Video Idea's draft/brainstorm

We think that the best way to make this music video is to follow the narrative. The song has a strong narrative which would seem pointless to ignore. The basic idea will be to have a guy and a girl following the lines of the song (which can be found in the last post) and going to different locations to do this, E.g A beach or the seaside.

We want the video to match the pace of the music, so it will be fairly slow and also peaceful to fit in with the feel of the song. Another possible idea that we have at this time is to keep the people in the video anonymous and to not show their faces throughout the video, to create an element of mystery. This will also inspire us to have to use a lot more creative camera angels, and possibly have to film at lot of it using low angels showing the bottom half of the bodies only.

We feel that in this type of video its not particularly important to "have a lot going on" but more about how the video is made. Slow motion shots are another thing that we are considering to use, and also changing the contrast to make the whole video brighter, as we will be filming in the winter and we want the video to have a warmer feel.

When we finalise the ideas I will post again to show what we have decided to do and how we intend to make it happen.
Source-Curtis's blog(link to be added)

Music Genre Logo's

There are a few record labels which specialise in metalcore music. They sign bands that play metalcore or hardcore music similar to defeater in order to organize tours, or host festivals with lots of bands who will attract the same crowd. Some of these labels include:


Rise records was founded in 1991 by Craig Ericson in Nevada, California. The record label started off small, having only a few bands, they started off making 7" records, then moved on to CDs. Rise now has 34 bands.


These include: Of mice and men, Miss may I, Sleeping with sirens, Crown the empire, In fear and faith, Sharks, Bleeding through and The plot in you.





Fearless Records is an alternative rock-oriented record label that has been signing artists since 1994. Fearless is based in Westminster, California and are best known for their early pop-punk. However the label has experimented with different acts in recent


years, these include:


A skylit drive, Motionless in white, Blessthefall, For all those sleeping, The word alive, Upon this dawning, Pierce the veil and Alesana.





Sumerian records is an american independent record label based in Washington DC. Like fearless and rise, they specialize in metalcore bands, and Sumerian have mostly american bands signed to their label, and only a few British bands. Sumerian's bands include:


Asking Alexandria, Born of osiris, I see stars, Upon a burning body, Stray from the path and After the burial.

Watsky- Live From Public Storage! Analysis

The below video is a mix of genres and so the codes, conventions and music is a combination of the types of music.

The video is a rap music video and so is done quite simply and on a low budget. The setting is the storage area that the artist keeps his belongings, this keeps with conventions because the majority of rap video's are about real life and are set in an urban or local environment to the artist.
The lyrics are about his real life and have a story, although the video alone doesn't show a narrative it helps to the lyrics.
When it comes to the artist George Watsky wears lose, baggy comfortable clothing and clearly isn't a tread/style setting musician instead choosing to focus on the musical side which is most important to him. Watsky behaves like a lot of  rap artists, he keeps with the flow of the music and and doesn't add huge narrative stories to his rap music, although he has dipped into other genres and done narratives.

Presentation

 As a group we presented out initial ideas to our class. This was to get feedback on our ideas and to see the response to our ideas and music choice. We presented four idea's for music video's for;
Huey Mack - Looking
at the Sky, “I Don’t
Mind” by Defeater,
Pick Up The Phone” by Falling in Reverse and Don’t Ask" by an indie band called Blood Red Shoes.
We asked a friend to take pictures during our presentation for evidence.

Additional Group Ideas

Although we all shared ideas on songs which we would bring to our group i know very little about the songs apart from what i have been told and what i have learnt from the Music videos themselves as well as a small amount of research.

The first option made by my group members for our song choice was a song called “I Don’t Mind” by the hardcore band Defeater. The lyrics in the song are descriptive which means we could act out the lyrics to the song as if it is a story. It also has a decent plotline for a narrative music video. Using various different cuts and pans in the music video, we can easily create the correct atmosphere for the purpose of the music video. The only downside is we would have to travel to several different locations to shoot each scene/shot, which will be very time consuming and we would have to organise transport and get the shots right the first time, which would but a lot of added pressure to the whole process. If we made a mistake or missed a shot it could potential ruin the shoot so we would have to return to the location again, causing more unneeded hassle. Click here for link...

The second group choice is “Pick Up The Phone” by metalcore band Falling in Reverse. Similar to the lyrics of the first option "I Don’t Mind",  the previous song, the lyrics in this song resemble that of a story. There is also plenty of humorous content that can be added to the song and make it funnier. The setting for the storyline would be simple to produce and we wouldn’t have to go too far out of our way to find some great locations to shoot at. (A house would do fine.) Although, this would possibly appear too simple, as we want to present some creativity within the production of the video. Click here for link...

The last group song choice is "Don’t Ask" by an indie band called Blood Red Shoes. This music video would be a fair amount harder to produce if we were to attempt a narrative music video. The lyrics are rather repetitive, although we would not have to include the stereotypical pop conventions which could lead to a very creative and unique video. Click here for link...

Huey Mack - Looking at the Sky

Huey Mack and other Hip Hop artist
within his genre of music.

Over the summer we decided to each meet up and choose a choice of song to bring to the group and then we would choose a single song to base our project on. My song choice is Looking at the Sky by hip-hop artist Huey Mack. This would be a good video to use because of the there is a narrative story. But the song itself also has a music video, so if this were to be our choice, we would have to be careful we’re not completely copying the original video for it. This means that creating a video for this song would be pretty much obsolete as their is already a video which has been done to a professional standard. Also, with this song being a rap song, the main focus is clearly the lyrics. This means that the major convention is to have the majority of the song done through
people singing/rapping, and our ideas would most likely have to keep to this convention and limit our creativity during the music video, as well as having to find the resources and human resources to do so.

Although i would like to have this song chosen for our project, i don't believe that this would be a smart choice. With all of the issues and possible limitations as well as having to ask for permission, which could be hard. I believe that the negatives far out way the positives. 

How Stars are Represented and their Image

The Stars of music videos for example the artist or band that creates, sings or plays the music will often be the focus of videos. A large amount of music videos take clips from live performances and recreations, this shows off the star and helps to give them a larger image in the media. The same effect can be done in music videos by making the star the main feature of the video or the main character in a narrative, an example of this is Labrinth's - Earthquake ft. Tinie Tempah where the artist is the only feature apart from graphics for a large amount of the video.

The Image of stars and celebrities is very important and if a celebrity and if a an artist has a small image within the media and the general public then a good music video with bold image branding can really help.