Genre research 2

Cinematography: -

The song is about the Battle of Balaclava in 1854 during the Crimean War, and is at least partially based upon Alfred Lord Tennyson's poem "The Charge of the Light Brigade" and in this beautifully almost poster like shot is the last section of that poem and in doing this they seem to be trying to honor their memory similar to those of the First and Second world wars.

Below is the first and generally one of the last pictures of the whole band throughout the entire video at 0:08.

Also they shoot some butifully frame shots of the band members as well.

Bruce Dickinson (vocals): -

Nicko McBrain (Drummr): -

Steve Harris (Bass Guitar): -

Dave Murray (Lead guitar): -

Adrian Smith (Rhythm Guitar): -

Sound: -

The instrumental that they play at 0:15 actually sounds like horses galloping so conveniently the add a section of the old film with a line of cavelry galloping.

When Bruce sings the lyrics "The smell of acrid smoke and horses breath" at 0:55 two images contributing to thre lyrics are shown before this the frist when he sings the line at 0:53 and the second of the horses breath at 0:25.

Mise en scene: -

In the old film the second shot is of the front line of cavalry starting to charge at the Russians it then cuts to a shot of the Russians loading their cannons showing the two sides getting ready for the battle that is about to commence.

Another interesting use of mise en scene is this shot of Bruce when he sings "You fire your musket but I run you through". And due to the framing of it and the camera angle it's snag almost menacingly.

I thought this was a lovely shot of Dave and Adrian singing the backing vocals and not only that but the shot must have ben very well thought about and planned out.

As was this one of Bruce to add a bit of variety to the shots used in the vidoe it's also nice because the floor contrasts to what Bruce is wearing so it makes it an intresting shot.

Editing: -

There's a piece of very good editing as soon as you open the video up. The symbol of Iron Maiden has been edited so that it jumps up at you from the screen which I thought was very cleaver.

I think Iron Maiden used the old film as a trasition so that within the video they could get from shot to shot without difficulty because most of the old film clips are in instrumental part where if the audience just looked atthe band playing there instruments they might start switching off so they inserted it because it's both relivent and useful.

And this was a very cleaver series of cuts to make sence of one of Bruces frestyles over two shot's the last of which is edited to mentain continuity.

Cinematography: -

Some really well thought of shots are in the opening of the video for instance this one at 0:34 is really carefully positioned and the lack of light makes it even more effective.

Another really good one it this one at 1:10 where the boy is coming out of the shop and the other 'cooler/ more normal' boys are just staring at him and the fact that they use a close up of the normal boys after it makes this one seem even more surreal.

Another I thought was very surreal was the image they shot at 1:25 of the boy putting some colourfull cereal into a bowl and then pouring some dirty tap water into it. Perhaps the reason they did this is to show that not every has white fluffy milk on their cereal but also because rock and metal are sort of about breaking away from the normality's of what people do so this may be a reflection of this concept by Slipknot.

Sound: -

The really effective use of sound was at 1:51 till 1:57 when the boys have thrown a brick through the Emo's window and to create the noise of this without the use of a sound effect the drummer lightly hits the symbols to make a sound similar to that of shattered glass falling on the flour.

Another good use of sound was at 2:03 when the lyrics are sang softer to show the change of mood and this is also shown by a cut away to a thunder storm which is also needed for continuity purposes because in the next section it's raining.

Another good use of sound was there was a brief note strummed from the bass guitarist at 3:15 to emphasize the rock going through the T.v to add dramatic effect and the fact that the bands name was on the screen is quite shocking really.

Mise en scene: -

A very quirky thing they've done with the Mise en Scene I though was in the opening where the band included black goats in quite a lot of their shots.

I thought this was a little Ironic because in the opening the boy is in a butchers and obviously cutting up meat and I thought is the goats trying to symbolise the meat being cut up in the butchers?

Editing: -

Straight away there's a good bit of continuity editing going on when the boy gets off the school bus because the boy on the bike comes across probubly to hide the boy waiting, it cuts to the boy getting off the bus and then it cuts to the boy contining to get off of te bus still moving forward to how that he's still moving off of the bus and the bus doors close to show passage of time.

Another good edit is the first section iside the shop where inbetween cuts to the band the boy walks up to the entrance of 'pete's meats, he's then inside walking up to the counter, he's then walking past the shelves and freezers which you can just about see on the left of the previous shot the man presumably pete looks at his as he walks in, he puts on he's apron and pete looks at him to show us where he is in relation to the shot and he has no ciggar to again show passage of time (either that or poor continuity editing).

And finally as mentioned before the last good piece of editin in this vidoe is the use of the storm as a cut away to introduce the rain sections.

Cinematography: -

A lot of close up's of the singer are used to emphasize lines of the song for instance a lot are used when Matt Tuck sings "Right now it's killing time"

They use a few establishing shots in the opening to show the viewer were they are performing.

And at brief intervals through out the video they cut to the band playing to maintain continuity and to avoide viewer fatigue of watching Matt sing but also some are used as cut aways in instrumentals because matt is only playing.

Sound: -

There isn't a use of Sound in this music video other than the lyrics of the song which are sang/ performed to by the band, artists, performers and producers (Bullet For My Valentine).

