Our Video:
All music videos that are created in today's society must have taken some inspiration from somewhere, and depending on the genre of the music, the inspiration comes from different places. The video we have created fits into the indie/alternative genre and so this genre mainly, or conventionally, features disjuncture - like I analysed in Foals - Cassius and Two Door Cinema Club - What You Know.
The locations we used were: Jess Pardoe's barn, Harry Tibbles' House (e.g. pool, boat, coffin, trampoline, caravan, hill etc.) and the forest at Upper Bruntingthorpe.
The inspiration for the barn was from Two Door Cinema Club:
Athough the barn that we have chosen looks little like this video, they both have similar aspects. For example, the band are playing in a fairly large plain area with just their instruments and themselves. We did not, however, use their idea of changing the background colour as we wished to keep the simplicity of the barn and match the colours of the band's clothing with the up-beat tempo of the music. This part of the music video uses conventions of real media products in the indie genre and develops them a little by having our own take on this particular scene.
The pool idea did not have any particular influence, we just thought that the tempo and the crashing of the cymbals suited the song, and used the theory from Andrew Goodwin that the music video should have 'through beats' and fit the structure of the song. The style of music also suited the band members having fun and showing they have a careless side by jumping in the pool fully clothed.
The idea of the boat was influenced, for me, by the idea of the band jumping in the pool. I thought that a contrast between the wet, indoor jumping around and having fun with the calm, outdoor sipping cocoa at night time would add a bit more depth to the video and in some respects abides the binary opposition theory.
The coffin location was not one we can say we took influence from any music video, although it could be argued that we partly took influence from Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance":
This gothic culture is easy to take inspiration from. From Lady Gaga to Gothic literature - all elements of the gothic portray similar things. The main influence was discussing ideas that could link to the name of the band: "The Skeleton Boys" and thought, more as a joke at first, why don't we use a coffin? After Harry had replied he had one, we had no other choice than to use it as it challenges conventions by having a happy, singing band either side of what should be a gloomy coffin. We placed the lead singer, Steve, in the coffin, as this followed conventions of mainly focusing on the lead singer.
The idea of jumping on the trampoline at dusk with Autumn leaves was using elements of illustration within our music video as it is called "One Night In October". This use of illustration uses the forms and conventions of real media music videos as they usually have elements of either illustration, amplification or disjuncture (or a mixture). Our video is mainly disjuncture with elements of performance - as we found this common within the indie/alternative genre. For example:
Therefore abiding and using conventions of real media products in the indie/alternative genre.
The caravan location was inspired by a particular scene from the TV comedy "The Royle Family".
But not only locations were influenced by other existing media products - a lot of our ideas came from completely random areas of the media, such as TV adverts, books, radio, magazines and the internet. For example,
The stop motion that we have used with the bicycle, along with the moving band members in the barn setting was inspired from Innocent smoothie's advert:
but stop motion is also commonly used in music videos, such as The Wombats - Joy Division:
The Wombats fit into the indie/alternative genre we were aiming our media product at, so by using it in our video, we are using forms and conventions of other real media products that are similar to ours.
The use of chalk with our bicycle stop motion was partly inspired by Coldplay's Strawberry Swings video:
as this uses chalk with stop motion throughout the whole video.
The "Carlisle" sign idea was inspired by Cher Lloyd's video:
as it uses signage which links directly to the lyrics, which is exactly what we have done. We developed this convention a little more by making the band members actually hold the sign as opposed to using a post-production enhancement as we believe the retro look of it fits more definitely into the genre we are aiming to fit into with our video.
We then went on to thinking about what the word disjuncture actually means and how the indie genre uses this. After deciding that we needed something completely irrelevant to the lyrics, and random, we found costumes in our houses and used the idea of a Benny Hill chase scene to create a monkey chasing after the banana comedy sketch. This quick paced sketch suits the happy, almost comic tone of the music and uses the common conventions of music videos that the lead singer must be the main focus of the video and so by being the chaser, we have done this.
The ending was largely influence by Vampire Weekend' A-Punk:
as all band members leave the screen before the video ends. We have used this convention but developed it further by having the band members put their instruments down on screen and then leaving as they finish playing. I think that this finishes off our music video very well and makes the audience know that the video has reached a definite end.
