Video analysis: Emeli Sande – Heaven

Video analysis: Emeli Sande – Heaven

  The central theme for the song and the music video, is guilt and despair. The whole video is filmed in what appears to be the ‘bad sides’ of London. This gives the viewer the impression of poverty and despair. Another message from the lyrics and the video is that you shouldn’t judge someone just because of their situation/environment. For example, when the baby is stuck in the pram when it’s raining we feel sorry for it and maybe perhaps feel anger at the parents but we quickly see a womanly hand reach down to feed it, this reassures us that the baby is cared for but perhaps the family is struggling, it also implies to not judge something as soon as you see it. We see the repeating theme throughout the video.

  The genre of the song is obviously pop/R&B; this is also supported by the pop style of music video. The bright colours and flashing lights of the camera flare/fades/cuts and lights are all conventional pop symbols. The singer Emeli Sande is clearly dressed up with jewellery and makeup, another convention of the pop genre. The majority of the video is filmed with a vintage filter to make it look modern and be appealing the young modern audiences. This could be a sign of intertextuality as it is one of the more popular filters on social media such as: ‘Instagram’. The close ups and angled shots showing/presenting the singer is also a convention of pop genre, the idea is to show how great the artiste is and they accomplish this by giving them loads of close up screen time. The music video although shows signs of being R&B based, it does in some ways break/go against the classical conventions of female R&B music. The video is about all the poverty and sadness in the world which is comparative to the classical rich almost bragging style of music video.

  The video itself contains many connotations and symbols relating to the idea of heaven and hell. The actual song is called ‘heaven’ so it makes sense that there are messages and hints towards heaven throughout the video. Right from the outset we see flashes of orange light which could be representing the sun which connotes hope and strength. We see the artiste Emeli Sande at the start with half her face in the shadows which could represent the agathokakological (composed of good and evil) nature of humans, this relates to the first point where the video is about not judging others, this could be representing that because it shows there’s two sides to a person. The video also contains many shots of the sky and the clouds showing the interest in heaven. For a brief second we see the top of a church cross also symbolising heaven/god. After that we see a woman in a red dress walking down stairs into the dark which could be symbolic of sin once again showing the constant balance of good and evil. We also see before the fast paced music beat kicks in, a man in a blue tracksuit sitting in what looks to be a dark porch, showing he may have been turned away from heaven and is now sitting in the dark. We also see what appears to be a homeless man with a white beard which is once again showing that despite what he looks like he still is a person and is possibly saying, since the white lights behind him, that god won’t judge you by your ‘cover’. As the music speeds up we see through a gated fence which is blurred out red lights flaring in the distance, this could be symbolic that as night comes out so does the bad/evil. This is also again showing the difference between people.