It is impossible for a music video to have an entirely new concept as there will always be parts that have intentionally or unintentionally taken inspiration from other media, this could be another music video or films, TV programs, books, art ect. Below I have complied a list of inspiration we knowingly took from other media forms.
Meg
- Boat 'One Direction'
The boat scene is one of my favourites in the in the music video, the reason why i like this is because of the disjuncture of it, everything about it conforms with previous expectations of boats in music videos and connotations with fun but we challenge the idea by not focusing on the fact of it being a boat and just a source of fun. The idea of the boat came from a boy group not in the genre of Indie/Alternative going by the name of One Direction and their Music video 'What Makes You Beautiful' the video is set on a beach and has a fun atmosphere about it, this is what initially made us think of using a boat (we knew this was a viable option from a previous conversation involving boats'
The idea of the Monkey chase scene came from the famous Benny Hill sketch in which he chases women around the stage, this idea took a little wile to get to the final version. We knew we wanted to incorporate a chase scene that focused on Georgia who is the only female in the band (for a reason). Meg pipped up with previous knowledge of the said scene from Benny Hill the problem was was trying to find a clip for guidance to build from
- Hawaiian Shirts 'Ed Mcfarlane'
In the boat scene we wanted to emphasise the 'fun' idea i have already said, to do this we decided to use Hawaiian shirts as ill explain later we linked hawaiian with Friendly Fires and especially the lead singer who was know to wear the style of shirt at festivals over the summer to which Meg saw for herself at Reading festival.
Jess
- The Barn 'TDCC - Something Good Can Work'
One of Jess' great inputs was for the idea for the performance part of the video, being a great music video watcher she had previously come across the simple video for the Two Door Cinema Club video. The video features the band playing in what could be described as an abandoned warehouse. When it came to our own music video we thought that instead of using the bright white of the TDCC video we would challenge the idea but conform to the 'home made' feel commonly seen in indie and alternative music videos. Jess came through with helping us on this one and suggested we could use the barn at her dads house. The lighting we used also made it feel allot warmer and more inform with the beat of the Little Comets song.
- Ending 'Vampire Weekend A-Punk'
Another video that Jess came along is the fun and interesting video for A-Punk by vampire weekend, it wasn't till the very end did she take inspiration; at the end of the video they all spin round then run out of shot. In our draft music video we had our band to take of their instruments and walk our simultaneously, although this was effective it wasn't until feedback did we realise that you couldn't have the band put down their instruments if the track was still playing. To overcome this in the final video we got Lewis to carry on playing whilst the others left (after their instruments had been finished with) and then for him to walk out after the track had finished, this in my opinion and the opinion of our peers worked to our advantage and is my favourite part of the video. We also know that this scene was effective because several other groups in our year decided to use and interpret our ending into their music video.
- Georgias Appearance 'Alice Glass'
Alice Glass is half of the Indie duo Crystals Casltes, Jess had the idea to model Georgia on her and her style, they already had similar hairstyles so all that was left was to match the clothes, Alice's style is understated with her wearing mainly black clothes in baggy and masculine cuts. When it came to filming we made a last minute decision to put Georgia in my hoodie to emphasise the masculine feel. We did still however wanted to show she was female so instead of putting her in black jeans to copy the style of the males in the group we opted for black shorts and tights. However for the barn performance the black chose of Alice Glass would of made Georgia stand out too much next to the rest of the band in colours shirts/t-shirts/jackets, to tackle this we asked Georgia to wear a tie dye t-shirt which always feels fun.
- Random Objects 'The Maccabees - First Love'
During our research we came along to the video for First Love by the Maccabees, at first we thought nothing of it until we wanted to look to include 'more disjuncture' during one of our lengthy conversations Jess brought up the video again and the way they used random objects to great effect. Objects we then used were; mugs, leaves, balloons, inflatables etc.
- Chorus 'Innocent Smoothies'
The best idea Jess came up with and the thing that pulled the whole video together was the idea for the chorus, as a group we knew we wanted to use stop motion in music video. Jess got the idea for the band to move around whilst the lead singer, Steve, sang from the innocent smoothies advert on the TV and the Coldplay - Strawberry Swing video which is entirely stop motion. We realised we couldn't have the whole music video in stop motion because we didn't have enough time to film it. Instead using it for the chorus meant it took a mere percentage of the time of a whole video but keeping the effect.
Harry
- Pool
Id like to think this was my greatest contribution to our music video, mainly because it was me who only had a swimming pool. The idea was basically thought up like that, i had a swimming pool and others did not so it might give us the edge on the other groups by adding diversification within the video. Myself and the group came the conclusion we would use the pool as one of the sources of fun in the music video and to keep in with the upbeat style of the song.
