I chose to use two repeating scenes from the music video of It’s Not My Time, a song by the rock band 3 Doors Down, as my repeating motif. The two scenes depict vastly different endings to the same story. I chose to use the scene at 0:16 to show the untimely demise of the mother and daughter and the scene at 3:52 to show their chance encounter with their savior. These two scenes show how minuscule discrepancies in everyday routines can mean the difference between life and death.

During the first scene at 0:16 and the moments leading up to it, a mother and daughter pair are shown riding in a station-wagon having a relaxed, polite conversation. The mother enters an intersection with a green light, however, a delivery truck runs its red light and approaches from the right side of the car. The scene at 0:16 shows the delivery truck hit the car broadside at full speed, most likely resulting in the fatalities of the mother and child. In the foreground of the scene, the daughter is shown gripping her teddy bear with all of her might as she sees the large vehicle approaching from her side of the station-wagon. In the midground and background, the front of the delivery truck is shown only inches from the car door. Two color schemes are used in this scene which provide contrast in the image. The colors of the interior of the car are vibrant, such as the blue shirt the girl is wearing. On the other hand, the colors of the intersection are monotone gray. Perhaps this gray color scheme represents the bleak outcome of the crash before it happens. The type of shot used in this scene is medium shot which creates a close relationship with the daughter and the peaceful world she lives in by placing the viewer in the driver’s seat of the station-wagon. The young girl uses semi-reciprocal gaze as she observes the incoming truck. Semi-reciprocal gaze has to be assumed because the viewer cannot see the face of the mother or of the delivery truck driver. This scene depicts the tragic ending of the overall story, but the second scene toward the end of the video shows the alternative outcome of this situation.

The second scene at 3:52 shows a man run out in front of the car before it goes through the intersection. The man does not seem to have sustained any injuries during this collision, but he seems more relieved than one would expect in a situation such as this. I believe the reason he is more relieved than expected is because he knows he prevented a worse accident from occurring. The moments leading up to this scene cause me to believe this is true because he notices the car while it is travelling down the road and he shows a great deal of angst upon seeing it. Only a preconceived notion of the crash could explain for his anxiety. For one to fully understand how the second scene comes about, he or she must watch the video in its entirety. 

For the majority of the video, the man who stops the car is shown performing parkour movements, a type of extreme sport that involves jumping from building to building and vaulting over fences. He is also shown running sporadically throughout the city, receiving disapproving stares from bystanders causing one to think the man is either running from someone or is mad. His place in the video is unclear until he is shown stopping the car in the scene at 3:52. His purpose is a mystery because his actions leading up to the second scene are depicted as being abnormal in contrast to the calm demeanor of the mother and daughter in the car. At 3:52, in the foreground of the scene the man is shown with his hands on the hood of the car as he tries to get the mother to stop. In the background, the delivery truck is seen passing through the intersection where the accident in the first scene occurred. The color scheme used in the scene is a bland, monotone gray, most likely depicting the seriousness of the situation. Medium shot is used in the scene to show the emotions of the man while also allowing the viewer to see the delivery truck pass in the background. The gaze used in this scene is reciprocal because the mother and man have both locked onto each other’s eyes. I think the unwavering eye contact between the two portrays the understanding they share that a collision with a delivery truck was avoided.

Before viewing the music video for It’s Not My Time, I thought about the title and imagined a person who was staring death in the face, but who refused to fall. After watching the video a couple of times, I noticed that the collision with the delivery truck only occurred once. Later I realized the second scene shows the alternative to the crash by showing the delivery truck pass through the intersection without causing any damage. The intervention of the mysterious man most likely saved the lives of the two passengers in the car. I believe this moment of salvation was calculated by the man before he intervened because of the emotion he shows while observing the car in traffic before the accident. He would have to know the accident was going to occur because he would not seem so nervous while watching any other car going down the street. My theory is that he knew the accident was going to occur before it happened and he chose to race across the city in order to save the mother and daughter from their doom. He is shown meditating before beginning his parkour stunts which may have allowed him to see into the future and observe the accident. He may have imagined the exact route he would need to take in order to arrive at the right place at the right time. The combination of his anxiety, meditation, and the risks he took to reach the intersection provide a strong case for a preconceived rescue attempt. 

The vast difference shown by the two selected scenes in the video shows how miniscule discrepancies in everyday routine can mean the difference between life and death. The man who saved the mother and daughter must have seen the accident before it happened. His emotions, combined with the risky actions he took to arrive at the intersection supports this theory. His pre-run meditation might have allowed him to visualize the accident and see what he needed to do in order to prevent it. The video for It’s Not My Time shows how our lives are dependent upon the brave actions of other people.
