Post One: Image and Genre by Cathy Mallett

Over the years, 30 Seconds to Mars' image has changed quite significantly. From when they formed in 1998 right through to around 2007, the band were seen as quite 'emo'. They wore black, gothic clothing, dyed their hair black and wore eye liner:


Has time has gone on, the band's image has become more and more mainstream, although their music has stayed pretty much the same. This is the band now:



It's quite difficult to compare 30STM with any other band. This is purely based on the fact that their genre is almost unique. There are not any other bands with a similar sound to them. The closest we have to defining their genre is Alternative Rock or post-grunge. The band are said to take huge influence for grunge legends Nirvana so some of their grunge influence is present in the sound of 30STM.

However, their old style could be compared with My Chemical Romance. Within this genre, the similarities I can notice are:
-Both bands use strong narratives in their music videos
-Both use strong elements of performance, present in all videos.
-Both have a huge fan base/ fan family: 30STM have the 'Echelon' and My Chemical Romance have the 'MCRmy'
-Both use their music videos to convey a strong message.

Here is video from My Chemical Romance and a video by 30 Seconds to Mars. These videos back up my points listed above;
30 Seconds to Mars - The Kill
My Chemical Romance - The Ghost of You

We've taken influences from both of these videos, and will include the conventions of the genre.

30STM film style has and hasn't changed over time. I think that they've always been very theatrical and serious about their videos, so we've always seen a strong message and narrative being used (as well as a lot of focus on the performance elements.)
As the band have gotten more well known, their budget for music videos has obviously increased. You can see this in their current videos as they now have many locations, props, costume changes, extras etc. This, to me, is probably the biggest difference between their older videos and their new ones.