22. Baby is this love is for real? Let me in your arms to feel, the beating of your heart baby...

So with everything finished, all left to do was to make the dvd menu. I choose to put the picture of me and Sibley, which is on the right of this blog, as the background and choosed to set it to one of the in built themes on iDvd. Also including the music of Mark Ronson's "God Put A Smile On Your Face" it all looked very jazzy. I was inspired by the dvd menus of Chris Cunningham, which also had lots of screens showing his music videos.

On the dvd was put our actual media coursework and two side music videos that me and Paul Cooper had made which look like this and this.

Everything finished now ... sigh ... now just the evalution and the CRS exam to look forward to.

Wahey! Well done Tevez :) ... hope everyone had a good weekend.

P.s Heres the focus group that I should of uploaded ages ago when I had it finished (on the 4th of Nov ... gulp):

21. Another textbook situation, everything I think I know I've read...

Hmmmmm ain't posted in a while it seems ... going on here feels weird ... should probably do some CRS really.

But meh the music video is finished now, here it is:


Comment if you want ... hopefully we might get a comment or two on youtube ... but I'm not sure I can be bothered with shamelessy self promoting on loads of forum sites ... I don't really like the video much apart from the bit where I place the glass to the camera, the eyebrows before the guitar solo, how it gets all hectic near the end of the guitar solo to reflect the music and the shot of the metal horizontal lines.

Thats just me really ... come to the conclusion that after being introduced to the indie genre that all student films are quite boring really ... just lacking the proffessional touch you know?

Although the bit in Caitlins with katie's sister does look very good and proffessional ... quite jealous.

Might do something for the DVD menu ... if we do the plans with be posted on here shortly.

Heroes finale tonight ... should be good.

20. Out of the Box

Well yeah, here I am at home, ill. Anyway, I've finally got round to uploading the storyboards.

Just a few quick notes though:

• As you know, we changed the location from Woolpit Village Hall to Woolpit Village institute, meaning that the background stuff is shuffled about (yet still pretty similar, i.e. the kitchen window switches from the right to the left in the production).


• We also switched the cluster of close-up shots at the beginning so that they are now at the end of the video. We did this to cover up a cock-up in filming.


• On the storyboard in the transitions bit, where I've put a scribble basically means there is no transition. This is due to the obvious fact that most of our video is one shot.


• If the objects in the frames get bigger or smaller on the storyboard, do not take it to mean that zoom has taken place, because it hasn't. After the beginning tracking shot brings the camera to a rest in front of Zal it does not move again until the ending tracking shot, capiche? But yeah, it's been two years since I did art/graphics, forgive me.

Anyway, here is the infamous storyboard:

Well that's me done for today. Back soon.

Adios

19. He seemed impressed by the way you came in. "Tell us a story, I know you're not boring"...

So yeahh short post ... just thought I would add some research on indie films so I don't have any paper work to hand in at the end of this project apart from my evaulation. :)

Indie or "Independant" Films
A basic definition:

"An independent film, or indie film, is usually a low-budget film that is produced by a small movie studio and stars unknown, relatively unknown or famous actors specific to the genre. Additionally, the term is used to describe less commercially-driven art films which differ markedly from the norms of plot-driven, mainstream classical Hollywood cinema."

So there basically films made by people who don't need massive companies to fund their budget.

As the budget isn't massive it means most indie films are editted by the directors or in general not alot of money goes into the editting budget meaning ... the helpful part ... they use such programs as:

"Software

Popular software (including commercial, consumer level and open source) includes:

Mac

iMovie
Final Cut Express
Final Cut Pro
Avid Xpress Pro
Adobe Premiere Pro
Final cut Studio"

And tend to use expensive versions of the cameras we use as such as:

"Canon - XL2, XM2, GL2
Panasonic - AG-DVX100
Sony - PD-170, DCR-VX1000, VX 2000, HVR-Z1U"

Which means justify our film into the indie genre as we used FINAL CUT and smidgen below a really expensive sony camera.

That's all.

Focus group and storyboards coming soon to a blog post near you.

Laters

18. Let me in from the rain, don't you let me go again, let the water run down my face...

Ain't done a blog post in ages. This is probably because we've reach a stale part in editing where we've done all we can we're just waiting to film more shots.

So I decided throw done some more research onto the table of Nicholls and Sibley media productions. It's a nice mahogany table with gold leaf corners if you were wondering...

Sooooooo:

Institutions of Indie and stuff

The illustrious Strokes are owned by Sony BMG as the main big institution ... I think ... but their last album First Impressions of Earth was produced by RCA Records (Radio Corporation of America) which are an American record company, however it's a part of a trinity of companies as there is also RCA Victor (which does blues music, world music, jazz, musicals ... generally anything but pop) and RCA Red Seal (classical crap).

Now this is an American label so if I was to give you a copied and pasted history you would get bored because nothing good comes out of America until modern times ... and that’s usually because they've finally been discovered when touring the UK. Jimi Hendrix and The Strokes are massive examples of this (John Peel found the Strokes).

Back to Sony BMG, prepare for some opinion Mr Morrison because, they own:

• AC/DC (Mum likes them, no more needed to be said)
• Aerosmith (That guy’s mouth is way to big)
• Alicia Keys (Over rated ... only good song is "Falling")
• Anastacia (Big ... erm how you say? ... Lungs)
• Avril Lavigne (No qualms with her)
• Backstreet Boys (Burnnnn)
• Beyoncé (All she does is moan about men)
• Bob Dylan (Legend)
• Britney Spears (Again no qualms really ... just a bit white trash sometimes)
• Bruce Springsteen (famous in America ... not so much here ... I wonder why?)
• Celine Dion (Burnnn ... did that titanic song ... one of the worse songs ever)
• Chris Brown (Nice dancer ... shame about the speech impediment)
• Christina Aguilera (Alright when she’s not moaning about men)
• Dido (Should have never collaborated with Eminem)
• Duran Duran (Acceptable in the 80s ... should really just stay there)
• Elvis Presley (Incredibly over rated ... should be shot for destroying black music)
• Eurythmics (No qualms ... mum has their greatest hits somewhere)
• Franz Ferdinand (So much promise ... the 3rd albums really going to be make or break)
• George Michael (Club Tropicana was a good song I suppose ... just pray you never stumble across him in a public toilet)
• Good Charlotte (Factory produced Emo music ... women music now)
• Incubus (Good band)
• Jessica Simpson (Should never make music or reality shoes or spout her opinion of George Bush to us)
• Jennifer Lopez (Meh my sister likes her)
• Joe Satriani (Amazing guitarist if Paul Cooper is anything to go by)
• Johnny Cash (Again ... legend)
• Justin Timberlake (I like him ... and if you don't ... screw you)
• Kelly Clarkson (Another women making success over moaning about men ... yawn)
• Kylie Minogue (Another legend)
• Michael Jackson (The best solo artist in history ... bet they made loads of him)
• Natasha Bedingfield (There's a reason why you get writers block ... maybe take hint some time?)
• Nelly Furtado (Mum/women music)
• Oasis (English band? I thought this was Americans only...)
• Ozzy Osbourne (And another English guy ... what’s going on now?)
• Pearl Jam (Jack Stanton likes them ... and I prefer them to Nirvana I guess)
• P!nk (Aright I suppose ... again women music though)
• R Kelly (Paedophile...)
• Rage Against the Machine (Hmmmmm anti establishment band ... signed to one of the biggest record labels in the world ... makes perfect sense)
• Ricky Martin (Living the la vida loco in hell)
• Rod Stewart (STOP MAKING RECORDS AND RETIRE)
• Santana (Making Marks & Sparks sexy)
• Sean Kingston (DIE DIE DIE ... you get the picture
• Shakira (Her hips don't lie ... but that doesn't mean she won't tell you white lies)
• Stone Sour (I know one good song)
• System of a Down (Very good band ... one of the most decent things to come outta America for a long while)
• The Fray (Stupid emo music ... no one cares how you save a life ... and if we did, we wouldn't listen to this song for the simple steps on how to do it)
• Usher (Burn ... no please literally do)
• Velvet Revolver (Super band ... got nothing on Led Zeppelin ... maybe it should just be an English thing ... ok America?)
• Westlife (Almost makes me want to shoot who ever signed them)
• Will Smith (But they have this legend ... which makes up for it)

