Visual Codes
The video is set in quite a residential area, in a domestic home. The music video involves a man and a woman so the neighbourhood and house may present a married couple.
In the first shot which can be seen in the video, the moon is in the centre of the frame. The significance of this arises from the supernatural and eery connotations the moon holds. It is used to signify Werewolves, predominantly, but it is also used as a signifier for supernatural activity or strange occurrences.
This could foreshadow some mysterious behaviour in the video and set a theme for the music video.
There are a lot of close up shots used to show the teary eyed man, This allows the audience to visually see the emotion as well as just hearing it from the lyrics.
The man is seen to be driving home to his wife or girlfriend who is leaving him and the expressions on his face show pain, sadness and possibly guilt, this is all made clearer by the use of close ups.
Technical Codes
There is a shot of the female character used which makes it clear that she is packing her things to leave.
This gives the video perspective and makes the narrative easier to follow. This also explains the male characters actions and why he is rushing home in his car, teary eyed. The effect created shows a domestic situation which connects to the lyrics of the song 'Hold On'.
The editing technique is quite slow in the majority, with the exception of some scenes like the male character searching upstairs for his female partner.
These screenshots show the time of the video and how quite the editing is in this scene. The cuts are all standard cuts, there are no transitions. This may be because of the already confusing narrative, transitions would have been slightly distracting.
Genre
The genre of the song 'Hold On' is of the Indie Pop genre. The video also entails some of these elements like the emotional storyline which can usually be seen in Indie videos as well as the ambiguous narrative which requires depicting. The artist, SBTRKT, has been described to mix elements of dubstep, house, soul, techno and garage into his music also making his genre quite vast. The narrative isn't that typical because the expectation, based on the genre and lyrics, is that at the end of the video the male character will find his partner and they will reconcile their relationship. However, in this video the subverted narrative shows that he keeps seeing his wife from inside the house but whenever he leaves the house she vanishes. This highlights the supernatural element to the video which can also be seen in other SBTRKT videos like Trials Of The Past.
Narrative
Within the video, the male character is shown to be driving while a female character is packing her things up to leave. Immediately we, as the audience, assume he is racing back to stop her from leaving. Throughout the rest of the video the male character is trying to locate the female character, however, he never finds her. Todorov's structure isn't incorporated into the video due to the lack of equilibrium and the entirety of the video appears to be a reconciliation of the destruction. Due to only being 2 characters in the video it is also unlikely Propp's theory could be considered. We don't see enough of the female character to apply a theoretic character to her and the male character doesn't show signs of being a 'hero'. One of the lyrics of the song is 'I called you later and you were outside' which strongly reflects the predominant scene of the female character being stood outside while the male character looks on.
Organisations
Young Turks are the name of the record label that SBTRKT is signed to. While he is a successful self-taught producer, the influence of the record label, financially, shows a great deal of benefit when it comes to this video. It isn't an extravagant video because Young Turks are still an independent label but without them SBTRKT may not have been able to afford to produce a video for this song. Aaron Jerome (SBTRKT) is sold as a quite a mysterious producer with his songs matching the enigmatic persona of him and support the concept of anonymity. He is never seen in the videos for his music and doesn't feature on his album covers. The tribal mask which is the logo for SBTRKT is also a headpiece that Jerome wears when he performs his music live.
SBTRKT started his music on the popular music sharing website Soundcloud. It is a website in which rising artists can make their music available for the public to listen to. SBTRKT still distributes his music through Soundcloud as well as his albums and EP's.
Audience
The target audience for the video is both males and females, but more males, from the ages of 15 - 30. This is because of the indie nature of the music the audience would be expected to be between these ages. The video is quite complex in understanding and the relationship aspect would make the video suited for possibly older than 15 year olds. Uses and Gratifications theory could be one way in which audiences are attracted to the video. Relationships are a way of creating a more widely accepted music video because the majority of people can relate with the video and understand the video, making it more popular.
Representation
Relationships are represented the most in this video. However, it could be said to be un-stereotypical. In this video we see the female character leaving the male but the male is very emotional and trying to find her throughout the video. This shows dependence and how the woman could be said to be superior to the male.
These screenshots show the male character as 'lost' without his female counterpart showing an un-steretypical representation of gender.
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