after the
other, but seem to have no obvious connection.
1)
2)

9. Most of the video contains a plain, bright white background with the close ups of the
characters faces on it. The close ups used in the video allow us to see the full emotion
on the characters faces. All of the lighting used is muted and neutral, allowing the
audience to fully appreciate the emotion and the message behind the video.
Throughout the video, the lighting and colouring becomes slightly darker, to represent
the deterioration of the characters emotions.

10. Various words are used in the video, which we can see on the screen. These are all
used to connote the image of sadness and grief, again emphasizing to the audience
the sort of mood they want to create. The video seems to be trying to help people to
accept what has happened, and helping them to get through their grief.
The visual effects used are again very simple and neutral, allowing the audience to
fully take in what is being said, and to focus on what is they are being told to do by the
words on the screen.