Music video ideas

For our A2 media task we have to create a music video within a group. In order to do this we have to decide on a song, that does not already have its own video. We all contributed ideas on a genre, it came down to being between indie or dance as we liked the idea of doing an abstract video. In the end we chose a Bloc Party song, called Ares. It is a very loud song, and the lyrics have a violent and aggressive theme to them. Subgroups to the lyrics in terms of themes consist of, war, gods, power, strength, speed, blood, sirens, and natural disasters. My group consists of four people, we have not dedicated certain roles yet. But the jobs that need doing are brainstorming, storyboarding, getting the equipment, borrowing the video camera, permission to access the area we film, and editing.




The rules for our coursework were that we had to pick to a song that did not already have a video; this was to do with copyrighting laws. So we then had to take it upon ourselves as a group to send an email to Bloc Partys record label, this was Wichita.

Lyrics

War war war war
I want to declare a war
My fist breaks your porcelain nose
There are other things that hands can do
To create or to destroy, mini gods and goddesses
First person singular
Set it set it set it off

War war war war
Keep the past the future is ours
Man made natural disaster
Blocking out all of the sun
Supermen and mitsi turbo
Speed agility super strength
Wipe the blood of those knuckles
Spark it give me two’s on that

War war war war
I want to declare a war
True say blud that when we ride
We don’t stop for nobody
The Africans and the Bengalis
He knows all the rude boys
Reebok Nike Adidas Puma
“Rer rer rer, this shit is long”
It’s all getting, quite highly charged
Get out the way, or get fucked up

We dance to the sound of sirens
We dance to the sound

And to think, that these hands
Could work wonders, with their touch
Listening, to dead singers, in your room
In 98

We dance to the sound of sirens
We dance to the sound

Ideas

For our music video we each contributed ideas.
We had to decide whether we wanted our video to have a narrative or abstract theme. We decided the abstract theme was more suited to our song. As a narrative would be harder to do, and would restrict our ideas and the things we would be allowed to do. We had the idea of filming in a black room and having dancers covered in neon lights, there are other ways in which we could create this neon effect. Such as adding in the lighting in the media room using the computer equipment, we could also have the dancers/characters appearing on screen in literal costumes that are covered in colourful clothing and accessories. We have been shown in the filming room how to create lighting effects and how to use the apparatus, things such as putting different coloured art paper in front of the lamp creates a spotlight of a blocked colour.
We liked the idea of alot of colour because it creates the impression of confusion and panic as there is alot going on, on screen. The lyrics to this song are good because they are simple but represent alot, therefore allow us to attach alot of ideas and images to them. For example when the song states 'we dance to the sound of sirens' this is a chance for us to play loud sounds and make the video as busy as we can. Back in the day, sirens were used to warn ships of storms and bad weather when they were at sea. A busy atmosphere can be created by using lighting effects, such as strobe lights. The more colour in the video, the better as it will make it seem like there is more going on. We liked the idea of having a chase scene in the video, to emphasise on the fear factor from the song, we got this inspiration from one of Bloc Party's other song videos called 'Talons'. This was another loud song, so it was good to compare ideas with as it has similar themes to 'Ares'. If we have people who are willing to participate in our video, we could use the idea of creating a mirage. For example have a person standing under flashing lights in the corner in one shot, then in the next shot they are gone, this will create the idea of the audience being delusional and confused.
Below here, are images showing use of colour and neon lights.

Our main idea was to film our video in a derelict mental asylum, in Hellingly as it suited our theme well. Its full on long and tall corridors, this would be good for chase scenes to portray the idea of emptiness and being alone. According to people and photos there is left over equipment from the days when it was in use; this is good because it makes it more realistic. There are alot of shots we could use here, and it would make an interesting and unique video, it is just a case of it being quite far away and not very accessible as you need permission from security guards and such like. If this is not possible, a next option would be a warehouse or abandoned out house properties.
Using a woodland area would be good as its easy to access and can be done in daylight or the dark. Which is more ideal as it would create simple yet effective scene shots. It could also put across the theme of fear; in the sense of trespassing and danger. We want the audience to understand fear is main factor behind the character.
In bloc party's previous videos they keep things simple, even if there is a narrative style of images. We have used their other videos for inspiration, one of these is 'Talons'. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTwFE_8v8Bce.com/watch?v=xTwFE_8v8Bc in this video a lot of scenes are taken in the dark, even though at some points its hard to see they introduce light at the right times, from the right angle and in the right strength; so you can still see what is happening in the shot. For example when Kele the main singer is running through the corridor he bounces off against the wall whilst running. He does not turn around to look behind him, which gives the idea that he has a place to run or something to run away from. This connects work with the angry lyrics and to follow a sense of no escaping etc. In the shot below you can see the light on his back creating an idea of seeing small parts of things, and that might link to small spaces and claustrophobia. Which again is unpleasant and fits in with fear and anger.

Bloc party could be described as indie or alternative rock. They use different instruments and music technology to create the right sound for their songs. Depending on the album, whether it be a weekend in the city, silent alarm or intimacy you hear a new side to the band. This is good as it keeps their audience interested in what is coming next. The kind of people that listen to their music carry a stereotypical look and image. For example they are seen to wear skinny jeans, converse shoes and carry off individual looks that may be to do with their hair etc. If you are to look up Bloc Party on connecting sites such as Myspace, or Facebook. You are able to see fans that link with them are fitting into the stereotype; they are often also seen taking an interest in music. I.e playing an instrument or at a gig. This shows that they understand and follow attitudes of the band in their lifestyles. On Facebook alone the Bloc Party fan group, has 219,109 members. This may lead to the idea that if you like a band, you may take it upon yourself to express their music in your own way. You may do this by creating your own web page about them. This can all be Incorporated into our video if we need to introduce a character that is fully clothed, as we can follow a simple image that is given by the band members. But in our video we also liked the idea of having our character topless, as it shows masculinity and starts to show an idea of being fearless; which contrasts with the idea showing fear by lighting and camera shots.
Below are pictures of the band showing you their image.

