In terms of music video conventions, this video definitely abides by Goodwin's theory that there is a relationship between the music and visuals, as the high-speed editing, and fast cuts, really compliment the tempo of the song. Given the heavy nature of the Post-Hardcore musical genre, the video is heavily performance-based, which is another convention that Goodwin wrote about, as this video takes on the generic style of a video belonging to this musical sub-genre.
This video has no clear narrative structure running throughout. There are short shots of richly saturated backlit silhouettes of men holding large spherical balloons, which don't really carry any obvious connotations or ideologies. Given that the production is almost entirely performance-based, any ideologies are hard to be found embedded within the video. This is typical of this musical genre, as the bands aren't really trying to reflect social contexts, but more so themselves, as musical artists. The video footage is very contrasty, and there are lots of shadows and heavy use of low-key lighting. These are all conventions of the musical genre, as they reinforce the harshness of the music, and the vocals.
Overall, the video reflects the musical genre by abiding by the generic conventions of the music video genre, but adapting them to suit the Post-Hardcore musical sub-genre, more specifically, such as with extremely fast editing (adapting the convention of short shots lengths), and close ups of the artist (canted angle, high-speed, stab shots):
Close Your Eyes - Song For The Broken:
This video contains a typical location for this genre of music video. It's gritty, downbeat, and harsh in construction, which reflects the style of the song, and also the song title itself "Song For The Broken". Similarly with the August Burns Red video, this video contains lots of high-speed editing, fast cuts, and rapid camera movement. These elements are therefore definitely conventions of this particular sub-genre. There are very energetic performance shots of the drummer. This video is entirely performance-based, which seems to be a convention of the genre, and videos seem to have very little in the way of a narrative structure. Perhaps this links to the high-speed editing convention, as it just wouldn't be possible to create an easy-to-follow narrative with such short shot lengths.
After an in-depth analysis of these two videos, and quick viewings of other Post-Hardcore productions, I have compiled a list of elements that I feel could be seen as conventions of the musical sub-genre:
- High-speed editing
- Fast cuts
- Unstable camera (heavy amounts of hand-held camera)
- Rapid camera movement (whip pans, etc.)
- Richly saturated colours
- Dark, exaggerated, contrast (very black blacks, very white whites)
- Energetic band performance
- Concentration on the vocalist
- Harsh, low-key, lighting
- Editing focused VERY closely to the tempo of the music
- Camera movement focused VERY closely to the tempo of the music
- Canted angles
- Close up shots of vocalist at intense vocals
- Close up shots of an energetic drummer
- Steadicam shots panning around the band
- Optical effects to distort light (flare, transitioning, etc.)
- Gritty locations, reflecting the "hardcore" style of music
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