Genre research heavy metal

1. Genre research
Heavy Metal (often referred to as Metal) developed in the late 1960s early 70s. In the
late 1980s the genre was reabsorbed by new genres and by the early 90s the majority of
Heavy Metal had evolved into other rock genres like hard rock, grunge, gothic rock,
thrash metal and many more.
The target audience of Heavy Metal is usually early teens (13/14) up to 30 and usually doesn’t
exceed 30, however more and more older people are still listening to heavy meta as they are
from the Heavy Metal based generations. Reasons for this is the nature of the music and the
year the music became popular, most older heavy metal bands had a target audience of young
males but nowadays there are bands which are based for females and for older generations of
people. The adrenaline packed music and videos are one of the many reasons why they have
become such a wide genre of music.

3. General video conventions
The editing in most heavy metal rock videos is fast paced which helps to amplify the beats
of the music, the quick cuts between a variety of different shots helps to portray lots of
aspects of the band and the narrative. The use of slow motion is also a major aspect of the
heavy metal genre, the idea of smashing things or throwing things to watch them break in
slow motion is quite popular in videos, this can also be said for putting water and dust onto
drum kits and hitting them in slow motion as it breaks up the fast paced tempo and makes
the videos look more artistic.
Camera angles are used throughout to a wide extent, there are generally lots of different
types such as high and low angle shots with a majority of medium close ups and extreme
close ups being used to point out key bits of information or to show the singers face. There
are no long shots from the same angle in the music video as they are boring to watch and
don’t fit the theme therefore my video will have to have lots of different shots in each
group of narrative to give the same effect as the other music videos.

4. Generally speaking most of the filing locations consist of either concert
stages or warehouses to give the heavy metal effect. In songs that have
narrative they tend to use disused factories or buildings, hospitals and
forests to create their themes. These are filmed on at both daytime and
nighttime to give different effects with projected light.
Fashion stays the same for most bans, black clothing of any sort for
both sexes as well as ripped jeans with the occasional suit and tie event
to portray power through the singer. The bands might wear masks such
as Slipknot members with other accessories such as chains or combat
boots depending on the theme of the video.

5. Makeup wise, most band members wear it. Both male and female
heavy metal singers tend to wear makeup to show their individuality
form the band members but also because they like to and it represents
heavy metal music. The singers usually wear eyeliner with body paint
drawn into other patterns or over their arms with different coloured
eyeshadows depending on what band they are in.

6. The band usually have shots of
themselves performing
throughout the video with close
ups on each individual player and
their instrument to show the
audience what everyone is doing,
they all tend to dress in their
bands style in each of the videos
to keep the theme consistent, but
to generalize they al tend to wear
something black with other things
added to it for example certain
players from motionless in white
are well know for wearing hats or
even cloaks when hey perform
live and in music videos.

7. Most older heavy metal songs don’t tend to include a narrative aspects as the
whole point of the music videos were to watch the band preform or to see them
live. In more modern heavy metal, there is a bit of narrative in dome of the videos
either though little snippets or as the band is performing them whilst playing. The
narrative aspects usually tend to follow the lyrics or try to amplify what is being
said, if they don’t then they generally create them around certain themes such as
love or loss of love, mental health or being insane in an asylum or having
somebody being killed etc. but they try to base them around what has happened
to band members.