RS - Deconstruction - Bullet for my Valentine - Waking the Demon

Artist: Bullet for my Valentine

Song Title: Waking the Demon

Year: 2008

Genre: Thrash Metal

Director: Max Nichols

Audience: 15-24

"Maiden" t-shirt

Bullet for my Valentine's music video for "Waking the Demon" is based on the narrative of a teenage metal fan (signified by wearing metal band t-shirts and locker filled with metal band posters) being bullied at school by the typical high school jocks. The jocks bully the metal fan by beating him and pouring milkshake on him. Throughout the music video there is cross cutting to a calender in which the teenage metal fan is counting down the days crossing them off. It gets to the date saying "full moon" and he circles it in red ink. (to signify blood) He then goes to the woods were the jock leader is with his girlfriend and gets the jock to chase him through the woods. The teenager then falls to the ground and there is a cut shot to the full moon. The teenager turns into a werewolf using special effects and attacks the jock leader, off camera. We then see the next day at school with the process starting again of the teenager getting bullied and crossing off the next day. There is a poster on the wall looking for the missing jock.

The lyrical meaning of the song is revenge. Matt Tuck, lead singer and guitarist, said:

"Waking the Demon is about finding someone's inner demon. Most of us in the band got pushed around in school so the song is about getting tormented, day in and day out for years, and then one day - 'snap!' - fight back!"

As well as the narrative side of the music video it also has a performance side in which the band play in a very dark wood location, only lit up by moonlight which links to the narrative. The dark shots are what you would expect for a typical music video for this genre. The performance side of the video features the frontman Matt Tuck lip syncing along with bass player Jason James lip syncing the screaming parts. The whole band also play their instruments for the performance side of the music video.

Shot of the whole band

 As you can see here the band are all playing. However the focus is not completley on the frontman which would be typical of a music video. For this video they feature the whole band in it alot more than a typical one because of the genre of the music, it's not just the frontman playing it's the whole band so they want to show it.

The video uses lots of cross cutting throughout the music video. The man cross cutting is between the narrative of the teenager getting bullied with the days going by and getting crossed off one by one on the calendar. Cross cutting is also used between the narrative of the video with the performance side, so footage of the band performing to the camera.

 Typical of this genre the music video contains the band headbanging in the performance shots which definatley would not be seen on a typical pop video. Instead of dancing which would be typical of the pop/dance genre the metal genre uses the headbang so it can be identified quickly when switching channels fast along with the dark scenes.

Special effects are used in the music video for the part when the teenager changes from human to the werewolf infront of the highschool jock in the wood scene. With digitisation it has become more available to use special effects in music videos without the budget being really high. The video is quite violent with the teenager getting beaten up and bullied along with the horror side of the werewolf evolving which is typical of this genre. However there is some exceptions to the pop genre such as Michael Jackson's thriller which uses the werewolf and the whole point of him turning into one, that example challenges the typical codes and conventions by using the werewolf etc.

The shots are fairly short in the music video because they need to appeal to the target audience and they would get bored if the shots are longer than a couple of seconds each. Lots of shot variation is also used to be attractive to the audience and not make them bored. If the shots are short and lots of them when people are changing channels they can quickly see what it is.

Michael Jackson's Thriller:





Waking the Demon: