Coldplay - 'The Scientist' Video by

The Scientist Video Link

The video starts with the singer lying on a mattress. As he starts singing the shot zooms out and then fades into a longer shot of the singer. The shot then pans around his face and in the background a biker is riding backwards and the singer gets up as if the video is played backwards too. The camera circles around the singer in a panning motion, then shows a slow motion of a bike trick, which fades into a medium shot. The next sequence is of the singer walking backwards down a street but singing the lyrics forwards. The shots fade into each other as the singer then jumps backwards over a wall. The shots are all mainly joined by fading into one another. The is also a sequence of a basketball game played backwards so the ball is coming back out of the hoop. Slow-motion is also used as the singer walks backwards across railway tracks, which seems to be on the beat. Then there is a fade to black as the next shot changes location again to a very long shot of the singer walking backwards towards a forest. The shot cuts closer into the forest, as it suddenly gets dark. When its daylight again, the singer puts on his coat and does up the buttons to the beat of the music. At this point the viewer sees an idea of narrative as there is a woman lying on the floor. The medium shot shows the singer getting back into a car and cuts to the wheel and the woman as tiny pieces of glass fly back into the window screen with her body. A log shot and a pan through trees shows the car roll back up the hill, past a truck and shows the woman took off her seat belt to take her coat off. The mise-en-scene throughout suggests at first a street scene with graffiti but the viewers attention is mainly drawn to figure out how the video is going backwards, this makes the video unconventional and interesting to watch.