KM - "KMFDM - Megalomaniac" Deconstruction

Artist: KMFDM
Song Title: Megalomaniac
Genre: Industrial Metal
Year: 1997
Primary Audience: Male 15-24

Fish eye lens

- The video starts off with film like titles and opening credits, displaying the actors featured in the video. These are shown while the track is already being played in the background.

- From 0:53 to 1:08 there is a continuous close up shot of the vocalist lip-syncing, as the shot goes on it is edited in a number of ways, such as the focus being adjusted, the lighting being altered, and binary code being displayed on a separate video layer over the top.

- At 1:11 a stop-motion video effect is used of a policeman beating a man with a baton, (before they end up kissing) and cutting from words like "fake", "malicious", and "marijuana". These words, along with the homosexual aspect signify the rebellious and controversial motif of the song.

- A 'fish eye lens' is used at 1:17, which is something we have already incorporated into the sample footage for our music video, for when our protagonist is walking over a bridge.

- Laura Mulvey's 'male gaze' theory is relevant in this video at 1:21, where a woman wearing heavy make up and a revealing nurses uniform is the centre of the shot, before cutting to a shot of her dancing in a capsule labelled "EXTRA STRENGTH KMFDM 300MG". This shot links in with the lyrics as the words "better than the best" appear on screen as the words are sung.

- At 1:47 the video then gives the effect of a flight simulator/ vintage video game. This relates to the electronic sound of the music that is played at this time in the track, as it sounds like it could be the soundtrack to an old video game.

- An interesting shot used at 2:24 shows the album that the track is featured on, we have a similar idea which we are thinking of using in our video of bringing the digipak that we are going to creat into the diegetic world of the music video.

- Another shot of note occurs at 2:35 where an image of an eye appears on a TV screen in shot, I have noticed similar shots of eyes in other videos of the Industrial metal genre, such as "Stigmata" by Ministry, on which I have previously blogged. This is also very similar to our own idea of displaying the illuminati "all seeing eye" on a number iMac screens.

- The controversial theme of this video is again displayed at 2:38 where there is an on screen animation of a man choking someone with a wire, this is continued at 2:52 with a scene where there is an implied killing of a man with an electric drill, and at 4:00 with the nurse smothering a patient.

- There is no full band performance, but there are aspects of individual performance, such as the vocalist lip syncing throughout, and close ups of instruments being played, such as the guitar fretboard at 3:34.