I chose to storyboard an excerpt of the music video for “Sacrilege” by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. This music video is interesting because the story is told in reverse, from end to beginning. The entire thing isn’t reversed, by rather plays forward about five seconds, then jumps back about ten seconds and plays for five, then jumps back another ten, and so on. I found this to be a really compelling way to tell a pretty simple story: an angry town chases down and kills a man and a woman who were having an illicit affair. By reversing it, the viewer only realizes why they are being hunted (and by whom) at the end of the video, already aware of the tragic ending.
Anyways, here’s a thirty second break down of the video from 1:00 to 1:30 in as much detail as I could muster.
00: Camera faces an old man, shot from below at night in a car. Wind blows his hair to the right. There are red gleaming lights in the bottom right hand corner. The man looks grim.
01: Switch to Main Girl, who looks sick and is riding next to the old man in the car at night. Red lights are behind her head, gleaming white lights over her right shoulder. Flashing red lights from behind. She looks from her left to her right, presumably at the passengers of the car sitting next to her. She looks very cold.
02: Girl turns her head to look pleadingly to her right.
03: Switch to the man on her right, wearing a dog-ear hat. A police car is in view over his right shoulder. He looks less grim, more like he isn’t sure that he is doing the right thing.
04: Lights still flashing in the background. The hatted man glimpses to his left but can’t look all the way at the girl on his left.
05: Shot of houses flying by. It’s night and there is snow on the ground. The houses are dark and presumably empty.
06: Switch to Masked Lover running. He wears a wife beater (white) and black boxer briefs. The mask on his face looks like the devil and its stuck to his face with silver duct tape. He’s running down the middle of the street, towards the camera. All the buildings on either side are deserted—it looks like a small downtown area.
07: The masked lover is still running, sprinting, forward. Flashes of blue police lights behind him by about 100 yards.
08: A bullet strikes Masked Lover from behind, creating a red circle in the front of the wife beater. The force of the blow causes him to jump forward, and scene switches to view the shooter from the right side. He has on black gloves, a heavy beige jacket, and a wide-brimmed hat. Behind/beside him is the police car. He is aiming what looks like a rifle towards the left side of the screen. Behind him is a building with four porch lights on.
09: zoom in on the shooter, showing intense expression on his shadowy face. The underside of his hat’s brim is illuminated red as the police lights flicker.
10: camera switches at about three feet from the shooter’s face. Now there are three people in the picture: the shooter, another old man, and a teenage boy. The shooter raises his weapon and prepares to shoot. The teenager is doubled over in laughter. The old man wears all black and also looks grim or angry. He punches his right fist forwards and seems to loudly jeer while the teen continues to laugh and jump around hollering.
11: Switch view to Masked Lover running again. This time he is less far away from the other three at the police car. He is also revealed to be wearing black socks.
12: Clearly sprinting for his life, the Masked lover glances back, showing more clearly the duct tape around his head, as well as the long nose of the mask. This glance is shot from below, with streetlights above him appearing next to his left shoulder.
13: Masked lover looks straight ahead again. His arms are pumping in time with his legs.
14: Switch to the three men again, this time letting go of the masked lover so he could take off sprinting. The future-shooter releases him while the old man and the teenager stand beside him shouting. At first the teenager pursues the masked lover, but then falls behind quickly and begins to jump wildly, seeming to taunt the running masked lover. The teen is wearing a brown and yellow plaid coat. Snow is visible on the ground behind them. The camera follows the masked lover as he is released and then running.
15: The teenager jumps wildly into the air from to the right of the running masked lover, seen now from behind, to the left of the running masked lover. The teens arms are up like they’re wings and he continues to leap around excitably to the left, like he’s about to take off flying. You see the masked lover glance back.
16: Switch to masked lover back in captivity by the police car. Police car on the left, hood facing right. Closest to the camera is the teenager, or his back, as everyone is faced away from the camera. He is watching while the shooter and the old man struggle with the masked lover.
17: The old man has masked lover’s left arm in both of his hands. Masked lover looks with his face at the shooter, who is all but obscured by the masked lover. Camera spans right. The teenager, in profiles now, is laughing. The masked lover struggles, his left arm held now by both the old man and the shooter. They look like they’re trying to lead him somewhere. The street behind them has no cars and there is snow on the sidewalk.
18: The masked lover pulls free of the two men. The shooter tries to grab him by his shirt, then points after the masked lover as he breaks free. The old man is to the shooter’s right (left on the screen) and has his right hand up in the air like “why did you let him go?” The teenager begins his excited jumping. The shooter raises his pointed finger to above the masked lover’s head as if to say, “yeah, you’d better run.”
19: Shooter now obscured by teenager moving right. Masked lover looks back while beginning to run, one hand outstretched behind him as though pleading the shooter not to shoot. For the first time you see a building with interior lights on. It’s the first house the masked lover passes down the street. The camera spans to look down the street where the masked lover is running. The teenager jumps forward, beginning to make an excitable attempt at recapture.
20: This is the same shot as at :14 but shot from behind instead of beside the three men.
21: Switch to the masked lover in captivity again. His right arm is held by the shooter and his left by the old man. Masked lover is facing the camera and the hood of the police car, but the old man and shooter are facing away. Everything in this shot is neutral and dark excepted the masked lover’s mask and wife beater. The two men pull him forward towards the car (and camera).
22: The two men turn to push masked lover into the hood of the car. Teenager is revealed behind masked lover now, laughing unkindly. Masked man struggles and turns his face to the right when he is pushed into the hood.
23: Switch back to main girl. It is dark save eerie red light and a single flashlight. Screen at first obscured by a back, but camera pans right to reveal main girl is surrounded by at least seven people. To her right is the dog-ear-hatted man. She is wearing a tank top and a light jacket which is falling off her shoulders. She is looking around to her right, illuminated in red. Hat guy holds her left arm.
24: Switch to a shot from behind her and to the right. Only her front is lit, shoulders and up, while two shadowy red figures loom in the background. To the right of her, camera spans left as she looks around wildly to her left. A man approaches her on the right. The camera pans to her left side revealing three more approaching figures. The red light is angled across the shot from mid left to bottom right.
25: Camera still panning around her, men closer now, about 10 or 15 feet away. Switches to show her whole body from the front. Under her jacket she is wearing only underwear. At least eight flashlight beams are on her, as well as the source of all the red light, a light stick someone far back is holding. She kind of tugs at the bottom of her jacket.
26: Camera zooms in as men close in around her. Then it switches to a shot of her running with several red and white lights running behind her. It looks like she’s running down an unpaved road in a field. It’s still night.
27: She seems to stumble a little and slows perhaps realizing capture is inevitable.
28: Switches to her running again towards the camera but her front is not lit up and she forms a silhouette. Behind her, further back now, run several men with flashlights. Also red spotlights seem to be around them.
29: She continues to run, now mirroring masked lover as she uses arms and legs to sprint. While she runs she pulls her jacket back up onto her right shoulder.
30: switch to feet (boots) running on red ground. The feet make near silhouettes and there are several feet, implying these are the feet of main girl’s pursuers.
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