So as you can see they tend to be a very mainstream music company ... even with the rock bands they've signed.

This would lead me to be inclined that even though the Strokes are hypocritically INDIE because of INDIE is:

"Indie rock" is shorthand for "independent rock", for many of its artists are or were unsigned or signed to independent record labels, rather than major record labels."

Although Wikipedia still ranks them in:

"After 2000

Main indie rock genres after 2000

Post-Punk Revival: Maxïmo Park, Franz Ferdinand, The Kooks, Bloc Party, Editors, Interpol, The Cribs, The Killers, Arctic Monkeys & the Fratellis.

Garage Rock Revival: The Strokes, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, The Hives, The Libertines, The White Stripes, The Vines, The Von Bondies & the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

Dance-punk: !!! & The Rapture.

New Rave: Klaxons, Shitdisco, Simian Mobile Disco, New Young Pony Club, Cansei de Ser Sexy, Hadouken!

Additional less clear defined genres such as:

Baroque Pop: An updated take on the folk music (See: Arcade Fire).

New Prog: Muse."

Ahhh such a decent bundle of bands (minus Arcade Fire ... left them in for James) ... makes you proud to be an indie kid.

So yeah that’s the institution that The Strokes are represented by ... very mainstream but they still OWN HARD.

Now for some:

Conventions of Indie music videos and stuff

After some previous textual analysis I thought I would go through some major conventions of Indie music videos. Seems like the major dude theory wise is GOODWIN, who I previously mentioned in the 50 cent textual analysis. So here is his theory according to Long Road Media:

"Andrew Goodwin writing in ‘Dancing in the Distraction Factory’ (Routledge 1992)

1. Music videos demonstrate genre characteristics.
   - Stage performance in metal video, dance routine for boy/girl band
2. There is a relationship between lyrics and visuals.
   - They are either illustrative, amplifying, contradicting
3. There is a relationship between music and visuals.
   - They are either illustrative, amplifying, contradicting
4. The demands of the record label.
   - They will include the need for lots of CUs of the artist & there may be reoccurring motifs (a visual style)
5. There is frequently reference to notion of looking
   - (Screens, telescopes, etc) & voyeuristic treatment of the female body.
6. There is often intertextual reference
   - (To films, TV programmes, other music videos etc"

Now for some indie examples:

1. Live performance - Bloc Party Hunting For Witches
2. Lyrics & Visuals - Muse - Hysteria
3. Music & Visuals - Klaxons - Magick
4. Reoccurring Motifs- The Hives - Tick Tick BOOM (The Hives tour in those suits now and even recorded the whole album in specifically those suits).
5. Voyeurism - The Cribs - Men's Needs
6. Intertextuality - Does It Offend You, Yeah? - Battle Royale

There's also a theory by some dude (Mr Morrison & Miss B ... help please) that says that music videos are either:

• Concept Based
• Live Performance
• Or a narrative

Also some indie videos go for the guerrilla look (filmed spontaneously) or the old school DIY feel.

So yeah there’s the institution behind the Strokes and some music video conventions for your ass. This post feels very Laureny (just copy and pasted stats and facts) but meh it just adds to our research pile. Once our videos finished and published youtube ... I'll try and apply Goodwin's theory to it.

Just the:

• Focus group
• Story board
• 1 piece of textual analysis (if I get bored)

...left to upload. Now to get the evalutaion started ... might do that on Sunday but I need to check with James whether we have a CRS on monday to see if there's any point of printing it off.

Hope everyone has a good weekend and gets filmed what they want.

Laters

17. She's the flutter in my heart, the spring that's in my step...

Ahhhhhh annotating the lyrics ... this really should have been done ages ago. But we've finished filming now, the promo looks awesome, the final thing is going to be even better, so I may as well scratch this off the list.

Tried to import the film to the laptops today but some stupid lad decided not to charge his camera so it ran out of battery while importing ... then refused to even give me the tape.

So I spent the lesson doing the lyrics:



Not much left to do now:

• Research - The institutions The Strokes represents and major convention of indie videos and how we've incorporated them.
• Upload our focus group results.
• Upload our story board.
• One more textual analysis of a video that combines the stars face and visuals that reflect the music.
• Just general editing and burning which shouldn't take long.

The food on shoot Mr M tasted very nice thank you but your views on Final Cut seem to be a little flawed, the capture clips was very rubbish compared to adobe. However the layout seemed the same and I think it has the tool I want so it's not a complete let down hehe

Hope everyone else’s is going well

Laters

16. A Call and Response

Right first off, thanks to the three that commented on the promo! Now I'd just like to respond to Mr. M's comment in particular, I'm doing it here because I also cover some of my reasoning and inspiration behind certain decisions.


1. 'Jack looks the part as white t-shirt chef through the servery 'window' although doesn't seem to be doing much work'

Jack said that "this is what real greasy spoon chefs do! They stand at the kitchen window looking hard!". Haha, well anyway I thought I'd just let him have that one, but I still got him to move around (basically anytime he moves around the kitchen is when I've shouted at him to "move around a bit more!" whilst waving my arm in a circular direction above my head. I wanted him to move around because there's a bit in one of our practices in which someone in the corridor moves past the window of the door of 101, and it looks good because it's a tight framing (that whole thing of stuff moving faster in a tightly framed close-up all applies here). So that was my direction with that.

2. 'Zal does a great job'

Zal is awesome. Acting in slow-motion has never been made to look so easy! I love the effect when he leans into the camera to say something, fills up the frame and really makes it look like he's talking to just you.

3. 'Paul and his disappearing fingerless gloves has certainly got ants in his pants!'

