The killers, Shot at the night, video was directed by Roboshobo and was released September 2013. The Killers are a indie rock band from Vegas, Nevada, which will become relevant later. The band consists of four members with Brandon Flowers as the head of the group. This song was released as a single, set apart from their four award winning albums. The Killers brought their own style to the genre and quickly became one of the biggest names. The video is a performance based video featuring Brandon Flowers, alongside a narrative story about a maid working in the gambling central of the world, when she meets a boy, played by "The Social Network" and "The Internship" star Max Minghella, and they hit it off at first sight.
The video starts by fading from black to a short time lapse shot of the Vegas strip. This first two second clip instantly gives the audience the mood of the song and video, with the bright lights and cars rushing by it helps to portray the atmosphere of Vegas. The group have chosen to film it in Vegas because it is where they were born as the killers and they all see it has a home. It is also a large part of the identity of the band and this video helps to strengthen that. This establishing shot also helps to set the scene for the narrative of the video. After four beats of the song the video jump cuts to the location of an apartment or penthouse suite of a tall building looking over the strip. The focus is on the foreground with the blurred lights of Vegas in the background. This shot helps to establish the location for the performance based section of the video. after another two seconds the video cuts to a midshot of Brandon Flowers the lead singer of The killers in a similar location to the previous shot with the backdrop of the city. The next 4 seconds shows a timelapse establishing shot over the city from night to dawn and introduces the title of the video "Shot of the night". this shot sets a time for the narrative which begins in the next shot. The next few shots introduces the main character of the narrative in her job as a maid in a large casino. These shots show her cleaning mostly empty rooms and the casino floor with a glum look and a bleak outfit which greatly contrasts her surroundings. These features also help to immediately distinguish her distaste with her job,
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In this shot we see this great contrast between her grey work overalls and the lavish surroundings of the apartment and occupants of it. With large TVs, champagne and the woman in her party dress, this hotel suite has all the check boxes ticked for a cliched expensive pent house room. This is also where the lyrics first start with "Once in a life time". These lyrics help to link to the exuberant lives of the party goers in comparison to the maid.
Two shots later the lyrics also link up with the video as it cuts to the maid in a lift carrying some towels while two casino guests show some intimacy to each other behind her. "The suffering of fools" is the line sang and this shows how she is a fool in her current job. she is also being ignored by the couple as they share the lift. this shows how little respect people have of someone with her job.
Next we see Brandon Flowers again with an over the shoulder shot looking down on the strip below him, which can relate to goodwins theory of looking. The lyrics he sings, "To find our way home," shows how the groups home is Vegas and helps to greater define their identity. The next two shots are also of the maid punching out at her job and heading home. Her home is also very plain, it is small and very colour neutral, this all helps to link in with her image as someone with no real personality or desire.
The song then begins to pick up pace before the chorus and the lyrics match up with the visuals as the visuals cut faster between the narrative and performance in order to keep up with it. the video cuts between her at home feeding her cat which is another sign of her loneliness and crave for companionship and two panning shots of Flowers.
We then see her fall onto her bed as the chorus starts and the shot cuts to the view from her bed out of her window between the curtain. This shot helps to emphasise the hours worked by the maid and to create some sympathy with the audience.
As the chorus ends and the second verse starts we see the maid driving down the strip with the reflection on her windshield. she wears the same vacant, tired expression as before. As she is driving she looks out over the bright sights of the Vegas sgtrip including grand, fake, castles and glass pyramids and as she is glaring of into the distance she snaps back into reality and is forced to slam on the breaks as she almost hits a pedestrian. It is at this point we first see any emotion from the maid as she locks eye contact with the man and they instantly both smile and have a connection, almost like the classic love at first sight cliche. The lyrics up to this point in the video are "Draw me a life line, 'cause honey I got nothing to lose, Once in a lifetime" this shadows the maids narrative as she is stuck in a dead end job with "nothing to loose". The "once in a lifetime" line also links to the idea of one destined love.
He greatly contrasts her, he has a bright blue suit on and seems happy and in a rush, overall more uplifting. This is also where the song becomes more bright again as it leads into the chorus showing that he has a positive correlation with the song. After more shots of her at her mindless job we see a long shot of her down a hotel corridor as no other than love at first sight comes out of the door. This helps to solidify the fate equation of the relationship. At this point the both stop stare and smile, the second time in the video both of which due to the male protagonist. as the chorus repeatedly plays "Give me a shot at the night"
As they drag her inside and find her clothes to wear we now first see her in colour as they apply red lip gloss, which is a reference to Goodwin's theory of looking and the sexualisation of women, and a green dress. This is a clear representation of how he has influenced her.
The next few scenes show her out in Vegas with him laughing and enjoying herself. This contrasts greatly with her at the start and is showing her "shot at the night." the lights are no longer a negative as she sits on the back of a scooter driving along the strip beneath them. All of the shots which feature her now are colorful and vivid and show the difference in perspective that Vegas offers including all the cliches such as loosing at roulette a wedding officiated by an elvis impersonator in a tiny pink chapel and the sun rising at dawn.
As the song slowly winds down she hands back his jacket after kissing him and runs of out of focus of the shot back to the casino job, however now in a much more positive mood.