Mise en scene: -

An interesting use of Mise en Scene is at 0:46 where the Bridge before the Chorus contains the lyrics "Over the top, over the top" these lyrics are actually projected onto a screen probably to add emphasis to the lyrics as they are being snag and because the backing singers sing this particular section not the lead singer it adds a lot of emphasis to it.

Similar to this is the use of war like footage/ imagery which is used as part of the same projection to not only add colour to an otherwise colourless music video but it also enables the editor to cut to a shot as a cut away which not only connects and relates to the song/ the lyrics which are being sang but at the same time adds even more emphasis to the lyrics which are being sang during this cut away.

Examples of which are like this one at 0:54: -

This section at 1:03 - 1:07: -

(This one of the tank is my favourite because of the way it's shot the right hand of the screen has the main bulk of the tank the other half has the turret which fires in the one below).

And I thought this one was well shot the fact that the plain takes off of the screen almost.

This one at 1:19 was good to: -

And the last good one was this one at 1:33 of the bombing run: -

Editing: -

The best editing in the video has to be the cutting because it sems so effortless and it's like the shot you were looking at would naturally link to and be shown before the next one. Some of the best examples of this that I saw are as follows: -

The best editing throughout the entire video was this entire sction early on in the video which started at 0:08 and ended at 0:24 I chose thid dsection simply because I thought it was well timed to the music and the cutting was very cleaver and carefully thought of.

Cinematography: -

The opening has some really nice shots in it for instance this close up of the drummer hitting the symbol at 0:25 reflects that Metal is really dirty and the performers are so passionate that they don't mind what conditions they perform in weather it be dirt or rain as they perform in later on in the video.

Another beautifully filmed shot was this close up at 0:47 of the cups that get shattered right at the end of the video them put back together again to symbolize hat not everything about metal is breaking stuff.

The last really good use of Cinematography comes right at the end of the video where the last image we see is a mike on the floor which is the sort of symbol of Asking Alexandria.

Sound: -

The best use of sound other than the sound of the band singing the lyrics is the use of editing software to make the singers voices deeper. However there are some good uses of timing that coincide with the music to create effect.

For instance at 0:33 the drummer is hitting the snare drum and the light bulbs on this interesting looking lamp are flashing it time with it to create this sort of rushing fast paced feeling.

Then at 1:16 after the opening but before there main head banging rage section immediately after there's this shot of the glass of water bouncing around indicating that this is getting progressively more violent, ground pounding and angry.

And finally this at 2:00 because something Asking Alexandria always do in their music is that either halfway or three quarters of the way through they put in a lighter, sadder more emotional section in and it just so happens that the lamp goes really bright before they sing this section almost lifting, inspiring and overall lightening the mode of the music this is the contrasted my the really dark and scarier ending where again the music is changed but this time has a more techno feel to it then it returns to metal again.

Mise en scene: -

The first most crucial decision made by the person in charge of Mise en Scene in theis music video is the costume and the look of the set where the video was shot.

As seen from this screen shot the band is dressed in similar clothing and the set fits in with the dark colour scheme and again dirty black instruments and playing in the rain all of which are complementary of the music genre.

Another important decision they would have had to make is how to vary the types of shot used at certain points in the video.

For instance to emphasize lines like this one hear: -

For the line "Oh my God".








And finally the close up's of the objects that need to be shtterd: -

Editing: -

Some of the est editing in The Final Episode has to be the cutting because most of the cutting is t shot the movement of te objects which get shatterd and to shotw this they usually do a mix of close up's and mid shots of the band cut to a close up of an object before it's shatterd and go back to the band performing.

For example there's a lovely one which is right at the begining starting at 0:19 with a close up osf the glass of water when it's still -

It then cut’s back into a mid shot of the Bass and Rhythm guitarists bouncing up and down getting ready to rock out. Then it goes into a really well framed shot of the Drummer doing something that almost looks mystical.
Then comes a close up of him hitting ths symbols. Then the cutting get's quicker because the oppening music is relly quick because we briefly see a blured shot of the band then the Bassist jumping, then it cuts back to the drummer, then a close up of the symbols being hit again. We then see a shot of the Rhythem gutarist fliping his guitar around him head rocking on it and then doing a dramatic popular metalic pose of him holding the cord.

We then get shown this shot of the lamp right at the begining of the video and also for the first time it's lit up as well at 0:33 -

This is also in time for the drummer section which is a mid shot, it then goes into another shot of the band playing, then it's a mid shot of the lead singer singing in the centre of the shot with the band playing in the background. Then it get's intresting because it then show's the frist high tilted down arieal shot of the video and they only use these for the lead singer it then zooms out for the net one, then it goes into another blury one of the guitarists, then it's a mid shot showing the whole band head banging.

Then we are shown another close up of the cup's of tea before they get shatterd showing us that everything started of fine but gradually as time went on there started to be friction between them and then finally they get to breaking point.

But the best editing in the video has to be the montages used at the end used to repair the objects that have been shattered. They probably filmed this separately to the performance and just added it into the video in the editing process probably using either Final cut or Imovie.

This one the one of the cup of tea was my favourite -

Cinematography: -

Linkin Park always have the band performing at some point in their videos so most of the best shot images are of the band members anyway but for this particular video they are simply performing it rather than making a music video to go with it.

A well shot was this one at

Sound: -



Mise en scene: -



Editing: -