With Paul I'd told him to have an "animated discussion" with Rob (I actually told him to say "Malkovich, Malkovich, Malkovich" repeatedly cos I'd seen Being John Malkovich for the first time the other day lol, nerd alert), with lots of arm/body movement. I did this because it looks good on camera in double speed. I didn't see the point of using the effect if it wasn't going to be utilised to it's maximum potential!

4. 'Did you snap the camera onto the tripod after your initial handheld track?'

I actually kept it on the tripod for the whole take, as it would've been too difficult to film the opening bit of the guys inside the kitchen steadily. It's a shame because I had an idea to "do a Children of Men" (the car-attack scene in the New Forest, anyone? With the in-car rig swinging the camera in and out of the windows, anyone?) and start the filming in the kitchen (Jake would do that), bring the camera through the hatch (by handing it through to me) and then continue as you see in the promo, but the tripod wouldn't fit. Plus there would've been problems with Jake not being too obvious in handing the camera over, he is acting in the scene after all. But yeah, I was pretty damn pleased with the tracking shots, because that was without a dolly and any minor shakes would've been multiplied in the fast-motion effect. I was also pretty pleased that I managed to settle the tripod down in front of Zal without a horrible, jerky bump. So yeah, bit of blowing my own trumpet, but there you go!


Right what else...nope, nothing, for now...

Just good luck John! But don't try too hard! :P

15. You don't half pick your moments to talk about, the things you never wanna talk about...

Time to feel everyone in it seems.

Guess what ... we filmed everything on Friday morning and it went really well :D.

We filmed in the Woolpit museum instead of the village hall I think because it was cheaper to book and easy to organize.

Here is what it looked like when we got there:


Then after we built our set from basically scratch (we only had tables and chairs to work with) we managed to create a sorta greasy spoon looking set:


Although dad said that there should have been tomato sauce bottles on the tables rather then just salt and pepper shakers. However, for the first set we've ever created out of nothing we were pretty pleased. To light the place we made filters by shining light onto tin foil sheets, as shown in the pictures here:


So with the set ready we had to prime the actors. Appearing in the kitchen would be our two Jack chefs Mr Stanton and Mr Brown, appearing as two cafe customers would be the keen animator Mr Cooper and our good friend Mr Miller (returning for a part longer then half a second this time), I was a somewhat camp waiter and Mr Sibley filmed the whole thing with the help of my camera (dad wouldn't let me borrow his in the end) and my tripod. Our star man being the legendary Zal Jones, a somewhat student film veteran now. The crew:



Filming went well we had about two or three dress (not filming) rehearsals to make sure everyone knew what was going on. We then had a filming re rehearsal, James went around holding the camera and everyone started to act. We then took two takes with actual acting and real food for Zal to eat (cooked by me and Mr Stanton and prepared by Mr Brown), they both went really well and I managed to edit the footage from take 1 into a small promo here:

Watching back the footage highlighted a few problems:

• In both takes (you can see in the promo) as Zal walks out the cafe you can see our lighting stands, however in the second take Zal has finished singing the song by this point so by some careful editing we should be able to edit out any notice of this to the audience.
• My fear that the table was too over exposed may be in affect, in youtube form it does defiantly look more exposed however it looks good on the computer screen.
• The sped up part will be very difficult to edit using iMovie. I used Adobe Premier Pro CS3 to edit the promo which has this handy tool that can stretch video clips to fit in any gap, so I jus edited the speaking parts, left a gap and then plonked the sped up sandwich eating bit in there and stretched it to fit. Whether final cut has this tool is a different question though.

However negative this may seem, I was very pleased when I finished editing, as we played the Strokes at half speed in the background of filming and made Zal mime to that, then speeding it up was very easy as I only had to had to set the clip 200% (speeding it up by 2x). I had quite the jig after first look and after the final thing was edited down I was very happy with it. It is obviously a very rough edit, for example the stills at the end could change to match the drum beat, but never the less I was throughly pleased with it.

Hope you enjoy ... more still I hope when we edit take two into the real piece of coursework it will look truly awesome ... things are looking likely to that fact.

Now filming is finished, I'm planning to start the evaluation soon, all the way up to editing, as all the planning has been done now. Annotations of the lyrics will also be posted shortly.

Yay ... hope everyone else's production is going great ... see you all soon.

Laters

14. I came, I saw, I conquered ... so Mrs B if you want this encore, I need you to scream, 'til your lungs get sore...

Hey everyone,

Hope everyone’s half term owns as much as mine so far. So happy to be taking time off school ... really needed the break from intellectualness if you get me? Right as there hasn't been a post on here for 10 days I may as well give an update to our current situation.

To do list:

• Research - We still need to do a focus group and look at the institutions behind the Strokes and the general indie scene they represent.
• Finish the storyboard (We shouldn't take long as our production is only six shots long).
• Textual Analysis - Already done "Heart In A Cage" and "Ayo Technology", still gotta do "Sledgehammer" and one where the music is reflected in the video (any suggestions).
• More themes of professionalism to add to the general pile - Currently just using a really decent camera.
  

Also after looking at the previous student videos I created a "Things to avoid list":

Things to avoid list:

• Bad exposure - Classic mistake for making the video look really amateur.
• Young kids or trying to act - We're young we can't act yet ... FACT!
• Video effects - Ghost trail just looks rubbish because everyone uses iMovie so the real skill is making it look original.
• Lyrics shown too obviously - Not everyone watching is intellectually challenged ... keep it subtle.
• Make up - You've just been hit by a car ... your body has been scrapped across the road and your bones are broken ... but no wounds ... who you kidding?
• Darkness - Unless you’re making a foreboding video ... and to memory none of them were ... don't use darkness because the camera we use are so bad at night ... trusts.
• Poor ending shots - I've just sat through an awful song and you've presented me with a very weak narrative ... at least try and end on something memorable.
• Room to "talk into" - Mr Morrison put extra emphasis on this ... and of course he's right ... it does look very silly if you have your basic close up and there’s half the shot behind the person's head.
  

So yeahhh keeping the ball rolling. I do seem very negative about the student productions however I did particularly like:

Now to a weekend of disappointment to look forward to.

Don't get wrong I would love England to win the rugby world cup and Hamilton to win the F1 but come on we're English therefore we always fall hard when we're playing well ... just look at Russia. Rooney's goal was just orgasmic though :).

Laters...

13. There is lightning in this room, above our heads, waiting to strike, I'm a thinker not a talker...

Ha this is like last year all over again. The joy of studying such an awesome game. I don't care how nerdy it sounds San Andreas is just awesome. Now if you had told me like 3 years ago I would be studying San Andreas and voyeuristic 50 cent videos I doubt I would have believed you.

Ah yes a fresh new video for you to pour your sizzling opinions on. I doubt I'm the only person in the class to prefer mainstream music videos to the award winning directors we've been studying. No offence to Michel Gondry or Malcom Glazer or the rest of them, they have made some very inspiring videos. However for me music videos need a high energy to them, without that being a live band playing. Not saying the Aphex Twin didn't have a beat to it, only I prefer something I could watch with my sister in the background. Something for people with simple needs and very simple audience pleasures.