Andrew Goodwin's Theory:
Through Beats
Take into account the structure of the song. (We have achieved this by using our "One Night In October" stop motion scene repeatedly at the chorus, which is commonly used in music videos).
Ignore Common Narrative
The music video should advertise the band and have repeatability so that the audience does not lose interest easily. (We have done this by using the disjuncture in the video. This makes the video both memorable and enjoyable - acting as a perfect advertisement for the band)
Star Image
Our video tries to focus around Steve (the lead vocalist) as much as reasonably possible with the ideas we have used. However, in videos such as Foals - Cassius, the whole band are seen together for most of the video but the lead singer is placed slightly forward of the rest - so we did this with our video in scenes such as the barn where Steve is clearly at the front of the band.
A Relationship Between The Lyrics And The Visuals
Our video recognises the lyrics at some parts of the video like when we use the "carlisle" sign and when we use the trampoline scene with the autumnal leaves representing "one night in October". But mainly our video uses the typical convention of disjuncture in the indie genre.
My DigiPac:
Click Image To Enlarge
The digipac I have created uses many forms and conventions of the indie genre, despite looking quite simplistic and minimalistic.
Firstly, the front cover (the middle frame at the bottom) uses the feature of no title or band name. This is not because I am lazy, as I have tried and tested titles and sub titles all over the cover but when I looked at my audience's feedback, they liked the simple picture itself. I have taken inspiration from album covers in the indie genre, and used conventions of album covers such as:
As you can see, two of the six albums have no titles or sub titles at all - they merely use artwork as an eye catching tool and use that to draw in their audience. The pictures do not have any relevance to their songs or artists in most cases. Artwork or completely random images are now conventional of the indie genre and so by using artwork with no titles, I am following real forms and conventions of other real media products from the same genre.
The antlers are purposely off centre as this, again follows the conventions of the Active Child album cover and the Red hot Chili Peppers' album cover.
The credits frame (the bottom right panel) was made purposefully simplistic as I took the idea from The Libertine's credit page of their digipac:
and so I gave my credits page a very similar layout so that it followed the forms and conventions of most digipacs.
The back cover of the digipac (the bottom right panel) is heavily influenced by Vampire Weekend's album 'Contra' as I used their layout and then wrote my track list over the top of theirs so that it fitted perfectly and I used their form and used a real media convention as they fit into the indie genre I am aiming for:
The inside three panels (the top three panels) uses one, long continuous image that I edited from these images of Steve (the lead singer) running and jumping in a car park:
But I edited the levels on the edited photo so that the picture seemed more retro and dated and so fitted in with the digipac better. This was inspired by Arctic Monkeys' Favourite Worst Nightmare's digipac as on the inside it uses on continuous image of a house in the background:
I then used the convention of many other media products of keeping the image inside the digipac running onto the CD itself so that the image is not broken by the CD, this convention was inspired by The Avalanches 'Since I Left You' digipac.
The white writing of "thank you" s on the wall behind Steve running and jumping is conventional of most digipacs as most bands like to thank their producers and their fans for example the Libertines:
So I used the space on the wall only to add to the artistic feature of writing thank yous and I used the Libertines' layout so that I was using forms and conventions of real media products in the indie genre.
My digipac also incorporates: a catalog code; a spine with the bands name on; the record label; a barcode and the copyrights of the band as these are features you see on most digipacs for legal reasons and so that bands are able to sell their albums efficiently.
My digipac may be thought as flawed as it shows no link whatsoever to the music video other than Steve being on one of the images - however, I feel as though many other artists, such as Vampire Weekend, The Libertines, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Two Door Cinema Club show no link between their digipacs and their music videos, so I do not think I have broken any conventions in not having a link between these products.
My Poster:
My poster is linked directly with my digipac as it uses the eye-catching image that can be seen on the front cover of my digipac. This is a common convention that I have took inspiration from many bands. For example, Two Door Cinema Club:
I then used only the words "The Skeleton Boys" in a faded grey writing as I thought this was enough information for the audience, as The XX do a similar thing with their poster of just an X:
powerful images and minimal writing is a form used in the indie genre, so I used this in my poster.
My main inspiration for this poster was from Vampire Weekend as it uses only an image and the name of the band:
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