I will be analysing the video 'Bat Country' By the band Avanged Sevenfold. The Director is Marc klasfeld. The genre of the music is rock. It has charecterists of rock it shows various close-ups of the lead singer and the band playing, its also very fast and jumpy which is similar to most rock videos.
Use of mise-en-scene is interesting, the band is shown driving through a big long road on a desert and it goes back and forth between them driving along desert and inside a hotel room. The lighting outside is very bright and it creates an yellow glow on everything. Inside the hotel room its shady and dark theres alot of shadows and sometimes single colours shining on the band. The use on cinematography is through the video theres alot of shots from weird angles showing only body parts of the band like from the wasit down. The camera movements are wierd as its jumpy and doesnt stay still it moves alot going from side to side. The pace of the video is very fast it cuts from shot to shot continuously especially when the chorus comes in. It goes from each member of the band constantly during the chorus. The transitions between shots somtimes fade out or double over onto the next shot. The special effects used are wierd but interesting CGI is used to make loads of bats fly around the band and the car when they are driving down the highway and the band members are shown trying to fight of the bands with fly squatters this fits with the song name 'Bat country'. There car sprouts bat wings as its driving down the highway aswell. When the guitarist does a solo in the background there are loads of bats flying out from behind the building he's infront of. About halfway through the song the people in the music video they start going disfigured like your looking at them while on drugs point of view. As there eyeballs go really wide and there smiles wide. And at a point one of the casino workers has a lizard head.
The relationship between the lyrics and the visuals is great. Here is some examples of it. The lyrics 'Caught here in a fiery blaze, won't lose my will to stay
I tri-ie-ied to drive all through the night,
The heat stroke ridden weather, the barren empty sights.
No oasis here to see, the sand is singing deathless words to me.'
This is shown in the video of them driving down the barron stretch of the desert highway as its going to be extremely hot and no water around this is shown in the video. 'Too many doses and I'm starting to get an attraction' This goes back to what I said earlier from the drugs point of view. The lyrics suggest they have been taking drugs making them see people with lizard heads and tounges( you can see this at 3:34 in the video) and also eyes bobbing out ( at 2:35 ). The visuals go very well with the lyrics. The visuals do cut to the beat of the music. The instrument solo's are illustrated in the video, on the main guitar solo the guitarist is shown standing outside a hotel playing guitar, while in the background bats fly out from behind the building. The video does change pace on the speed of the music that is playing especially during the chorus it goes particulary with the visuals cutting between each of the band members and various shots. The band image is shown as a bunch of guys who have gone to vegas and taken alot of drugs. It show the rock and roll image that the band is trying to show. This video is close to some of the other videos that they have done. As most of the bands video's are rather dark and gloomy and showing the band perform. There are girls used on sexual display on the video, the band members with the half naked girls in bed getting drunk and doing drugs with them showing them in a strip club as theres poledancers.
Ive found some postive responses to this video. 'It's like a psychedelic drug that I can overdose everyday and still not get tired' 'I could watch this over an over an still love it!' Ive found some negative responses to the video also. 'the songs good but the videos just a rip of' 'videos boring as hell!' There are mixed opinions of the music video. But overall i found there is more positive than negative comments. So I believe this is a succesfull music video.
This whole video is based on the movie 'Fear and loathing in vegas'(originally from a book) The beggining quote 'He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man Dr. JOHNSON' this same quote is used at the begginging of the movie Fear And Loathing in vegas. Where two guys drive a car alot like the one in video with loads of drugs. The drugs effect them and making them see bats attacking their car so they fend of the bats with fly squatters. And also in the casino's they start seeing lizard people who look like there trying to eat them. There are alot of references to the movie in the video. Heres a trailer for the movie I couldnt find the specific parts so this has abit of everything in it. Lots of the scenes are similar to the music video.
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