Although it was quite worrying earlier my 10 year old sister explaining this song is about how a girl wants sex but that’s more a subject for Cat and Lauren's CRS.

50 Cent - Ayo Technology

Firstly this video is set in London, which is a city I love buildings wise, so the shot where they pan down from a bridge to them in cars, even if it’s all CGI, stirs my coffee very well. Also the quick opening helicopter shots of the London eye and the house of parliament in the dark are also very pleasurable.

Ultimately these wonderful shots are pointless, along with the shot of 50 cent at the start holding a sniper rifle for no reason. These are quite obviously used to promote the wealth (rich well respected trademarks of London and the flashy expensive sports cars), power (being able to pleasure women with the touch of a button) and gangster prowess (the sniper rifle) of the only and only 50 cent.

On that little sheet we were given, Goodwin waffles about:

There is likely to be reference to voyeurism, particularly in the treatment of females, but also in terms of looking (screens, binoculars, cameras etc.)

Now Goodwin must have been theorising about this video as it contains lots of these features. At one point (1:24) Justin is even looking through X-ray binoculars into a women’s hotel room for goodness sake!

There is also a lot of inter-textuality in the video, whether it’s meant or not. Such as 50 cent is dressed like he's out of Reservoir dogs without the glasses, Timberland has the glowing glove moving screen board thing (which if I'm very much mistaken is "borrowed" from Minority Report), and the dancer at 2:38 is wearing exactly what Fergie did in her video for "London Bridge" minus the union jack underwear.

Now the lyrics are quite self explanatory, so much so as I said my sister understands them. The video is much dictated on technology and how these three maestros use them to pleasure the endless women that surround them. However I think I heard the original lyrics were about pornography rather then technology. So the slight change works well for creating a MTV showable video.

All in all it is a very stylistic video of Joseph Kahn's works, and if you've seen the "Britney Spears - Toxic". Very loose narrative that relates to the songs title and nothing more, random shots of loose women, technology/spy themes and random shots of the leading artists dancing to a plain coloured background.

Now for some questions, answers with opinions would be appreciated much better than just yes or no replies...

1) Is the opening shots of London too short or do you prefer the quick introduction of location, thus the video concentrating on the song more?

2) This opening shot is book ended by another similar CGI effect, did you enjoy this shot or would you have preferred they ended the video with a conclusion of narrative? I.e. what happened to the girl Justin was playing around with behind a door.

3) Were the lyrics reflected well in the video, or would you have preferred the video to be more narratively dominated?

4) General opinions on costume? Was it looking smart for the point of looking "cool" or do you prefer the artists to be wearing an outfit suited to their genre?

5) Is the fast paced editing too much or does it reflect the energy and upbeat feeling of the song more?

Saying all I've said I still like this video, although it's not Kahn's best works. Watch this space...

P.S After some more messing around we have our second film full of tester shots. This time instead of lip syncing we tried messing around with walking at normal pace with people in the background moving in fast motion. Anyways this was a productive use of a double lesson ... honest:

12. I am Jack's wasted life

Right I'm up on Saturday night doing homework, I'm cool, I know. And be warned this post is going to be a marathon.

Now to the point. As I mentioned earlier, we plan mise-en-scène to be a big part of our production, with the aim of creating (or arranging) our own set and lighting it well to maximise the end quality of our media coursework.

In light of this, coupled with the fact that we plan to set our music video in an American style diner/café, I began to think of cases in which bars, cafés and diners have featured in film; with a view to analysing how they were presented and what the mise-en-scène in said scenes was like (and what we can draw from this anlaysis). Almost immediately I had two scenes that I wished to analyse, both of which appear below. The first is from Fight Club (David Fincher, 1999), one of my favourite films and one of favourite scenes in it (it'll be explained in great depth below). The second is, again, from one of my favourite films and is, again, one of my favourite scenes. This time the scene in question being from Goodfellas (Martin Scorsese, 1990).

Then, as I settled down to write this blog post, my mental wanderings came upon another scene from another film. This time it is from Reservoir Dogs (Quentin Tarantino, 1992). A film that, while not adoring, I like. However I think I'm duty-bound to point out that Jake has immoral dreams about the man who directed it.

Bar Scene - Fight Club (David Fincher, 1999




While I'm mainly concerned with the the bar-orientated section of this clip, the section outside the bar is also of use as we are considering ending our music video with the central character walking outside into the car park of the diner/café. Thus I'll split the analysis into two.

Inside

What immediately strikes you about the scene is the muted palette of colours used by Fincher. The blue-grey of the upper walls and concrete pillars, black of the leather seats and sober brown of the tables and bar makes for a cold, dark and dingy bar atmosphere. Yet more than this it makes for a seedy atmosphere that nicely introduces and represents the seediness that is later to be revealed as a central part of Tyler's character.

This seediness is heightened by the director's use of focus and lighting in the scene. The sight of the various patrons of the bar moving around the behind the two characters out of focus and in the shadow cast by the hanging, partially-covered fluorescent lights creates a furtive atmosphere, in which people's faces and physical distinctions are hazy and unclear. This clandestine atmosphere is furthered by the presence of a group of pool players that can be seen behind the narrator's head. These subjects are lit by a smokey neon-blue light that only lights the (still out of focus) lower section of their bodies. The lighting used in the rest of the bar is quite low-key, with dim, covered wall-lamps that cast light up the wall they're attached too (which means that the bar patrons are dimly lit, adding to the atmosphere). Contrasted with this is the lighting and focus used for the two central characters: well lit, with their faces being fully lit and in clear focus.

One obvious effect of all this is that the audience's attention is focused upon the two central characters and what they say (it is a pretty important dialogue, it reveals most of what Tyler acts upon later), mainly because there's not a lot else that's clear enough to look at.

However it could also be said that an effect of this lighting and use of focus is that the audience is provided with a source of mystery, they cannot draw any solid conclusions from the character's location as they cannot see it or it's patrons clear enough, this can only leave them with a sense of mystery. Another closely related effect of the director's use of mise-en-scène is that the audience's attention is mainly focused upon the two main characters, yet their eyes will wander over the background in an attempt to discern details (in vain). This builds the secretive, mysterious nature of the two characters; they are sitting in a furtive bar filled with shady individuals that only interact with their immediate group. The audience are left to ponder what sort of character Tyler is to have taken the Narrator to this type of bar for their first meeting.

This sense of mystery and seediness created through use of focus, lighting and colour is something that I'd like to replicate in our own production. We want to introduce the character that is going to miming along to Last Night and we want to introduce a superficial "character", but we don't really want to divulge too much information about what kind of person they are or their nature, something (I feel) we can reinforce through similar use of mise-en-scène.

Outside

Now I've chosen to analyse the outside section of the bar scene in Fight Club because we ourselves may also have an scene in which the central character walks outside the front door (see my reasoning lol)

Anyway, the mise-en-scène is very similar outside. The fact that the scene takes place at night time already establishes a bleak atmosphere. Yet the colour, lighting and props that Fincher uses only reinforces this. Again the grey-blue appears, being used for the entire outside wall of the bar; as with inside of the bar, this creates a cold, dingy feeling.

