The video is narrative telling the story of two homosexual lovers one of which is outed and received with extreme violence because of his sexuality, it has strong themes of sexuality, religion and violence caused because of the two. The video (and song) is questioning the churches black and white rules of what's right/natural and what's not, Hozier presents this by putting the video in greyscale symbolically challenging this by creating the idea that nothing black and white and that in fact there are many shades of grey about what's right and wrong.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The use of greyscale also tones down the explicit nature of the video, an example of this is the fire, the video opens on the fire which initially confuses the audience however later in the video they burn the outed males lockbox and it's implied they're going to burn him, this explains the purpose of the fire. It represents a constant danger throughout the film for both males. This scene in colour would have much more urgency and cause much more fear for the male because of the reds and oranges that would be on-screen, these colours connote urgency and danger creating a more explicit and panicky tone to the video that would cause viewers to be anxious and afraid for the characters.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The two gay men dress in regular, fashionable clothes this suggests normalcy and that they're just ordinary guys (which they are). The homophobics all dress similarly however they all cover their faces this presents them as cowardly because they're not showing their faces whilst committing this horrible act. It also represents them as hiding something within themselves which could suggests hidden homosexuality. The video is primarily shot in high key lighting so we as an audience can clearly see what's going in the darker scenes, I think the artist purposely wanted us to see that the homophobics have a face and they are just regular people. This connotes ideas that homophobics are the neighbourhood and family and friends, sending out kind of a warning to viewers who aren't straight (Uses and Gratifications: Personal Identity).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The video begins with lots of close ups and two shots of the two males, this allows the audience to get familiar with the characters and to get to know them to an extent. It also alerts us that they're connected in some way although we don't know quite how extensive it is until 0:56 when we see the pair kiss, the use of close ups is conventional (Andrew Goodwin) and something we'll do, this is also true of two shots used in videos. The video uses lots of close ups on the feet/calves of the second male trying to save his boyfriend, these shots show him running (1:13) and create sense of urgency about the situation. We as an audience are confused by this as we don't yet know what's going on in this situation, all we know is that the two males are together and are both frantically moving and doing things (packing/burying).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The video amplifies the lyrics, giving new meaning to the song and lyrics of, the song uses props to represent the sexuality of the outed male. At the beginning of the video we see him burying a box, cross edited with the other male running to get to him because he (presumably) knows what's going to happen. This box represents sexuality in the fact he's trying to hide it and that later in the video the homophobics find the box and try to crack it (and him) open before throwing it in the fire. This could suggests the life cycle of lots of LGBT+ lives and people who have been the victim of hate crimes like the one displayed in the video. The box is thrown into the fire representing the idea that the male's sexuality has been burnt and that after the story in the video he'll hide it more and be seen to be straight although this is never actually confirmed as the video ends on a cliffhanger when the second male arrives to see his lover being held down and a fire burning. This creates worry and sympathy for both characters and creates a need to see how the story ends as it's an unfinished narrative (Torodov: No new equilibrium) this could be representative of the real world. These are very complex ideas to present in a music video and I'd like to try to incorporate some deeper meanings into our video since our chosen track is also about religion.

 

The video is fast paced editing throughout to connote the urgency and importance of the situation that the characters are in since it's clearly very dangerous and not a situation that they want to be in, there's a suddenness about the video that's created by the use of straight cuts in the video. There's also some cross cutting of the two males as one is being dragged away and the other is running to try to get to him, they get brought together at the end of the video but the second male is too late and the homophobics are beating up the first male. To make this event less distressing the violence is in shallow focus with focus on the second male, who is clearly very upset and distressed suggesting he doesn't know what to do. Shallow focus is appearing in a few of the videos and I think it's something we may want to experiment with in our video.