Textual Analysis – Bullet For My Valentine – Hand Of Blood

I chose to do a Bullet For My Valentine video for my textual analysis as we are planning to do a different Bullet For My Valentine song in our own music video and thought it would be good to show the conventions of there music videos.

This is a completely performance based video and shows the band playing in relatively small hall or building. After about 35seconds into the video we see an audience watching the band play and so this video is also meant to slow a live performance however it is not typical of a live performance music video as the band is not a massive open well-lit stage, instead they are in a small, darkened room, with very low-key lighting.




As with most performance based videos, this music video contains lots of shots of the band playing through a variety of shot types. The most common shot in this video being close ups and extreme close ups of the singers face such as the shot below.

This video also has a very muted palette but it’s also quite contrasting. At first all we see when the band starts playing is black and blues, which are very cold looking, but then we see the stage side lights which are a strong red colour and not only do this contrast to the blue of the band, they give the liquid which is sprayed on the crowd a blood like appearance (see below), which links into the song’s title “Hand of blood” which is used as the main lyric during the chorus, although it is difficult to tell if it is actually blood coming down on the audience or if it just looks like blood due to the red lighting. Occasionally different coloured lasers and strobes are shown for a split second in the video, which shows how it is a “live” performance and the colours of these lights usually contrast strongly with the main lighting, often being a vibrant green. However these lights are shown to be coming from behind the audience and not the band.

The transitions in the video are all straight cuts and it contains lots of very faced paced editing on the beat. Occasionally some shots are held for a couple of seconds to create and emphases as these are mostly at the beginning of the video before and during the guitar intro. After the guitar intro, the speed of the straight increases as the dynamics of the song does.

As this is a performance based video, the music and the visuals are always linked when the band is seen playing, however there is also a relationship between the visuals and music at the very beginning of the video as the blue bar lights behind the band turn on one at a time from the bottom upwards as the guitar fades in and as the guitar intro starts, the main stage lights turn on, illuminating the guitarist.

There are a couple of relationships between the lyrics and the visuals in this video during the song. When the lyric “look away” is heard in the chorus, the video cuts away from the shot of the band to a shot of the audience for the first chorus and then to the sprinkle pipe in the second chorus, however for the last chorus the singer is down in the crowd and so the shot cuts from him in the audience back to a mid shot of the other members of the band, almost a reverse of the two previous chorus’. The other example of a relationship between lyrics and visuals is for the lyric “I can’t help what I hear in my head” during which the singer quickly points to his on head (see below).