Fincher again bolsters this dingy feeling through the use of cold, flourescant lighting (actually a lot of this reminds me of some of Jonathan Glazer's work, i.e. Richard Ashcroft - Song For The Lovers) and hazy sodium street lights. This low-key lighting creates an a very atmospheric mood for the scene, with the fluorescent lighting casting long shadows up the wall of the bar and creating a soure of back-lighting for the two main characters, the sodium street lamps then create deep shadows on the two character's faces and clothes.

Fincher also uses props to great effect in the outside portion of the bar scene. The rubbish bags, wheelie bin, wet and puddled tarmac and discarded empty beer bottles create a decrepit feel for the area outside the bar (how many bars have you been to that keep rubbish bags outside the front door next to the payphone?). This subtley links in well with what Tyler was saying in the bar ("stop being perfect") and what his "life" is later revealed to consist of: a dilapidated abandoned house and a business that consists of "selling rich women their own fat asses back to them".

This all works to generate a very strange mood for the scene that I can only describe as a "late-night with no-one about" mood, except it is exaggerated to an almost surreal level (or maybe I just lead a sheltered life) by the Fincher's use of mise-en-scène. Something that I feel we'd like to emulate entirely for our closing sequence of shots as it fits the morning-after-the-night-before mood we're trying to match to the song.

"Billy Batts" Scene - Goodfellas (Martin Scorsese, 1990)



The next scene I'm analysing is a bit more simple, in that I will mainly be concentrating upon set design and props, with a little bit extra added from the other aspects. Anyway, it's a classic scene from Goodfellas (Martin Scorsese, 1990) in which the three guys murder a "made-man" in a diner/café. It's mainly that last bit that intriques me.

Now Scorsese created the set of this scene as a small American diner. There's a well-stocked bar with small black leather, steel legged bar stools lining the counter. Lino covers the floor and every other space is filled by black leather corner chairs and tables covered by white tablecloths. This is a style that I feel works for it's realism, and it is a type of set that I hope we can emulate for our own production. However I don't think we'll be putting a jukebox in ours.

Again, as with the Fight Club clip, low-key lighting goes a long way to creating an almost foreboding atmosphere. However the major difference between the two is that Scorsese (I'm of course believing purposefully) has had the main characters smoke, this has filled the room with smoke and heightens the low-key lighting by making the light seem lazy, as it struggles to penetrate the smoke. While I feel that achieving this effect would be hard (partly because of the smoking ban in public buildings, partly because of smoke alarm problems and partly because I'm not going to force our actors to smoke), I feel it is a very effective effect, and is one that we could look into mimicing through other means.

Intro Scene - Reservoir Dogs (Quentin Tarantino, 1992)

Unless you're Abi, ignore the Spanish subtitles in this clip!



The final scene that I'm going to analyse is the introductionary café scene of Reservoir Dogs (Quentin Tarantino, 1992).

Now this scene is probably more relevant to ours in that it is set in the morning. This shows through with the lighting, with each of the characters being lit with that fresh morning light, with a weak light coming in from the side and mainly illuminating one side of a character's face (this could be interesting to use in our film, a faint shadow across one side of the character's body). This light works to make a fairly "crisp" atmosphere to the scene, something that is heightened by the white tablecloths, whitewashed walls and pillars and the black and white (bar one) nature of the clothes of the characters sitting around the table.

While this crisp, clean look is good for what Tarantino is trying to achieve - reinforcing his presentation of the group of characters as a group professionals (they're wearing suits for Chrissake) - it isn't entirely suitable for how we want to portray our central character. Mainly as a rough feeling (and looking) man who's recovering on the morning after the pretty wild night before. This is why I feel that we shouldn't use white everything prop-wise in our film (and generally decorate it like a tearoom), as this could make the character either look out of place, or take something away from the vulgar, shabby portrayal of the central character.

However one aspect of Tarantino's mise-en-scène that I feel does fit the fact that he's designed his set to make it appear "busy" visually. Behind the characters there is usually a large jumble of chairs, tables and pot plants laid out, as well as patrons and waitresses wandering around. It is this sort of crowded visual style that I think we should use for our music video (especially the people moving around bit, this is pretty integral to our video really) as it gives the frame more interest other than rows upon rows of lined up tables.

Fin

So just to sum up. we'd like to steal Fincher's lighting and colour, Scorsese's set and smoke and Tarantino's prop placement and framing. Hmm, maybe I should stick to saying we'd like to "emulate" them...

So this is the end of that marathon post. If you read it all, thank you, you're my new hero. Only two questions:

Which of the clips/set designs did you prefer? The bar, diner or café?

and...

Any particular aspect of mise-en-scène in any of the clips that you particually liked?


Sibley

P.s Now fixed the videos so there embedded now James...

11. My alarm clock he ain't working, but that don't really mind, cos he ain't no friend of mine...

So yeah ... had a fun lesson to day. No Morrison so we all WORKED hard, got ALOT OF WORK DONE, USED OUR BRAINS TO THINK and PRODUCED SOME DECENT STANDARD WORK. I made A VIDEO!

Well yeah that ... and also I spent two hours editing, with James happily looking around York, and also finishing our concept tester see what you think:



Yes, yes, I know I look really hot in a tie you don't have to comment and tell me that. Now to try and put a positive spin on what appears to be a complete waste of time:

• There has to be people in the background or some movement of some kind of it just looks like in the tester as you can't really see the effect on the video.
• Lip syncing shall be hard but not impossible, the last word of every sentence is easy to sync just the middle of it was hard.
• Dad's camera produces a very clear and crisp picture even on you tube :)
• My hair is very soft to touch and smells of minty head & shoulders, also my mum makes killer banana cakes
• If we play the song at half speed or quarter speed and mime to that ... all we have to do in the editing it double or quadruple the speed of the footage ... whilst still creating the same effect

All in all the concept works and should produce and interesting video … we hope.

After reading all this ... please leave a comment on The Strokes video in the post below this. It will be very well recieved if you do :D.

Anyways hope everyone has an awesome weekend, I know I sure will…

10. I went to the concert and I fought through the crowd, guess I got too excited when I thought you were around....

Ergh doing homework in a study how nerdy am I but I must thank Eleanor for letting me borrow her library card as mine is at home.

SO THANK YOU ELEANOR!!

Mr M said it would be a good idea to have a little online focus group thing. So if you wanna skip the bulk of this post and just comment back with your opinions on the ending questions then that would be fantastic. I give a nerdy myspace guarantee that I will do a comment answering my questions in return for a comment on any of your blogs :).

So I was thinking if I post my textual analysis on here then it saves me having to print it off on paper to hand in and it also allows for people to comment on the video thus creating and online focus group thingy.

So as previously mentioned I've decided to study The Strokes videos as we will be borrowing one of their songs, their indie and I love hearing there music again and again.