On Bloc Party's Website. http://www.blocparty.com/ it shows you a chart that informs you of the demographics of the people that listen to interviews, read interviews, buy bloc party memorabilia and buy their music.From this site we can see that the audience is mostly male, 13-34 age range was the highest, Caucasian, 49% had children, 28% of the buyers were middle class earners money wise and a 52% of the audience went to college or university.
This shows us the audience we are targeting to attract and reach out to, because it would make it more realistic as a music video. Bloc Party use their well known appearance to make it into magazines and articles, which helps their band become more well known and puts their music abilities out there to become all together more successful. They are mentioned and appear often in magazines that suit their genre. So this includes NME and Q. these are two well known magazines, and are sold in alot of shops across the country. Even if Bloc Party have not participated in an interview they still make it into magazines and articles in newspapers, due to reviews and feedback by the public. Which must be positive at their current time in the music industry, even if we see their audience as mostly 'indie' they must be classed as hitting the mainstream audiences, as they have top 10 entrees on numerous occasions. And two of their albums have made gold and platinum status.
As a group we have come to the final idea that using bright colours is more suited to this song, which i feel may not necessarily be the case as it is quite a dark and evil song. So to literally show this would be done better by using dark blues, and colder colours as supposed to reds and oranges in neon which portray the idea of fun and excitement. But if you look at it in a contrasting way it works to say, the warm colours are making it twisting and playing with the audiences initial thoughts and the feelings of the characters in the video. I.e they don't feel safe or happy, but the fear being pumped into the video twists it round to portray this as a good thing. We felt that looking at other music videos gave us ideas on how to look at lighting. Below are examples. The image below is a series of screen shots from Kylie Minogues - I Believe in you, video. This is useful for us as it uses lighting in creative ways to make shapes and surround the singer. This is an idea we could use as surrounding could be seen as swallowing and being swamped, which is seen as scary. Even though the lighting is very high tech and looks like its done on computers with expensive software which is a very unrealistic aim for us to have. We could take shots and simplify them down to suit things we could do. The song itself is one in the pop genre, and has a different image to our genre which makes the video appear glamorous and expensive, we do not want this image so we have been looking for locations that appear run down and broken. The mise en scene in this video also portrays money and happiness such as her dress, her hair and her make up, the lyrics behind the song are about romance; which is the opposite to our song. The dancers in lighting in the song make it seem upbeat, which is good as it shows the effect they have in the video. Instead of using a music video for inspiration i looked else where on YouTube. The other things that came up were all useful for ideas, another thing was purely for effectiveness and the use of neon. It was a game of ping pong being played by men all in black suits with someone else being their upper body and some one controlling their arms, and the ball was on a pole. The lights were attached to their body's and used to make the body parts stand out as they individually moved. This was good as it allowed them to slow down and speed up the video when they wanted to.
A great example of the types of things we wanted to incorporate into our video is featured in this link www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNXn7IUTPJU. This is good because it is simple but effective, the way the people move works well with simple colours and lights.
Below is some print screens of the video there is also another shot from a different video i found that shows glow in the dark letters, that are on stage spelling out a word, this would be good to have in our video as it shows creativity and at the right time it could create a sense of weirdness and scariness as it would be like the person in the video is no longer alone.

https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B6s132hCeanGMzE2YmE5N2YtOGIxYy00Mjk3LWEyYzctYjcxYjY5NTk3Mjg5&hl=en

I created a PowerPoint presentation to represent what was shown in our pitch as due to technical faults the original was lost, but the basic ideas and information are still given. To open click on the link above, and download. Our original pitch was shown to the class, and filmed.
This involved running the class through our ideas of our final video and talking about the demographics. Below is a link to the video.

https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B5WUAYNvqSRQMjhlYTY0NjAtN2UxZi00NzUxLTkzZmYtYWNjODFkMGQ5OTU4&hl=en

For our video i went to Hellingly in advance with a group of people before we attempted filming, this was to take photos and get an idea of the place. I found out it was not the most practical place to film but the way the building is so derelict and abandoned it makes it an ideal location for our group. Because our video needs to have a scary feel it is appropriate that the building used to be a mental asylum. The layout of the building would be good for us because it is made up of corridor after corridor. With them being long and straight it would create a good look for a chase scene. Below are some of the photos i took.

As Hellingly is due to be knocked down in January we are unable to film in this location so after brainstorming and setting out all of our ideas here, we can just transfer them to a suitable realistic location. In Brighton there are buildings that suit the atmosphere we want for our video. Scenes and shots can be created in a woods or isolated area to carry on the theme of fear. Two people in our group did manage to go to a warehouse in Lewes during college time to take photos these create the type of image we want but on a smaller scale. Hellingly would be ideal because of its sheer size. We then decided on using the woods outside the back of college. we did this because its creepy enough and close. Out of college time i thought about lighting effects we could use, asked someone with a good camera to help me take them, they use the lights of cars in traffic and the back lighting of the traffic lights. These create an image of modern chaos which is good for us because it shows alot going on whilst the person in the image is just still. However, in out video this would not be able to be caught on film. So, shots like this would be good when using the projector in the college's filming room. But if they do not fit and work then i can use them as a front cover of my digi pack. To link them to the song and project the photos can be described to have metaphorical meanings. i.e The hood on the individual is like a youths halo. (Halo being described in the songs lyrics when speaking about 'gods and godesses'.)