A2 Media - Evile

The band “Evile” is one of the many bands that influenced that band “Vortex” the band that is the focus of our final project. The video for this song is very identical to the actual idea we have for out final project also, the location and the lighting are both two things that we will not be able to use as well as they have been done in this video. But there are particular elements of this video of which we feel would make a very good addition to our own project, namely the continuous cylindrical movement of the camera around the band that seemingly repeats itself while at the same time cutting off several times to different band members that is in fitting with the song. This idea of a continuous shot being interrupted and then fixed again is what me and James did in the initial preliminary project, not however to the extent or to the quality that it is done in this video but nonetheless we attempted it. The reason why this is a good technique to do in this type of video is to do with the fact that there is no narrative to accompany the video, and so it uses this continuous shot to act as a backbone to the video giving it a following or an underlying tone and structure. Some of the other pivotal points to make about this video is such things as the focus on the singer, and the shot that is used, very often when the camera is on the singer it is a straight up medium shot pointing directly at his face, the advantage of doing something like this is that it does enhance the emphasise on the singer and at the same time breaks down the video from the moving shots and the angled shots in the video. There is also an occasional long shot down, showing the band in the distance making them look in fact quite isolated, but also setting the scene of the video alerting the viewer to what is going on or not going on as the case may be for this one. This idea of isolation fits into the genre of music to which it resides, the metal genre is not a mainstream genre it does not enjoy the massive success like those bands in the charts instead it could rather be called more of a niche genre into which the fans are extremely loyal and dedicated to the genre itself.

A2 Media - Hammerfall

This band are not actually of the same genre as the band we are actually using, but they are still metal they are just in the genre of power metal rather than thrash metal. The band called Hammerfall made this video for the song "Any means nessecary", despite the fact of this being a different sub genre of metal i felt that this video lends an important insight as to what qualities a metal video that does contain a narrative if a very small one. The video itself contains a narrative or at least another element besides just the band playing the narrative of this story seems to be that of an explosion in reverse until at the end when it is fully reversed it is redone again. With regards to the actual song itself the use of the flames and the explosion in general relate to the title of the song “Any means necessary” suggesting they are willing to use any means necessary to get what they want. Not only this but in the video we can see multiple times where the band is being put in slow motion or they are not playing in time with the song due to the slow motion, this sort of element could be something we could incorporate into our final piece using the slow motion shots to create a sort of emphasise on a particular part of the song or a particular player in the band, but at the same time simply using it where we have not been able to sync up the music to the video. The content of the video is pretty much the same as any other metal video we have looked at, there are multiple shots of different length and angle on different members of the band and a constant slow motion is used seemingly on the drummer the most to put emphasis perhaps on the way he hits each drum and the symbols which is an interesting idea. However much more noticeable in this sub genre of metal is the focus on the singer this is one part from this video we will have to disregard. Furthermore the linking of the song with the video in a way in which when the song slowed down just before the guitar solo the music video had a sombre moment where the singer was moving toward the detonator, the timing of something like this really sets the scene of the video and the song which shows that when we begin to plan our own narrative we will really have to think about what we can do and how we can link it up with the music in a way to create such atmospheric effects that are related to both song and music. Also with the use of narrative we can defer away from the actual band and then so forget about the syncing of the music for a while examples this here is when the flames dance across the front of the screen consuming the full screen.