The Strokes - Heart In A Cage

So for my first attempt I choose "Heart In A Cage" as it very aesthetically pleasing. The song has also a lot of layers to it. I've already posted this before for an idea ... but hell I'm going to post it again as it's just such a favourite song of mine.

The lyrics can reflect two meanings. However only one is reflected in the video. First the song could represent a break up between the narrator and a girl. The guy’s heart feels trapped in cage as he stuck at the dead end of a relationship and deciding on what to do next:

Oh my heart beats in its cage, all our friends, they're laughing at us, all of those you loved you mistrust, help me I'm just not quite myself, look around there's no one else there, I went to the concert and I fought through the crowd, guess I got too excited when I thought you were around...

However the meaning which is more reflected in their video of the song is the sense of feeling trapped in a city which has no community spirit. The lead singer (I think he's called Casablanca, what a surname!) is describing how it feels like to live in the featured New York city when he rather live in a more rural location. Casablanca’s then combines these two feelings of entrapment in the verse:

I don't want what you want, I don't feel what you feel, see I'm stuck in a city, but I belong in a field...

The video is shot in New York and in monochrome; this gives a very stylish look to the video. To add to the sense of being crushed in a vice by a city, Casablanca performs most of the song on the floor with the surrounding people almost trampling him.

The shots on the roof of the building almost ended killing the guitarist as the 40mph winds almost blew him off (thanks wikipedia for that fact), however the ending shot of dropping the guitar off is so rock and roll it hurts.

Now for some questions, answers with opinions would be appreciated much better than just yes or no replies...

1) Is the opening shot of the speed up sun rising in New York city too short or do you prefer the quick introduction of location, thus the video concentrating on the song more?

2) This opening shot is book ended by an equally fast paced ending shot of the clouds, did you enjoy this shot or (like me) would you have preferred they ended the video with the dropping of the guitar?

3) Were the lyrics reflected well in the video, or would you have preferred there to be a narrative to explain the break up story side of the lyrics?

4) General opinions on black & white vs colour?

5) Is the fast paced editing too much or does it reflect the energy and upbeat feeling of the song more?

So yeah ... any opinions would be marvellous.

9. Well you’re walking and a talking, and a moving and a grooving, and a hipping and a hopping, and a picking and a bopping...

So for our next step we need to film some tester footage to check how impossible our concept is going to be. Me or James miming and then a little Imovie tinkering should be our first video post soon enough.

Also we need a focus group some time. For the "research into target market" bit. Inviting some indie mates over someone’s house, perhaps borrowing one of the schools music video DVDs and a cool little questionnaire should suffice.

Also there’s some textual analysis in order which is where I'm struggling. It's got to the point now ... as lame as this sounds ... that searching Google for music directors fails to produce a director that I love all his stuff.

Took some silly quiz thing that told me I would most like David Fincher's works. David Fincher being the guy that directed Fight Club which would link back to the mise en scene of our prominent concept at the moment. With one check of "Billy Idols - Cradle of Love" I was almost completely put off however after checking out the rather slightly entertaining "Nine Inch Nails - Only" he didn't look a complete waste of research. However with one look at his wiki page, I came to the conclusion that he hadn't have worked with many people I would be able to enjoy textual analysing there videos together.

I next searched Chris Cunningham on wikipedia. Discovered the shockable offence that he made a video for "The Horrors - Sheena Is A Parasite". Ergh working with The Horrors should be a shootable offence ... whatever Burby says ... worse live band I’ve seen in my life SO FAR (got to love homer).

The way its looking I think I might use Michel Gondry for a case study, as he’s worked with The White Stripes and The Vines and wikipedia also highlighted the fact that he made the "Steriogram - Walkie Talkie Man" video. This is rather ace in my opinion. It's like the string bit in "Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy" if you've seen the film your know which bit I mean.

That could be a possibility or I might try to focus on a specific indie band and analysing their videos. Stumbling around the internet I came across a group of four animators called Shynola which have created a few cool animated videos. They made a video for Radiohead, which thus gave me an idea of focusing on a specific band for the textual analysis as an Indie band should probably produce a lot of indie music videos. Whether my theory is right is yet to be proven.

The Strokes are a band I adore at the moment after recently acquiring "Is This It", which features "Last Nite", and also "First Impressions of Earth". I think I'll eventually acquire "Room On Fire" in an equally legal way as my cd is too scratched. With this in mind and the very likely possibility we might be using "Last Nite", also the fact that I love the "Heart In A Cage" video ... especially the bit where he drops the guitar off the building ... I think I shall textually analyse some of their videos. If I can get around to buying a DVD with them all on.

To sum up, this is for me and James more than anyone, we need to:

• Do a concept tester
• Textual Analyse 3-5 music videos
• Focus group research
• Storyboards
• Shot lists / Edit list
• Some mise en scene sketches

However any other case study suggestions would be helpful. I'm just walking down the road at the moment ... with no idea which direction to travel.

Laters

8. Running With It

Well, with bated breath, it appears we have settled upon a video idea we'd like to take further! This idea being the concept video I suggested for The Strokes - Last Night

Jake and I were talking about it in media this morning shortly after (and to be honest a bit during heh) Mrs. B had spoken about Alex Busson's group filming their production early. I personally felt we should run with the Strokes idea because: 1. It's something different. 2. It's challenging and 3. I feel we can really tie it into the genre of indie videos (while still not being a crappy bog-standard MTV2 indie video) through the use of good mise-en-scene. Me being the elitist perfectionist that I am, this sort of stuff appeals to me!

Mise-en-scene is something that Jake picked up on as well. He suggested that we really go for the mise-en-scene aspect of our production (always thinking of the final mark that boy is :P). Partly inspired by Michel Gondry he suggested that, instead of just using a cafe/diner we create our own set. While a bit hesitant at first, I came to see his point, going on to suggest that we look into using my local (Woolpit) village hall as the place where we could construct our mock-up cafe.

This particular village hall is a huge place, with a kitchen style place (which I have visions of using in an opening dolly shot, moving left until we reach our central character sitting directly opposite the table) to the left of an open-plan entrance corridor, which would be good to use as something behind the central character's head. We could set up tables, chairs and other cafe style things in there easily. As well as this the hall is home to a stage, so it has pretty advanced lighting in there (whether we could use this is as yet undetermined).

Back to the idea of the set, I want to create a similar feel to the bar in Fight Club or the diner/bar in Goodfellas where they kill the 'Made-man', that gritty, other-worldy feel; mainly because I feel this will really fit with the whole "indie video" style we want. This could quite possibly be achieved through lighting and good mise-en-scene, so it's something I'll look into further.

A feature that I want to use is focus, something that is greatly underused in school produtions (mainly because of the equipment, more on how to overcome this later). I feel this would really fit into the "morning-after-the-night-before" thing I want in the video. I think utilising the focus of a camera will work on many different levels for us. One way being having our main character in focus with behind him in soft focus; this will make the people moving around in slow motion seem all the cooler to the audience. Another level I feel this would work on would be from having the camera going into a quite hard focus on our main character or other areas of the frame.

