MUSIC VIDEO REVIEW - The Strays by Sleeping With Sirens

“Hood caps”, “Ash trays” and a swarm of fans around the picturesque city of Manchester, UK. Sleeping With Sirens (SWS) music video for ‘The Strays’ features all of the above and more.

Starting out with a birds-eye view of a car junk yard, shortly followed by a close up of a young woman’s face, additionally showing off a lens glare from the camera, showing its authenticity and enhancing the viewers interest. ‘The Strays’ portrays different locations around Manchester, UK. 

Sleeping With Sirens, a 5 piece American rock band from Orlando, Florida filmed the music video for ‘The Strays’ in Manchester, UK on the same day as one of their headlined shows. Using an assortment of willing fans from outside the venue, the band traveled around the city to capture different shots.

Aesthetically pleasing to the Mancunian fans, there’s a range of tracking shots for example a tracking shot of a flock of pigeons flying off, and tracking fans running. It is particularly a effective type of shot to use because it enhances the viewers attention, to the video because they feel as though they are part of the video. Additional to this, using a mid shot of fans running past the camera makes, the audience member feel as though the camera is their eyes, whilst they’re hidden behind an object. Moreover, using fans in the video, has a huge significance to the song, as the song is voicing to the fanbase that as a community, fans are one. They are there for one another and everyone may be unique but they are, all collectively strong.

As a whole this music video is more narrative based rather than performance based, however with the fans do get to see performance in the final third of the video, where the audience watches the audience and the band prepare for essentially what can be seen as a live performance. It is a common convention of rock bands, and bands in general to do performance shots with instruments because it gives new audience members a sense of who they are and how they play. Additionally it helps fans in general relate to the video in a nostalgic way as the audience member may have seen them perform live, so it makes it a more enjoyable experience, being sentimental to when they saw them.

On occasion the different shots, cut to beat which also enhances the audience members attention as they can more often than not feel comfortable watching the video; because it sticks to the motion of the audio. Finally one last thing to note about this video in particular is it reuses the shot it begins with. However uses it in a reverse motion so instead of a track forward, it tracks backwards. This gives a sense of a story like motion, as the shot has been repeated and it is almost as if you have watched a memory or a future event, by repeating the shot the audience feel like they have gone back to the beginning before, it all happened.

“We are the strays”, insinuates Sleeping With Sirens. For the fanbase of SWS, “we” for sure are “the strays”, “we” are a strong fanbase and this video really enhances that for the fans of Sleeping With Sirens.