During the research and planning stages of making the video we all had lots of ideas that we wanted to put into the video and they came from all sorts of inspiration. We gained our inspiration from various forms of media such as adverts, other music videos, television programs and much more. It is inevitable that any ideas will be entirely your own because we are influenced by media on a day to day basis. Together, we compiled a list of all the inspiration we took from media we have experienced and worked out who came up with what ideas. These are explained in detail below...
Locations:
Barn- The idea to have the band performance in a barn came from Jess. She had seen the video for Something Good Can Work by Two Door Cinema Club, a band in the same genre as ours, and liked the performance. It was in what look liked an abandoned space, yet well looked after made slightly more interesting by the coloured rectangle in the background. When thinking about how we could do this ourselves she thought of a barn at her dad's house that wasn't in use upstairs but was very clean and through the lens it wouldn't look like your average barn. By having such a blank area to perform in gives the eye less to focus on so they are instantly drawn to watching the band perform which can only be a good thing.
Pool- The decision on using a pool as one of the location was from Harry as he owned one. He did not get the idea from anything he had scene before which boosted his enthusiasm to use the pool even more. By thinking that no one else will be using a pool from our class, and it never been done before in a popular indie music video, Harry thought that it would help our music video to stand out from the rest.
Caravan- The caravan idea was contributed by Harry and myself (Meg). After Harry mentioned having a caravan we could use, I instantly wanted to use it in our video. Indie bands are typically known for not making high budget music videos and not using fancy locations, so by filming the band in a caravan I thought it could help to emphasise the bands type of character. After establishing we would use the caravan in the video, Harry then went to remember a Royale Family Christmas Special where they went away in a caravan. In this episode they looked typically British along with the caravan, and as the band are a typical indie British, band we thought we this would help with their style.
Boat- The idea to have the band in the boat came from me (Meg). Despite my inspiration not coming from a guitar bands music video but in fact a pop video I still feel it was a good contribution to the video. Already knowing that Harry owned a boat in his back garden, whilst watching One Direction's video for What Makes You Beautiful and the sense of fun that was being portrayed on a beach, I thought that maybe we could use the boat. Although it wouldn;t be on a beach and instead in a garden, we would still be able to create the same energetic atmosphere that happens in One Direction's video.
Other Ideas:
Carlisle sign- This idea was also influenced by a pop video but this time Harry was inspired. After watching the video to Cher Lloyd's song Swagger Jagger, he really wanted to include lyrics on the screen so there would be a match between what was being sung and what was on the screen. We didn't want it to be exactly the same with it being bright and animated as it's not something our target audience look for in a video, and we didn't want to have an actual sign to carlisle because a) it was too far away and b) it could be too illustrative if we did that. Instead Harry wrote the place on a piece of cardboard.
Ending- The ending idea came from Jess. After watching the video to A-Punk by Vampire Weekend, she was hugely inspired to use a very similar ending in ours. At the end of their video, the band do a quick spin and then run out of the shot in different directions. We had our band do the same, but instead of spinning they put their instruments down, except from Lewis as someone had to keep playing, and had them walk of to the left hand side of the screen. Once the music had stopped Lewis then walked off to the right. I liked this idea and thought it made a great ending to the video.
Georgias appearance, Alice Glass- We were all assigned band members who we were to style and Jess was given Georgia- being the only female of the group it made things harder for Jess because she didn't want her to stand out too much as she could risk being mistaken for the lead singer. Eventually she was inspired by Crystal Castles singer Alice Glass. With Georgia having a similar hair style to her already, Jess could picture what would suit her easier from looking at images of Alice. She took inspiration from her clothing and had Georgia wear lots of dark coloured clothing, including: black leather jacket, black shorts and black tights.
Bike scene- There were two different types of inspiration that were behind the bike scene. The first one came from Jess and Harry for the stop motion involved. After watching music videos by Coldplay and The Wombats they saw stop motion being used very effectively with drawing and wanted to incorporate that into our video. Despite not having time to do it in our draft, we made sure we had time to do it for our final video. Even though I did take a while drawing the chalk on the floor, I think the end result was very good. In addition to this, when looking at the camera angles in this scene, Harry took inspiration from The Vaccine's video to Norgaard. In the video you can see the model riding around on the bike and it changing from high to low angles, and close ups to mid shots which I believe we have done too in our video.
Hawaiian styling- After looking and similar bands in our genre, Joe mentioned Friendly Fires, a band who we are all fond of, and said how he liked to song Hawaiian Air by them. I (Meg) then made a connection between the song and the styling of lead singer Ed McFarlane. His infamous quirky dress sense and Hawaiian styled shirt inspired me to try and get the band dressed like this for a few shots in the video. When working with this idea, as a group we all thought that the Hawaiian shirts combined with hula dancing went perfect with the digetic sound where the shots would be.