All of this focus thing goes back to my major inspiration for the video: sitting in a cafe in Bury St. Edmunds after a long night. This is a weird thing I think only I experience, but after a long night with friends, I always get a heightened sense of awareness of what's going on around me (not a hangover), with everything in focus, as well as a sense of me being more relaxed than everyone else in the world rushing about (this would probably be down to being tired and being a lazy teenager with not much to do on a Saturday morning). It's partly this that I want to convey through clever use of focus and slow/fast motion.

Right, before I move onto the next bit, I'll explain how (I really, really, really hope) we can utilise focus in our video: we'll hopefully be able to use Jake's dad's pretty decent (understatement) camera. Jake'll have to do a bit of hands-and-knees begging, but if we could use it, the results would be fantastic (again, I hope).

Anyway, the next bit I'd like to cover is shots, and how they might change. On this topic Jake wants to include a "cliché-but-not-cliché" indie-style walking into the distance shot. He also thinks (as covered in an earlier post) that one single continuous P.O.V. shot could get boring. On the former I agree, on the latter I don't. I feel that a walking away shot would nicely bookend the video (couple with the opening dolly shot that I described earlier). However I feel that the idea of a continuous P.O.V. shot is all part of the dynamic of the video, and it's something that appeals to me greatly, it'd be a challenge but I think we can maintain an interest (a partly shaken up can of coke expolding in fast motion whilst its owner is in normal-time would look awesome in my opinion).

So that's pretty much where we are. We're going to be doing a test-session pretty soon to see how good the lip-synch will be (another difficult aspect of the video), and maybe some storyboards. So there you go!

Sibley

7. KIA KAHA!

In such a good mood today ... dancing around like no ones watching while walking the dog ... can't really think of anything else I would want to do with my saturday morning. Control your self Jake, this is only a media blog ... not a scary one about your life (James will know who I mean).

Anyways, I got bored of doing my CRS ... with Miss Bannon only 100 metres from me now ... talk about big brother taking over ... so I thought I would clear up somethings I mentioned in class to Mr M.

Here is the Kasabian - Shoot The Runner video I was talking about:



Although I can't get enough of the new Kanye West video ... its like Aha - Take On Me:



With the looking through the window colour bit ... god that is such a good video whatever people say ... crossed with Justice - D.A.N.C.E ...



Well here the Kanye West - Good Life (the video in question) ...



Now I was also talking about a certain student video...



And how it reminded me alot of the Death From Above 1979 - Blood On Our Hands (the actual video) ...



Well colour wise and setting anyways ... obviously the actual video has much more dynamic camerawork to convey the energy of the band ... man I wish I could of seen them when they were touring, 'You're A Woman, I'm A Machine' is such a good album.

Anyways, hope everyone has a good day. COME ON ENGLAND'S WOMEN.

Laters

P.s just read somewhere that the same animators were used for the Kanye West and Justice video ... hmmm is that why they look so similar? Haha.

P.p.s looks like the competitions arrived ... good job this one is pink ... no hints whos it is ... but Jon's is green ... and we all know nothing beats green! Also Pauls is under construction.

6. You're the catalyst that makes things faster, amylase will dry up the plaster...

Thought as people might actually be reading this blog now ... when they get incredibly bored with life or something ... I thought I might upload all my basic ideas so last year doesn't happen again (Rob with mind reading idea lol).

If you lost interest after just that one paragraph the what the fu..... are you doing here?!

Atreyu - Blow

I thought there won't be enough metal ideas off any groups so at least one should show the variety of ideas we're having (wink wink Mr & Mrs M & B).

Atreyu also rock hard so yeah I couldn't not come up with an idea.

Now after a some what interesting day of Malcom Glazer shizzle we had the one amazing looking shot hammered into our brains.

Main idea for this video would that it would start with a guy running away and getting chased through a city scape.

But the basic concept for a opening shot ... a guy tied to a chair looking like hes sh..... himself with a gun stuck down his throat.

The guy struggles then the trigger is pulled but it cuts 2 black just as the drums fade in ... and then the chase commences. So its like starting with the ending all MI3 ish like.

So fucking blow those words out of the back of your head...

The Chemical Brothers - Saturate

This song is just amazing ... well to me anyway ... I just love the simplicity of it. I was getting a bit worried bout my close friends the chemical brothers ... there last album was rather week ... althought Galvanise and Marvo Ging were alright.

This song is just screaming out for a concept. I just can't think what. Just thought I share my demand for an awesome video for this song.

I don't think that the fireworks really do the song justice but this guy obviously understands the whole in my musical video life :P.



Also check out "The Salmon Dance" most trippy song I've heard for ages.

Biffy Clyro - Living Is A Problem Because Everything Dies

Again ... like the last one ... this is more of a complaint/demand for a decent video for this song. The lyrics have such deep meaning to the singer ... the whole album is about the death of his mum and he reufuses to play some songs live because there too emotional ... that in its own right should mean that video should have much more meaning then playing the song in a abandonded ungerground thing with "artistic" lighting and your stereotypical water combined with rock shots.

This song is pretty powerfull stuff ... well to me anyway ... and I just think the record company spoiled an exceptional song. To be perfectly honest I related to this song alot when George was in hospital :( so it means alot to me.

Like I'm lying here, swimming in memories, I fear God because everything dies...

Jack Johnson - No Other Way

This song came on randomly when I was listening to music in bed trying to fall asleep.

Jack Johnson what an accoustic legend Mr Balmer would so visciously justify. This could be a simple concept song of a camera tracking up from a couple lying in bed with the guy suddenly waking up and lip syncing. The video could be interlinked with a narrative during the chorus, as long as they kept with the mellow tone of the whole song.

Took me ages to find a decent video, searching through endless wank covers but its a good song, defiantely worth a listen if you like accoustic...

Cajun Dance Party - Amylase

This band members are like 17! Now thats just weird. I do love this song though.

This song just reminds me off science coursework to do with potatoes. Could be a very playful song. General messing around in a science room. In a controlled manner of course. Playing drums with test tubes guitars plugged into gas taps.

Not really a solid idea but it looks awesome in my head. Could boogie around with a certain indie chum to this song all day...



Well none of them are half decent ... but that puts our idea count into double figures ... which has gotta be good!!

Laters

5. When the truth is, I miss you...

Was listening to this song the other day and the idea for a music video just sorta popped into place and I was left at the end of the song with a kinda cool idea I would share.

Coldplay - Warning Sign

It starts with a shot under a bed, where you see a hand reach under to grab a box and pull it into the light. A hand switches on a CD machine and turns up the volume to reflect the music.

You then see a hand rummage through the box, tis a hairy one so the audience know its a guy, and the hand starts to pick up photos.

Then theres a flash back sequence which are photo related, of a guy and a girl on like romantic dates down the beach or in the moonlight or something. But there all in reverse to reflect the music.

The guy then put the pictures back and then goes down stairs and watches TV with his head in hands.

He just sits there and stares a photo of them and hes almost crying. Then the camera pans to the bed and theres flashback of them lying in it holding each other.

