In the music video for Toxicity by System of a Down, it’s displayed as a performative music video opposed to a narrative, or abstract video, which is where the video is focussed on the band rather than creating a story behind the music or having the video not very relative to the song itself.
     In this video they use a large range of camera angles, starting with a very low angle/worm eye view angle on the floor, and as the second angle comes in, it’s edited to the beat of the song, where the first chorus riff comes in and the location and angle changes, the video then proceeds in a very aggressive editing style which follows the rhythm of the guitar while it plays, they use panning skills with a lot of medium shot angles to portray the band, most of the shots include more than one member of the band whereas some shots include just a single member, these shots tend to be still shots such as the shot at 0:32 seconds whereas the shots that include more members of the band tend to be panning in some form or the target of the shot is moving around the scenery.
     From 0:38 seconds, as the more heavier part of the song subsides and the more calming riff starts to play there’s also a transition in the camera, it changes from a white background to a darker black background, also the camera angles do not change from being at a medium shot, so there’s no high angles or low angles. The members of the band are having moving images projected onto them so there are close up shots being used so the images are more easily visible and are also becoming the target of the shot, this projection is also being used for the main lighting in the shot as it’s the key that illuminates the performers, there are also what seems like floodlights in front of them to keep their faces and features visible, and there are backup lights that project into the floor so the whole body of each person are clear yet still able to maintain a dark room. The editing for the slow more calm parts of the song (example is 0:38 – 1:15) due to the tempo of the song which is different to the tempo and the editing of the white/light room.
     From the point of 2:05 – 2:12, the video has an element of a narrative video, where the lyrics are “eating seeds is a past time activity” the camera shows the four members of the band sitting with a pile of seeds eating them, this is of an irregular pattern for a performative video but because it’s such a small cut scene it has a great effect on the video, as the editing and lighting of it match the parts of the video that it’s placed in. From this point on the video somewhat changes, where the light room was where the heavier parts of the song were played and the darker room was where the more soothing parts were, are changed, and as a heavier riff comes in they are played in both of the rooms and the editing switches between the two, the last part of the editing/camera work is when the most aggressive riff starts 2:41 – 3:05 where the camera shakes to distort and disrupt the image on the screen giving a more angry effect which was the goal of the video, the editing also becomes more fast paced which is relative to the tempo. Towards the end of the video they use a time lapse as the vocalist holds a longer note which adds a great effect to the video and editing in my opinion, the clothes worn for this time lapse are completely black with the darker lighting, and all the light is focussed on the faces as it quickly rushes past them.