The colours in this video is beautiful, with the hues of blue, pinks and reds.
The beginning of this video is of a woman, going through the streets of japan with hues of blues and pinks. The colours could represent the emotions such as ''calmness' and 'romance' as this song is about two lovers. Pink hair girl and blue hair girl together, one is Halsey and the other girl is asian who we can assume is her lover( 10 billion yeses for her getting someone who is not white)( as the lyrics suggest, plus the video too.)
Loads of close-ups, especially in intimate scenes. Bird eyes view from the mirror of them in bed. There are a lot of intimate scenes, showing how they are both very much in love with each other. The intimacy can also show how open she is, with her relationship and that we are looking at a part of her life.
Long shot of taxi, with the taxi in the middle. Middle with the lights on. Medium close-ups with someone at the back. Tilt of taxi, long shot. Taxi drives away During those shots, they are very aesthetically pleasing.
Looking out of window, city scapes. Again, the whole shots are very aesthetically pleasing, making this whole music video more like a art piece. Halsey herself could think that this is a part of her life that she created. Again, the pink heart shaped bath and the pink hues is very pleasing to the eyes. When she is alone in the middle of the bath, we can see how lonely she is especially when we see the shots where she is with her lover.
The fade into the city and also bird eye view of the city can suggest that this all happened in somewhere big, while she is feeling small as when we see her looking out of the window, she is right in the middle, maybe feeling vulnerable as the really big windows with the city view makes her look and feel small.
The lip-syncing parts of the video has Halsey with longer blue hair, with lights flickering on her face - the colours and the flickering can show her emotions as while she lip-syncs it does not show a lot of emotion but what is portrayed on her face with the lights.
First of all, this is the first video for the BADLANDS album and from this video, there will be more. This is all narrative led, with no lip-syncing at all.
Old, retro, grainy beginning, with the recording of Halsey talking being played. This part sounds very much like a story/film. This also suggests that this is the very beginning of something.
The title of the song plus the artist name is shown in the middle of the screen, one in pink, one in yellow. The artist name appears first, while the background is of Halsey herself, wearing white with emerald green hair and the title comes second, with a forest background( the words fit in the middle of the path.) This is the beginning of the music video, where we establish where is she, and the environment she is in.
The depth of field during the shot when Halsey is wearing a black hoodie, changes when she walks of. She was in the middle. The colour of her costume, the placement of her, her attitude/posture and the pull focus shows us that she has some sort of power and confidence in her and that she could be a leader of an army
.Long shot of the yellowish building, looks futureristic which can show that the context of this could be of the future.
When she goes inside, she is greeted, shows her importance. Tracking shot from behind, as if we are follwing her, like one of her servants etc.
Front face view with tracking shows her attitude and also how serious she looks, like a leader.
Close-ups of people doing various activities, such as playing cards, exercising,making out lmao,shaving their head,smoking etc which kind of remind me of a prison, maybe this portrays segregation, like they are some criminals/outlaws/bad people. They all wearing black.
There are slowed down close-up shots of people with guns, telling us that they are entering the facility without permission/invading. When they capture them, the handheld camera is shaky/violent, which helps us to know what its like to be there.
They are all lined up, with the big guy shouting, plus when they are all lined up, we can see the multi race (nice)
Everyone looks at halsey, tracking shot of the head tilting. when the song changes note , she gets dragged out. Then we see her trying to walk away, throught forest, medium closeup with the guards right beside her, showing us that she cannot get away.
Long shot of the people in the building looking at her, showing perhaps the 'unity' of both them and their leader.
The song is paused, so we hear diegetic sounds of the fire crackling, the atmosphere and also her screaming, trying to get help. People stare at her, so I guess they are not the disobeyers, she gets put on the stake. with gasoline(maybe) poured on her. There are close ups of the pouring, showing how she might not be able to get out of this situation. Then the song starts again.
In the dark trees/bushes, we see the previous people/ gang, which tells us that she might be able to be saved as they are there, hidden. We then see a close up of a guy lighting up a stick, then we see a smoke bomb thrown, with smoke getting everywhere. Then it gets very quick where people are fighting and help free Halsey. The quick edits show us that this is happening at a very quick rate, and that there is so many things going on here.
Then we see a tracking show of everyone running away, in the greenery. All of them running can show that they are escaping, but we still do not know if they are the antagonists and protanganists as the black clothes suggests that they could be rebels. But rebels for what though? Rebellion against the society? About how this society is getting worse, with the racism,sexism, homophobia and just unnecessary hatred against normal people? It could mean many, but that is what I am going to go with.