Random objects and costumes- After watching The Maccabees video for First Love, Jess liked the idea of having random objects used in the video- many of them not having any relevance to the song or lyrics. By doing this it helped to reinforce the idea of a video classed under disjuncture. This was then followed by Joe telling about the vast amount of costumes he had at home, all which added to the random objects and ideas used in the video.
Skateboard- None of us have an interest in skateboarding, but after we selected our band members, Harry pointed out how all the males skated and really wanted to use the idea in our video because of how fast paced it is, and thought it could match the song. By using skateboarding as well, it could appeal to more people not just your typical 'indie style' person.
Monkey and banana chase- After finding out we were to use a monkey and banana costume I (Meg) came up with the idea of having the person in the monkey costume chasing the person in the banana costumer, and it worked out nicely that it was the lead singer chasing the female of the group. After thinking more about this idea I really wanted to make it a very short, brief comedy sketch and thought a Benny Hill style chase would be a brilliant idea. I could picture them in my head running around with the famous Benny Hill tune as the digetic sound. To then see this in the final video I was very pleased because I think this was my best contribution to our music video.
Chorus- The idea to have to band members swap position but have the lead singer stay in the same place gave from Jess. She took inspiration from the Innocent Smoothies advert where it used stop motion and had the product remain for most of the advert in the centre of the shot, with other objects moving around it. This is similar to Steve staying in the middle singing "One night in October" and Georgia, Will and Lewis swapping positions in the background. I think this was a great idea on Jess' behalf because the chorus is what makes the song so we needed something distinctive that could be used throughout the video to repeat.
Coffin- The coffin idea was a collective one between myself (Meg), Jess and Harry. We thought about connotations of the band's name 'The Skeleton Boys' and gothic culture was one that clearly stood out. After already using the coffin in the daylight, we thought we could use it during the night time. We thought that a combination of darkness, coffin and skeletons would represent gothic culture well.
Music Video Theories
Andrew Goodwin- Part of the 'Dancing in the distraction factory' theory says that 'The creation of character for stars provides a point of identification for the audience/spectator which is especially important when lyrics often lack depth'. I believe we have definitely lived up to this theory because I think we have definitely shown off the lead singer, Steve’s character through close ups of him laughing and wearing fun clothing. The focus of the band having fun takes away the fact that their isn't much to the lyrics and makes it more interesting.
Digipak
Album:
Image- For my main image I took inspiration from and i-D magazine cover with model Behati Prinsloo. She is on the front with half a painted skeleton face. I saw this image in my Media Studies classroom and instantly thought I could work with this idea and carry it over to my poster with ease. It's quite an original idea and connotes to the name of the band nicely.
Link between album and poster- I have observed throughout this course that a vast amount of artists in our selected genre ensure that their album looks very similar to their poster so consumers can instantly recognise who the poster was advertising. I was then inspired to use this convention.
Poster:
Reviews to include- To find out what terminology is used in music reviews and what music magazines give ratings and what don't, I went onto the NME website to look at some of their reviews to take inspiration from. I did in fact look at Little Comets album review but didn't copy it as it didn't give hugely positive comments or rating. I could then take what I had learnt and use it in my own poster. I used the rating and a brief comment which I have seen very often on posters.
Conventions of a poster- I looked at existing posters for bands albums to take inspiration from to see what is typical of an indie bands debut album poster. It was very helpful because I saw repeatedly things that should be included.
Digipak Theories
Laura Mulvey- Laura Mulvey is behind the theory of the male gaze. She came up with the theory in 1975. She says that in films, the audience have to look at the characters as if they were a heterosexual male. The deals with the concept of how an audience views the people that are presented. The male gaze is often used in everyday life. Theorists have noticed that sexualizing of the female body is used in adverts even when it has nothing to do with the product that is being advertised. Without doing it intentionally, I have used a female to promote my products on both a poster and an album.
Once again, I did not figure that my female model would be looked at in any sort of way other than just someone on the cover of a bands album. However, consumers will look at the image and be presented with a facial expression and I believe it fits into two.
Marjorie Ferguson (1980s)- The Chocolate Box Half Smile when the lips are together, teeth are barely visible and the full face is to the camera.
Trevor Millum (1990s)- Practical which is when they are concentrating, engaged in business in hand, their mouth is closed, eyes are object direct and only a slight frown.
This has some good theory contained in the reponse, Meg, and clear evidence of where you gained inspiraton from and whether it challenged or emulated, well done. You could add in a couple of examples of music poster inspiraton in your final draft.
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