The Acacia Strain - The Impaler

Band: The Acacia Strain
Song Title: The Impaler
Genre: Deathcore
Release Date: 30 June 2011
Target Audiance: 15-24 Male audiance

Menacing figures

The video starts off with a diegetic intro which is a very common convention in music videos, this introduces us to the narrative or sets the scene. However in this video there isn't really a narrative it's more of a performance video, but it can be argued that the band are playing inside the man's beard as the shot zooms in very fast on the beard just as the music starts. The location of the rest of the video is a darkened room with two yellow lights facing towards the band, The lighting works very well as the shadows on the band members and the light are extremely contrasting and give the video a more 'evil' feel to it as the people in shot are seen less human and less glamorous with more shadow on them. The use of a fog machine can be clearly seen as the room is flooded in fog and partially blurs some of the shots.

The editing of the video is done very well and is very rapid this is to create a sense of urgency and violance without showing any violance as it's very frantic. The shots seem to be intentionally blurred to make the darkened figures (the band) more menacing.

The range of shots used differ a lot and the framing within the shots is very good. There seem to be a large amount of close ups/extreme close ups on the vocalist's (Vince) mouth, this is because another common convention of music video is used lip synching. There are also numerous close ups of the guitar from low angles suggesting the band member/s are dominating and in power. The shots seem to be done in a handheld fashion this could signify realism although seeing as they're playing in a mans beard I doubt that was the intention, but it can also signify movement and the power of the music this is a convention used in a large amount of video's in the extreme metal genre and even into genres like 'Hardcore'.