The Killers' Music Videos Case Study

The Killers have had many videos since their debut album Hot Fuss. The Killers first released the song "Somebody told me" with the music video showing the band playing in an American Desert with a large LED screen behind them flashing and displaying the band's logo. The music video was directed by Brett Simon who is an American short film and music video director. He has worked with rock groups such as Lost Prophets, Rise Against and Queens of the Stone Age in the past. Despite his success "Somebody told me" was his only work with The Killers. The concept of the music video was very similar to New Order's "Crystal" in which features a fictional band at the time called "The Killers" miming the song "Crystal" in front of a large video screen displaying random colours and images. This where the main inspiration for the video came from and where The Killers got their band name.

The start of the video shows the bands silhouettes against a bright, daylight back ground. Then a close up of the drummer with the screen in the background showing the drummer again however in daylight opposed to the darkness of the night that they are playing in. There are also zooming in close ups of the band members against the screen clipped together with a zoom shot of a close up of small lights. As well as a silhouette of a woman infront of the screen displaying The Killers written in pink.Also there is a extreme close up of a red guitar which represents the song as rock early into the video. There then is a lot of establishing shots which pan around the lead singer and the band. There is a collection of two shots in the video as well for example the drummer and bassist. In this shot they have the bassist in the foreground with the drummer behind him and a close up of the bassist Mark Stoermer. Other parts of the video to note is when The Killers name and logo is on the screen in the background it pans out in a 3D effect into the foreground. The end of the video shows an establishing shot which pans down of the band with the night gone and the dawn rising.

Mr.Brightside was the next song to be released in 2004. The song has two versions of music video, the original video shows the band playing on Staten Island New York (this was only shown in the UK), this video was filmed on a low budget before the band was signed up by high ranked record company. They then decided to make an American version music video in November 2004 for Mr.Brightside with a larger budget. This video shows the lead singer Brandon Flowers, Izabella Miko and Eric Roberts as the lead roles of the video taking place in a burlesque show (inspired by the film Moulin Rouge!) directed by British music video director Sophie Muller. Some of the most notable videos she has directed include:

Kings of Leon - Use Somebody, Sex on Fire

No Doubt - Don't Speak

Blur - Song 2, Beetlebum, On your own

Coldplay - In my place

Maroon 5 - She will be loved

Shakira - Hips Don't lie

Mika - Grace Kelly

and many more.

The American version of the video won the "MTV VMA (MTV Music Video awards) Best New Artist in Video award" in 2005 as The Killers had just made it into mainstream music.



The video begins with an establishing shot of The Killers performing on stage which then cuts to another establishing shot of the audience and a close up of a woman (who is the main character in the vide0) with her hand to the side of her bored expressioned face. It also shows a close up man sitting down holding an apple, he is sitting in a single seated, red leather seat and there are none in the establishing shot of the audience this represnts him as the dominant male and shows he has authority and possibly the binary opposite to the lead singer.

After the chorus and various close up and establishing shots of band members and women. It cuts to a midshot of the lead singer and the main female from the beginning looking out from a balcony with fireworks exploding in the foreground, as the female protagonist runs to the main of authority sitting down in a two shot and then a extreme close up of both of their faces.

Towards the end of the video it shows the high authority male (villan) and the lead singer playing checkers which features two extreme close up shots of their faces and a close up of a move on the board which then cuts to a clip of the female character dancing on stage with a smoke effect, followed by a two shot of the males playing and extreme close ups again. Finally capped of with the lead singer Brandon Flower tipping the table over. The video is capped off with close ups of the band and the female character and the lead singer inbetween cuts and finally a long shot of the two sitting down with the lead singer walking away as the screen fades out.