Alicia Keys: Like Youll Never See Me Again
Music Video Analysis
This music video instantly sets a scene by showing a black
screen with a time and date in white text Saturday, 1.45AM there is
then use of digetic sound of a commotion, people talking with a
beeping sound, like a heart monitor over them. Lines like Losing a
lot of blood! and Compress! are used suggesting to the viewer that
the scene is in a hospital or some kind of emergency room. There is
visual imagery at this point showing close up shots of gloved hands
working on a bloody male upper torso. The lighting is very low key
and the camera is a little bit shaky, and quick reflecting the pace
of the scene and event. The shots are extremely short, lasting a
maximum of two seconds. These shots include close ups of the nurses
stricken faces and then to a defibrillator the beeping noise more
louder at this point with no heart beat showing on the screen.
There is then a black screen , the beeping still playing and
another time Friday 11:58pm
Alicia Keys then enters through a door in a medium shot, we can
tell she has been crying because her make-up has been smudged . She
walks at a face pace as though desperate to get to her destination.
From the white washed walls behind her and the array of people at
counters, the audience can guess that she is in a hospital which
links her to the male previously seen in the emergency room. There
is then another shot of white credits on a black screen showing
another time . From this time we can establish that we are going
back in time to what happened before the very first scene the
viewer saw.
There is then a high angled shot of Alicia Keys on the phone,
it appears she is having an argument because of her hand gesture,
she puts her hand on her hand in stressed action. As she gets off
the phone she stands up, the camera following her through a panning
shot . It then cuts to her in a different scene through a medium
close up shot, lip syncing to the words of the song. The lighting
remains extremely low here, a crabbing shot used to follow the male
on the motorbike.
There is then a medium shot of Alicia Keys at work, looking at
papers, but she then suddenly looks at her watch suggesting to the
viewer that she is waiting for someone . There is then another time
shot, 8pm, then a shot with high key lighting of Alicia keys
opening a slide phone. At first we cannot see what she is looking
at on the phone, the viewer only sees her facial expressions. The
camera angle then changes to a point of view shot and we are able
to see that she is looking at a an old video recording of her and
her boyfriend through a standard medium shot .
A series of wide and medium shots are used to show Alicia Keys
at different angles, sitting on a rock. She is alone which suggest
she is in deep thought about something. She is also lip syncing to
the music which reflects her state of mind. There is then another
time shot of 6:45am and then switches to an over the shoulder shot
of Alicia Keys in bed with a dark figure to the right of the screen
suggesting that this figure has just come home. To reinforce this
there is then a medium shot of the singer tapping her wrist as
though saying look at the time in an angry manner.
The time is now 5:45am and a close up panning shot is then used
to show that he is sleeping on a sofa. This is often used to
signify when a couple have had an argument. The camera then zooms
out and we see his friend sleeping on a chair beside him as he
grabs his shoes and walks out the door. there is then a close up
shot of the man riding his motorbike. It is now 1:46AM and it
quickly cuts to the very fisrt scene we saw, of the male
torso
As the artist walks into the room it looks as though the man is
dead, as there looks to be no life in the room, especially with the
dark lighting in the room. But as the shot changes to a medium
close up we can see that his chest is moving up and down. The
beeping sound from the heart machine is also back which suggests a
sign on life. The singer then proceeds to take his hand and kiss
it. The screen shot gradually fading. The entire video sends out a
message of realising what you have before its to late. The couple
in this video embody second chances and taking it before its too
late.