The Naked and Famous – Young Blood Analysis

The video opens with a background of soft pastel colours blending into each other, almost like clouds. Pastel colours are often symbolic of babies, thus it is immediately emphasising the importance of youth to the audience. Both pale pink and blue are featured, thus indicating that it is targeted at both genders, that youth is united as a whole. The song title ‘Young Blood’ then appears on screen in handwritten style text, appearing somewhat childlike, thus again further pushing the message of youth to the audience. The text is white, connotating innocence and purity, therefore implying that these are aspects of youth. It follows no particular narrative, instead it is a montage of non related shots of young people, each shot showing a different person doing a different action. These actions are exciting and empowering to the audience, from floating in the middle of vast spaces of water, jumping on cars and running through huge open green fields. These images can be seen as very inspirational to the audience, as the figures are portrayed as free and happy, enforcing the idea youth and how it should be reckless and fearless. This is for example enforce by the image of a cut hand with blood trickling down the fingers, however this is not presented in a negative light, it seems to send the message that youth is meant to be somewhat dangerous. A wide variety of camera angles are used throughout the video, creating both and artistic atmosphere to the video and again enforcing this feeling of inspiration. There are some odd yet even iconic images, such as a girl walking slowly into a lake eventually immersing herself in the water. This can be symbolic of accepting youth and all that comes with it, and the moral message that this is a positive thing for young people to do, despite the negativities. Each shot shows only one person in the frame, this can be symbolic of individuality in youth, which is a value of teenagers as a group thus appeals to the target audience. It will also appeal to individualists as will the quirky original images, this means again it will appeal to its target audience as those that listen to indie/alternative music are typically individualists or mainstreamers believing themselves to be individualists.
The band members are featured in the video, however they are presented in the same way as all the non band members, they are not idolised in any way. This means the audience will interpret them to be equal and more able to identify with then, essentially creating a feeling of unity in young people, which corresponds with the message from song lyrics. Instead it seems to idolise the idea of being ‘young and foolish’ and implies that we must make mistakes whilst we are young. It is empowering to the teenage audience and gives a positive representation of them as a group, which may particularly appeal to them as it accepts their faults but still views these as good things. It drastically contrasts with many of the portrayals and stereotypes of teenagers given in the media, thus this fresh new take on adolescence will attract a wider audience and variety of people Teenagers will feel like they are part of something and a sense of belonging when watching this video, relating to the concepts of personal identity and personal relationships from the uses and gratifications theory.