Contextual Research - The Bleeding - Five Finger Death Punch

Artist: Five Finger Death Punch
Song: The Bleeding
Unfortunately embedding has been disabled for this video so here is the YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BAiDKOqfvc&ob=av2n

Directed by Bradley Scott and shot in Los Angeles on July 7th and 8th, 2007. The music video is a mix between performance and narrative based, as it cuts from shots of the band playing in a large studio, to a narrative based story of a troubled couple portrayed by actress Danielle Harris and vocalist Ivan Moody.

Using Goodwins 6:

• The video shows genre characteristics as it is a rock/metal genre video and we see the band performing the song.
  
  
• There is a strong relationship between the lyrics and the visuals in the song, at the lyric “Roses in a glass” we see this image:

• And then in the next lyric “Dead and wilted”, after a cut back to the band’s drummer, the video then cuts back to this image:

• Other examples of the relationship between lyrics and visuals are Danielle Harris reflection in a mirror is shown for the lyric “Paint the mirrors black”, and image of Danielle Harris and Ivan Moody kissing for the lyric “The way you used to taste”, and the note Ivan is reading is shown to have ‘it’s over’ and the end and is shown the same time as the lyric “It’s over” is heard.
  
  
• We see a key relationship between the music and the visuals and the most key example of this is for the first chorus, which is the heaviest part of the song, and for this chorus in the video we see the fight between Danielle Harris and Ivan Moody. This cut on the beat shows the change in the music from the sad and depressing verse’s to the more anger filled chorus’s and the visuals follow this, changing from Ivan looking at old photo’s of them together for the verse and then to them fighting in the chorus.
  
  
• The video includes lots of close-ups of the band playing their individual instruments and close-ups to extreme close-ups of Ivan when he is singing. Also for key parts like the opening solo we see a close up of the guitar neck, and again a close-up on the drum’s bass pedals for the double bass beat.
  
  
• The notion of looking is shown is the video mostly by the photographs Ivan is holding and there is only one example of the voyeuristic treatment of the female body that is shown in a flashback showing the couple together.
  

Other analysis:

• Lots of jump cuts, fast paced editing
  
  
• Also fades between flashbacks and present time (Ivan looking at photos).
  
  
• Use of slow mo, when Ivan first gets out of the car and when the beer bottle is thrown against the wall.
  
  
• Lots of handheld camera shots and angles with very fast movement e.g. Pans, tilts etc
  
  
• Point of view shots when looking at the photos
  
  
• Flashbacks are well lit with bright colours to show the happiness but the present time and the bands performance contains mainly grey and black.
  
  
• Implied meaning – When we see her feet dangling at the end of the video we assume that she has hung herself which shows meaning behind the lyrics “It’s over now”.
  
  
• Song ends with a calm quiet part to the lyric “It’s over now” shown with the image of a picture of Danielle Harris covered by what is implied as her ashes.