Sacrifice (Eat Me Up) - ENHYPEN

Sacrifice (Eat Me Up) - ENHYPEN (Kwon Yong Soo, 2023)

Sacrifice is the third track song from the fourth mini album Dark Blood. 

Concept : Dark concept, Heaven and Hell, Mysterious atmosphere

Performance : The choreography is more soft but attractive. Some moves are like acting such as the fallen angels and devils.

Narrative : A passionate plea to a lover to save the singer from a dark and painful existence. The lyrics use striking imagery to convey the desperation of the singer, who is lost in a maze of darkness and oblivion.

Gratification

Information : Sacrifice is the MV telling about heaven and hell. So the information about the religion of heaven and hell and also the story behind the MV - lyrics - can be told. 

Social interaction : Sacrifice was released after the main MV, Bite Me so the song was hit. Also, the melody was different and more suitable for the ENGENE so it was a social interaction everywhere on the internet. 

Entertainment : The song was really good. The MV aesthetically pleased the audience's eyes by the concept of heaven and hell. The appearance of artists was also beautifully styled.

Technical aspects

At the beginning of the music video, the reflection of Jungwon appears on the water's surface. The background is orange yet mysterious. From a high-angle viewpoint, Sunoo is lying on the black feather-like things. The wide shot of Heeseung sitting down in front of the window is the key light of the scene. Jake appeared diagonally, not the usual horizontal way, and his reflection appeared on the water's surface. Jay’s scene has hard lighting that lights his face, bringing intense vibes. 

There is special editing when all the members disappear except Sunoo, who sings the first line. The angel wings also suddenly appear at the back of him, which is special effects. The first set is imitating heaven, we can see the heaven gate which is the main gate that can go into heaven. The key light is the sun, this can be in the studio and the sun can be the normal lighting. 

When the white feather dropped and changed into a black feather, the scene changed, and it appeared Jay tried to climb up. This is a good transition. There is cross-cutting between Jay in the dark atmosphere trying to climb up, which is a high-angled position, and Jay holding the black heart in the heaven set while lip-syncing. Two Jay appeared in one scene, this is a special effect of doubling the character in the same scene, the sunlight is hard lighting from the back.

The scene that is the Sunghoon part and all the members appearing dancing has a good transition and the background soft lighting. Jake’s hand blurs the camera lens and switches to the chorus part is a beautiful editing and transition. It’s very smooth. 

The dance chorus part has changed the lighting on the beats, when the background is light, when the background is darker than the first lighting showing the shadow on the members, and dark vibes. Like showing people always have 2 sides. 

After the scene where Jake drinks from the cup, the 2 black hands cover the lens and when open, it changes to another scene, a very smooth transition. The scene is still in heaven but the sky is turning orange. The key lights change rapidly from right to left and reverse, attracting viewers' attention. 

When Sunghoon touches the mirror surface, the surface immediately changes into a water-like surface. It seems like special effects from editing. The lighting is changing on beat-to-beat. Sunghoon looks up as the camera view is bird-eye-view. 

The transition from zoom-in Sunoo’s heart to the real heart structure to Sunoo falling down from 2 giant hands is very impressive, making the audience delighted. 

Then zoom in to change the set to hell, which is the dark-theme background with the red-orange back light. ENHYPEN changes the clothes to dark-red outfits, looking serious and dangerous. When the second chorus dances, if it's the Heeseung part, they change to the main scene of the Heeseung part. If it’s Jungwon's part, it switched to Jungwon's main scenes. 

The camera movement of Jay's part is really good when moving around from a low-angled to a high-angled position and back to the front position, which is a wide shot and zoom-in. 

The black heart beating is not a special effect but it is the tool or machine that beats itself, the editors adding the heart beating sound. 

There are scenes where the background switches to Heaven sets, and the transition is really fast, like a blink of an eye, it's a cross-cutting between hell and heaven sets. When the hell sets, the harsh backlight makes members' bodies turn into dark shadows.

The “Sacrifice” is not the title track so the MV is quite classical and the range of outfits is less than the title one. However, it is really impressive since the production team is focused on the lighting and the ethereality of the heaven setting. The lighting of this MV is a key point that makes this MV successful. It focuses on visualization and lighting.