AN - Music Video Deconstruction 14: Bring Me To Life

Name of Song: Bring Me To Life 
Artist: Evanescnece
Year: 2004
Genre: Alternative Rock
Director: Philipp Stölzl

Evanescnece is an American Rock group formed in 1995, by Amy Lee and Ben Moody. In 2003 after a series of private albums, the band released it's first full length album known as, Fallen. The band's major hit, Bring Me To Life, was a worldwide hit for the band and it provided the band with their first UK Number 1 single.

• The video begins with a mid, long shot panning through a CGI-rendered city.
• The camera isn't straight because it adds to the abstract feel of the song.
• The camera then zooms into a woman's bedroom where the video transitions to a sequence of a mid, close up of the same woman falling off the building.
• This transitions back and forth between the falling sequence and the woman sleeping in bed. This signifies that she is having a nightmare, due to her movements in bed.
• Fast-paced editing is used the most during the video to fit the dark mood of the situation.
• We then cut to outside again where the camera this time zooms in from an establishing shot into the room where the band are performing.
• Next, we get a close up of the woman looking at of the window, which then cuts to a high angle shot of the apartment building and in this shot you can see the woman's feet meaning that she's standing outside of the window.
• Could this mean that the dream the woman was having foreshadowed suicide?
• We then have a long angle shot of the woman walking across the edges of the apartment building itself, which cuts to a low angle, panning shot of the woman walking.
• The video cuts to multiple shots of the other people in the apartment block, which include a mid shot of a middle aged couple watching TV and a party with people dressed as clowns.
• The people dressed as clowns create a binary opposition with the dark, edgy tone of the video, since clowns are known for having a light, funny tone, However, there are people who have a phobia of clowns known as, Coulrophobia.
• After that, we get high angle shots of the woman climbing the the building.
• This video is a combination of all three Goodwin theories because the narrative is about a woman who foresees herself committing suicide, we have a performance by the band taking place in one of the rooms of the apartment and the concept can be seen from the mise-en-scene of the video. e.g. the clowns.
• The woman the climbs to the room where the band are playing. This could possibly signify that she wants the band to save her, "Save me from the nothing I've become."
• We get a high angle shot of one of the band members stretching out his arm out to save the woman from falling.
• After that, we get a low angle of the of the woman holding on to the man's arm.
• This sequence varies between low angle and high angle shots to connote the danger and peril that the woman is in.
• We also get mid shots of the rest of the band performing.
• After that, we get a low angle, long shot of the woman falling off of the building, which cuts back to a close up of the woman sleeping in the same bed, from the beginning of the music video. Maybe the dream was inception-esq.
• However we get evidence that it might have not been a dream, due to the facial expressions and the body language of the band at the end of the video.
• The video ends with the camera zooming out of the building with siren noises that can be heard.

Here is the video: