The music video begins with a black screen that fades into a snowy scene, it looks very cold and the image is shallow focused on a branch in the front of the scene, there’s a slow pan of this scene and then it cuts rather suddenly to a close up of a male silhouette at 0:09 where there’s a sudden deep sound instead of the higher tinkling heard previously. This creates mystery around the male figure as we don’t know who he is, this also creates a tense atmosphere as usually a hidden face has negative, villanous connotations. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As the video goes on the lead singer of the band starts performing the song whilst walking around what appears to be a very barren forested area, this suggests isolation amplifying the lyrics "Did you hide yourself away? I can't see you anymore" this creates exaggeration of the isolated and lonely atmosphere. (Richard Goodwin: Five characteristic of music videos - relationship between lyrics/visuals). This suggests the male has lost somebody something something amplified by the lyrics "Did you eclipse another day?" connoting that this male has been or is looking for something or someone who has been lost to him. This eclipse metaphor is also linked to the female silhouette that appears at 0:34 as something is blocking her face and her silhouette being lit from behind makes her look eclipsed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At 2:00 there begins a series of shots that follow an interaction between the two characters, we see a long shot of the female silhouette then a close up on the male singing and his eyes begin to follow something off-screen, there are then several cuts between the close up of him singing and a two shot of two silhouettes. The female brushes his arm and walks past him, however we still do not see her face clearly, suggesting something is hidden from us and from the male character. The male holds his arm where she brushes him appearing to feel pain, thus introducing a conceptual element in which the female character is a ghost of a memory that's painful to think about for the man. This amplifies the song title "Living through the ghost" and suggests that the male is holding onto these memories that he hurt him.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This begins to introduce a clear narrative into the music video since the audience are now beginning to be shown a story through the links between the lyrics and visuals, through this broken up relationship the male character is shown as having some sex appeal since the female even as a ghost appears to be unable to stray from him, his sexual magnetism (Dyer's Star Theory: Seven common values). The majority of acoustic rock songs are generally performance based unless a narrative is featured within the song, since the song clearly tells a story the video has a narrative, showing this video to be conventional of acoustic rock music videos in this sense.

 

There's also still an element of secrecy in the fact there's still a lot of close ups of him in which the background is in high key lighting however you can just see the males silhouette, this suggests he has some kind of secret that he's not telling us and adds to his allure since we as an audience are naturall investigative (Uses and Gratifications: Surveillance).

 

2:54 the male character begins to walk seemingly with a purpose unlike before this point where he appeared to be just wandering connoting that he feels lost and again reinforcing the feelings of isolation. He appears to be searching for the female and there's two shots of him ducking under branches looking for something perhaps in an attempt to convey he's ready to come to terms with this ghost he's been thinking about. At 2:54 there's an increase in silhouette shots of the male, we often see just a black figure walking through the woods, this could suggest he's going to a much darker place to find this ghost.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At 3:04 there's a long shot of the female silhouette and the male begins to sing at her silhouette, there's a series of two shots of the male walking around the female and singing to her. This presents the idea he's finally facing these dark memories and his loss, in Todorov's five stages of narrative this would be stage four: restored order. At 3:52 the male character looks directly at the camera presenting the idea he is facing it directly and that equilibrium is restored, this idea is reinforced at 3:59 when the female character looks at him and suggests the idea that she's no longer "Living through the ghost".