Textual Analysis - Mise-en scene

Avenged sevenfold- hail to the king

At the start of this music video, we can see an emerging skull from grey coloured clouds. This sets the mood of the song as the two objects indicate a dark theme and maybe about death and evil. This is shown before the music video shows the title of the song.

The title is in an old font that was used in the medieval times which is a denotation for old times where the world was dark. The font can relate to the title with the word ‘king’ this is because of the common stereotype of kings and castles in this time.

In this shot, we have a shot of the guitar being played for the song that we can hear shown as a close up. This is a typical shot for a metal genre as it has a shot of the band playing the instruments. This shot is particularly interesting as it is shot with a blurred effect from time to time from clear to not. The shots throughout the video are all in black and white. We can see in this shot the logo of the band on the fret board of the guitar. This can relate to Goodwin’s theory of need to sell artist as the logo is recognisable for ‘avenged sevenfold fans as this logo is on all their albums.

The music video features lots of connotation and denotations. In this screen shot, we can see a rose turning from white to black using the editing of the black and white filter. This shot is maybe a denotation for life to death.

This is the first shot of the lead singer. He is shown with the main lighting directly behind him. Along with the black and white editing, it has given the shot a great effect as we can see the singer’s face with a light in front but less intense than the main light. This effect gives the impression of the divide between light and dark of the video.

In this shot, we can see two of the band members. In focus, we can see the tattoos that both of them have. This is a typical sign of a rock or metal band. The tank top that the singer is wearing is also a costume typically worn on music videos. The costumes of the band remain the same throughout the video.

This shot is the start of the narrative of the music video. This has slowly become popular in rock music videos but the majority has no narrative. This shot is shown as a long shot with the use of a crown. This also relates to the title of the song as kings wear them. The old, dead tree is a sign of

fear in this shot and shows the age of the king’s crown as it is placed on a pillow under the tree. The figure carries it to possibly the king.

This cut shot from the band is where a dark liquid drips on the white floor. The black and white edit intrigues the audience as to what it is. There is a visual-lyric relation her from Goodwin’s theory as the lyrics go ‘blood is spilt…’ this is a big clue that it is blood being shown on screen. A typical denotation shown on metal music videos as it describes pain and death.

This is part of quick flash shots of old paintings and pictures. This one in particular is a shot of soldiers with negative emotions. They are all looking up like they would do to the king with relates to the title. These quick shots were edited to the quick beat along with other images. One of them also included the word ‘atone’ in black background to stand out from these images. This is a lyric in the song.

This is another example of the lyric- visual relation. The theme of the music video is mainly skulls and old weaponry. In this shot as an example, we see both of them together with swords in the skull’s eye sockets. This is detailing the theme of medieval times and death. This image is combining the two and bound with the lyrics of the song.

The song ends with the crown being presented to a human figure. But the camera tracks from his waist up to his head shown with different cuts of the band and the narrative. The strange use of the skull as the head becomes an odd ending as the song ‘hail to the king’ is about this figure who wears the crown.