As so often happens with this kind of thing, there actually an all right treatment in there - and then someone in marketing went "... and we can randomly cut to the band playing! Somewhere where people don't play in real life!". The shots of the band in the desert are A) completely pointless and B) very very obviously tacked on as an afterthought. They're blatantly shot on different cameras, they style doesn't quite match, etc... I'm guessing someone at the label wanted them added in. In the end it wrecks the tone of the video - all the makeup and leather works fine in the context of the plot (I use the term loosely), but on guys standing in a chroma-keyed backdrop it's just unbelievably camp. If the desert shots didn't have all the cliches they'd look much better (and more "metal"), and it would provide a bigger contrast to the rest of the video - which would also stop those shots taking away from the impact of the plot scenes. It also contains one of my biggest music video peeves - slow-motion shots of the band playing in a video for the song, where it will obviously be playing at normal speed. What fucking moron thinks that's a good idea? Seriously?
Other than that, putting naked chicks in videos is just stupid - it's guaranteed to either get cut or get the video banned. It serves very little point artistically in most cases - it's literally just there to help the video gain notoriety ; it just makes all the rebelling 12-year-old kids feel a little bit more like they're breaking the rules when they see it. You could make those scenes without the nudity and it would make no difference thematically. It annoys me that bands/labels/whoever think that that's all it takes to seem edgy, and it's embarrassing that it seems to work - anyone remember the video for Satyricon's "Fuel For Hatred"? As with so many things at the moment, the only band I can think of that don't assume all their fans are testosterone-fueled idiots is Gojira, and even they get stuck having to "play" the songs in ridiculous locations. Video should be a fucking awesome medium for metal - there's so much scope for it, way more so than in pop/chart music. But it's always the same fucking cliches over and over.
It's not big budget either - it looks like it was shot in HD, which instantly makes things looks more expensive. There's one location scene and two green-screened bits, two actresses/models and a few extras. The CG looks dodgy because it will have been done quickly (Hell, there's like three copies of the same building at one point) - and it's far cheaper than trying to find a location like that where they could shoot.
And as for the blood thing - Christ, it sounds like none of you people gone out with a girl for long enough to wake up with half her period smeared across your leg.
Steve
