CINEMETAL ROUND-UP: NEW VIDEOS FROM GRAND MAGUS, AXENSTAR, AND NORTH KOREA

Hoo-ray! It’s the first cinemetal round-up of 2011! Let’s see who made me pissy today.

First up we have “Hammer of the North,” from Grand Magus. It’s just a performance clip, but as far as performance clips (or “perflips,” as they’re known in the biz) go, it’s not bad — I mean, the song is catchy, which helps, and the footage is basically well shot, and clearly at least a little bit of thought went into the editing (all the cuts are on drum beats), so that’s good. In fact, I almost wish they’d taken out all the shit with the forest and the wolf at the beginning, because I kept thinking it was gonna come back and be important, but it doesn’t come back ’til the end, by which point its placement seems as arbitrary as at the start. So as it stands, it almost seems like the video was supposed to be something else, or maybe they didn’t have confidence in the video — “Oh, this sucks, we’d better throw a random shot of a wolf in there somewhere.”

Next up is Axenstar’s video for “Aftermath.” You should really look at the performance footage in this clip and study it in contrast to Grand Magus’ performance footage in the above video — it’s a good lesson in what NOT to do versus what TO do. In the Axenstar vid, the camera is more or less static the whole time (take it off the fucking tripod, fellas), the compositions and lighting are, for the most part, flatter than Kristen Stewart’s chest, and as far as I can tell, no thought whatsoever was put into where the cuts were gonna go. So the visuals in no way emphasize the energy of the song.

There’s a storyline thinger, too, but I couldn’t even be bothered to pay attention because the footage of the band playing is so soporific.

Finally, we have “Master Plan B” from North Korea. I’d like to give this one a pass since the band features current The Dillinger Escape Plan drummer Billy Rymer, but, uh, it’s literally one single, static shot of the band playing. There actually is a great music video which is just one shot of a band playing, but it’s a far more interesting and creative shot than this one.

And here’s that great single-shot video I was talking about… and don’t talk to me about budget. There’s no way this cost any money whatsoever to make — in fact, it was made as an afterthought while the band was actually filming a different video (they’re even wearing the same clothes in the other video), so I know it didn’t really cost ’em nuthin’.

-AR