
The Kills have recently introduced their upcoming album with the early release of the music video “Doing it to Death”, bringing much excitement to the fans for this new release. The song clearly shows very strong emotion on the ideas of life and death lyrically and also visually. It is simple to listen to the lyrics and understand a song’s meaning, however it is also important to view the visual effects and motifs within a video to truly understand it. For example, the setting, the color scheme, and the camera angle are major visual motifs in the music video. These visual motifs together throughout this music video truly show the audience how the artist feels towards death and what it makes life worth. The artists view on death makes them feel as if everything we do in life is simply nothing because we only do it to death.

The first of the major visual motifs is the setting, mainly because this is really the first thing the viewer notices. It is clear to the audience that the music video takes place in a graveyard, which helps the viewer understand more about what is going to happen. A graveyard is a gloomy and depressed setting, just like the song is. The first thing the viewer sees is a elevated view of the graveyard, to establish to establish the setting and also establish the gloomy mood of the video. The song is also about death, which is another reason for the use of the graveyard. The lines of people dressed in bland colors are walking for the majority of the video and doing the same dances and steps, which along with the lyrics, suggests they are just “doing it to death”. This march through the graveyard is also very symbolic of a funeral march, which is again another way of displaying how people only march and do it to death. They keep walking on until death, which comes at the end of the video, by no surprise because of the setting that remains throughout the whole video.

Another major visual motif is the colors shown throughout this video. Black and gray are prevalent all throughout this video to again give the gloomy, dead attitude described by the song. The characters are fully clothed in black and grey as they ride into the graveyard. We see the similar style all black cars and in the background nothing but gray tombstones. This black and gray color scheme displayed throughout the video reiterates the tone and style that is also shown in the songs lyrics. By listening to the lyrics we know the song is about death, but even if we disregard the lyrics the colors and other visual motifs point us in the same direction of death. Because the main theme is death and it takes place in a graveyard, the color black is easy to bring about in every way possible. It gives the reader the gloomy and deadly feel that the song also provides, which is what makes it such a successful major visual motif.

The third visual motif used in this video is camera angles and shots. Certain camera angles play an important part in music videos because they are major ways the artist can show perspective, setting, and even attitude. In this instance the shot in the beginning of the video establishes the setting and mood by showing the elevated angle of the people marching in with masses of gray tombstones behind them. This shot allows the viewer to view the whole setting. 

Another major shot is in the very end when the camera is in a first person view. The main character and several others are standing above the camera in a way that clearly shows the first person view of the inside of a grave. Throughout the video the lyrics say we only “do it until death” which is easy to see especially when the final shot is a first person view of the grave. This view is successful in allowing the viewer to truly understand the meaning of the song and bring it all full circle, which is why it is successful as a visual motif.

In the music video the artist’s main goal is to show the audience in a gloomy and dark way, that all we are doing in life is “doing it to death”.  The audience is urged to understand that stumbling through life like the actors in the video is pointless if we are only walking on to death. This is shown on a very simplistic level with the use of several visual motifs like setting, colors, and shots.

     