The video I have chosen to analyse is Waking The Demon by Bullet For My Valentine.
Narrative
The narrative of the video is clear. It tells the story of a metalhead who is being bullied in school- most likely because of his style and taste in music- by a group of jocks who have a clear leader (who we later find out is named Todd). The majority of the video has clips of the main character being bullied in various ways played alongside clips of the band performing the song.
The disruption in the video comes when the main character manages to lure Todd into a forest, before suddenly transforming into a werewolf and killing him. The final part of the video shows him back at school a few days later, when a new person starts bullying him. As the new bully walks off with his girlfriend (who was seen earlier in the video with Todd), she turns around and smirks at the main character, implying that she may be working with him.
This is an example of illustration, where the video reflects the content of the lyrics. The chorus specifically seems to be reflected in the scene where the main character turns into a werewolf and kills Todd – “Waking the demon/Where’d you run to?/Waking the demon/Watch the blood flow”.
Genre
It is clear from the video that the genre of the song is metal. The very first shot of the video shows the main character wearing an Iron Maiden t-shirt, which along with the rest of his outfit (skinny jeans, Converse, long black hair) shows that he is almost definitely a metal fan. This is also apparent when the band is first seen, as they are all wearing dark outfits and have rather long hair. Another reason that the genre is obvious is the manner in which the band is playing. All of them are headbanging and playing very fast, two things commonly associated with metal.
Representation
In the video, the metalhead is shown as a typical metalhead (band t-shirts, long hair), while the jocks are typical jocks (plain t-shirts, short hair). The only girl in the video is Todd’s girlfriend. Throughout the video, she is only seen with Todd, and the only time she isn’t is when she goes out with some of her own friends. Up until the end she seems like a typical female character in a video, but the ending throws up a lot of doubt, turning her character’s role on its head.
Media Language
The editing is simple throughout the entire video, with the clips appearing to the beat of the music. There is a wide variety of shots (from extreme close-ups to wide shots), which helps to display the narrative in a simple way.
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