- Carlisle "Cher Lloyd - Swagger Jagger'
Being the cool person i am i watch music videos by artist such as Cher Lloyd, as other media students wouldn't touch her music with a barge pole i still managed to take inspiration from it. During he song Swagger Jagger cartoon style writing comes up to make a direct relationship between the lyrics and video. I did know it was too mainstream for our audience to have flashing words appear i did like the idea. i also had an idea to go to a road sign show carlisle on but that was soon dashed as i realised how far the city was. To compensate this i came up with the idea of creating our own sign in the style of homeless man or hitchhiker.
- Bike 'The Vaccines (camera angles + different transports'
This is another 'random object' the arose from the First Love video but i wanted to give it more meaning than just a random object so i decided to include some action with the bike, one of the videos i found inspiration for this scene was from 'The Vaccines' video 'Norgaard', an addition is that the bike in the video looks a bit like the one i had at home. In the video the Model Amanda Norgaard rides the bike and the cameraman swaps between a mid shot of the bike to a shot of Amanda 'chasing' the cameraman.
- Skateboard
I myself am not a skateboarder but it was when we were picking the people we wanted in our band and it just happened they all were accomplished skateboarders it got me thinking about their uses and if we could incorporate it in the video. I managed to get my idea in in a couple of places with Steve using it as a choice of transport at the start of the video and Georgia being on it going to and from in the camera wearing a colander. The skateboarding in addition came in use when we needed to film the moving shot of Steve walking in his footsteps.
Joe
- Hawaiian Shirts 'Friendly Fires'
Ive said further up in my evaluation that we made a connection between Hawaiian and Friendly Fires, Joe remembered that the band had a song called Hawaiian Air and maybe this was a good place to start for inspiration. Unfortunately they focused more on the air side of the title in their music video with the video being shot on a plane which is when as ive also said was where Meg suggested to look at the lead singer.
- Monkey Scene 'Costumes (monkey + banana)'
The original idea for the costume scene was devised by me after seeing two animal masks in Jess' car but the problem was was that there was only two and for it to be effective we needed 4. As a group we tried to source 2 more but no use and it became apparent we had to change our idea or scrap it completely. Scrapping it was something we all agreed on was something we didn't want to do; cue Joe, he stepped in offering the use of full banana and monkey costume and i matched him with a doctors and a tiger costume.
Group
Meg and Harry
- Caravan 'Royal Family'
Another thing i had at my house was a caravan and it never became apparent to use it until Meg thought of it. I did think that it might look a bit tacky as my caravan is not the newest but then i remembered a christmas episode of The Royal Family where they went to stay in a caravan for the weekend, this served two purposes it helped with the 'style' of the caravan and the britishness of our band.
Meg, Jess and Harry
- Coffin 'Gothic culture and the link with the name The Skeleton Boys'
One of the weirdest items in our music video has to be the coffin, this arose from the gothic culture Jess' is interested in and the name of the band The SKELETON Boys.
Andrew Goodwin's Theory
Through Beats
Take into account the structure of the song - When editing i tried to make sure they every cut was on a beat and where possible every gesture as in the Hawaiian hand was to a beat.
Ignore Common Narrative
The music video should advertise the band and have repeatability so that the audience does not lose interest easily - we have used repeatability in two was, the first is the chorus where we have used the same clip 4 or 5 times and only using 4 or 5 locations and flicking between them. As for advertising the band we have only used them in the music video so its impossible to get mixed up with who are extras and who are the band
Star Image
In our video we have made a good job with making Steve the 'star' even though the band do sing in parts of the song when they do they only mumble the words whereas Steve pronounces them (finally). Also Steve is placed slightly forward to emphasise the importance of him.
A Relationship Between The Lyrics And The Visuals
There is an obvious part in the music video where we make a relationship between the lyrics and the visuals, this is as ive already explained is the scene with the carlisle sign. We didn't use it too much though because the basis of the music video is disjuncture.
Digiak
Unlike a music video its possible to come up with new ideas for a digipak but in my case i decided to stick closely to the styles of The Vaccines and Vampire Weekend.
From The Vaccines digipak i copied the front cover almost exactly, down to the placement of text and images to the colour pallette used. I decided to do this not though laziness but because it was a tried and tested method. One thing i didn't try to emulate was the image, the image The Vaccines used was of a child hugging presumedly her mother, this is where Vampire Weekend come in. The cover of their digipak for Contra features a 20 something year old woman but what i liked about it was the vintage style and with the help of photoshop i managed to re-create the vintage style whilst using a DSLR camera.
Poster
My poster was an extension of my digipak as i used the same image, same fount and same colours as the digipak. Like my digipak is based my design on the poster for the album What Did You Expect From The Vaccines and this create a sense of branding as well as conform with already used designs.
Good work Tibbles, this response is a beast. here's a few pointers.
ReplyDeleteAs you hav so many disperate sources how are you going to convince me and the exam board that this was deliberate and not merely a case of throwing everything at it?
Id begin by establishing the mood or tone you wanted for the band and then using the comprehensive list of examples you have above to explain how you did this. Also make sure you can explain why you wanted to make such a 'conventional' video (by that I mean one which actually looks like a 'real' music video).
Try and add more for the ancillary products. Where did your inspiration for those come from.