Leave Before The Lights Come On - Arctic Monkeys

This is the video of the bands third single in the UK and was released in 2006. 


In this music video we see a constant narrative without any heard dialogue. The video follows the narrative of a woman about to jump off a building who is then saved by a passing man. After saving the woman the man finds the woman a bit obsessive and she won't leave him alone. He ends up getting violent and she then becomes quite depressed again. We see her return to the roof top where she drops her shoe again grabbing another man's attention ( this is how the first man comes to rescue her). It gives us an insight into the woman's thinking and gives the video a very cyclic feeling. If we were to see the story of the woman and the second man play out we would expect it to play out exactly the same as the first and in the end the woman returning to the rooftop.


In this video the director uses many conventions and codes to convey a desired message about the band and their music. In this video establish actors are used to act out the narrative. By doing this the band are making a statement about themselves, saying that they are now an established band. We see this also in Eminem's Love The Way You Lie, where he uses world renowned actress Megan Fox.


The Band give us a further insight into there views and there own ideology by not featuring themselves in the video. By doing this we are asked to focus purely on their musicality and they want the audience to realise that they are not interested in fame or acclaim. 


Due to there being no speech from the actors within this video, the director has had to use certain codes and conventions to display the feelings of the characters. One method we see employed frequently are close-up shots. This shots are conventionally used to show detailed facial expression which in turn shows emotion. This is used a lot within this video, especially to show the expression of the female character, for instance in the cafe when she is staring at the male character. Also a series of stills are used, as well as showing the characters emotions it makes the audience aware that this is a film, which in turn makes us realise the craziness of the story.


Colour is a very important way of conveying messages to an audience, this is due to the connotations attached with certain colours, for instance RED; has the connotations of passion, love, blood and anger. In this video the woman is wearing a blue t-shirt when we see her on the roof top. This is code for depression, sadness and loneliness and therefore the director is making a statement about the way this character is feeling. 


To make the audience believe this story, the director has used realistic mis-en-scene, a short time span and we follow one character (the woman). Another way the director created the realistic feeling was by using hand held cameras and realistic/ natural lighting.


This video has a lot of similarities with videos of La Nouvalle Vague (French New Wave Cinema). Similar techniques such as long tracking shots and dolly shots are employed, along with Jump-shots and graphic matches. Jump shots and long tracking shots were used in this style of french cinema to highlight the absurdity of situations and Graphic matches were used to establish links between characters. 


Although having much in common with the French New Wave style, the video has more in common with the modern day music video, using conventions like edits in sync with the music and have shorter amounts of time between edits when the pace of the music is increased.