Come on in, I've gotta tell you what state I'm in, I've gotta tell you in my loudest tones, That I started looking for a warning sign.

But then theres a knock at the door and the guy lets his mates in and goes to the kitchen to sort out sum plates, they've brought chinese to cheer him up.

He sees off at the door and then the guys in the kitchen now cleaning the sink and his attention cast onto a stain on wall. It then flashbacks to the couple cookin a meal and them making the stain.

Then it's the next day and hes shown working and then eventually eatting wiv his head in hands and the distraught look. Then on the bus on his own and hes watching memories of him playin and messing around with his girlfriend. He goes past a flower shop and it reminds him of the time he bought her roses.

The guy gets home and goes upstairs and looks at the photos again. They basically remind him of how lonely his is so he goes downstairs, pauses a CD plater, music stops and he rings her but its goes to answer machine so he hangs up and puts the music back on just at the chorus.

Then you see a taxi pull up and someone get in holding roses. They pull up to a house. Someone then gets out of the car and the person is holding a bunch of flowers and the card can seen reading "Please take me back, I love you" or something of that nature.

You find out its the girl in the memories, she knocks but one of his friends answers holding chinese but tells her to go away. He takes the flowers into the house but chucks them in a bin and walks off.

The women rides home crying, with the text "I never meant to cheat on you please say your hold me again like you used too".

The last shot is a fade to black with the flowers in the bin.

So its a story of how your friends protect you from getting hurt again.



Thought I would just write it on here before I forgot it and we can just add it to the big pile of in depth ideas...

Laters

4. Is anyone thinking anything at all? I know I had, something to say, it lost a meaning and it faded away...

Right ... as nerdy as it felt I decided to tape the "100 greatest music videos", that was on e4 the other night, as I thought it would be an excellent research tool as it had in-depth coverage of a good few "legendary" and "acclaimed" videos. I say this because there were a few videos in there SOOO over hyped (Hit me baby one more time, 21 seconds, In da club...). And by the way as its channel four it’s definitive so shhhhh!

Anyways as I'm not fully awake this morning I thought this would be the opportune moment to watch and be inspired ... because creativity flows better when my mind is still ... floppy ... for a better word.

I thought James' Strokes idea was rather good ... however ... it does sound very difficult to pull off. Again however that will just make for a better video ... SO ... I think it will better if we only had like varied amounts of it. I.e. not the whole video just one shot as that a bit too Thom Yorkie :P.

So I was thinking why don't do the video as one long POV with out the audience knowing it. We can speed up the boring bits ... to show a whole day (or roundish) ... and slow down the talking bits.

I was thinking this affect of slowing down while talking reminded me off how it felt when someone’s talking to you when you’re hung over.

And also ... James will hate me for this ... I think we need to make the video a bit more British as this will cost less and be pratical.

So me basic idea was:

Fade up from black, opening shot of a closed eyelid fade in and out of focus. It opens slowly but then frantically because of the fact that a dog is licking the owners face. (Stick sum jam on there or summing and then mute the filming process and encourage Brandy to lick the jam or choc). Then eventually the guy gets up and the camera follows him and has very sleepy, messed up look ... basically hung over with no idea why has in the middle of the street.

Up to this point the film will have been in black and white but as the camera follows him into like starbucks or that greasy spoon we like. The colour starts to gradualy fade back in while their eating breakfast he starts talking to the camera using the effect. Obviously not while eating. Or at least some effect to show that the character was feeling better.

Then we change location to a living room where their watching daytime TV (woop woop Jeremy Kyle or Richard & Judy) and he starts talking again all slowed down.

And then finally hes get to a pub and start talking again after a few drinks and the talking is slowed down anymore.

And then by the end of the film the guy goes to bed in a double bed and just before he goes to sleep. The camera pans away from the character to a shot of a mirror with a sticky yellow bit of paper on saying the audience "CALL LOCKSMITH" ... or something of that nature or you could have a shot earlier of a fridge with it written on ... and in the mirror the audience can see that the camera was actually a POV shot of another guy handcuffed to the main character as a bachelor evening prank...

Sorta reminiscent of:


This idea seems a little easier then controlling the weather ... and the business man one would require a very good camera and a lot of skill to pull off that shot.

But I think this could work. Lots of locations ... clever effect idea ... some nice framework ... bit of humour in the end.

Just what song?

3. A Few Ideas

Alright then, time for a few Sibley-grown ideas, straight from the horses mouth and such. Anyway, I've had the whole summer to think of of ideas for a music video so I'll run the numerous ideas I've had by you, dear reader.

Numero Uno
The Strokes - Last Night

This particular idea is a concept video. Mainly playing about with slow motion, speed and the effects this can create.

In my idea there would be only one shot. This would be a MS of a rough-looking guy sitting at a American style diner table (chequered table clothes, anyone?), as if he's been up all night (get it?). Framed in the shot would be half the table (in front of the guy) and the guy from the waist up, with a space over his head. The entire video would be filmed as a P.O.V. from someone to whom the guy opposite is explaing what happened last night (what "she said...") and the camera position would not move at all. Now for the cunning ploy, the entire music video would be filmed in slow-motion and the actor playing the guy will learn to mime to the Strokes song in slow-motion (thus giving the effect that the video is playing in real-time), the audience will only realise that the video is in slow-motion when the subject does things (such as dropping a spoon is his hand, to see it fall incredibly slowly) or when people walk around behind him (through the entrance/exit, to the bathroom, whatever).

I was partly inspired by that Spike Jonze video we watched of the rappers going backwards, mainly with a view of what you can do with miming, trickery and such. The other big influence came from the Radiohead (oh yeah) video for Street Spirit (Fade Out), in which Thom Yorke smashes plates of glass in real time, to have the glass fall down in slow-motion (actually, maybe this is how they did it! Or whatever).

For me, the slow-motion would represent how it actually feels the morning after the night before. As well as looking mightly cool.

Numero Due
Radiohead - Let Down

As an avid Radiohead fan, I had to get at least 7 3 1 of their songs into any plans we had for a video. So here it is, an idea for Let Down off OK Computer. And it's a bit weird, in a very Crash way (the 1996 one).

The song itself is basically explained by the title, in true classic Radiohead form, it's about how life is such a let down sometimes (or in the eyes of Thom Yorke, all the time haha). I felt this would best be represented through a narrative video (with actors!). The video would open with a standard, suit-and-tie businessman finishing work at the office and walking out onto the street. As he (for it is a he) walks out of the revolving doors and onto crowded the street the camera would pan around at the various faces in the crowd, occasionly trailing one for a second, to highlight the glum, clone-like expressions of them all. With pans back up to the central character's face for reactions. Deciding that life is a bit of a let down, he steps to the edge of the road, opens up his briefcase and throws all the papers over the crowd of pedestrians milling behind him, casually puts his briefcase down and steps out in front of a car (that was the weird bit, yeah)

However, the guy survives, and as Thom Yorke's falsetto voice sings "Shell smashed, juices flowing/wings twitch, legs are going,don't get sentimental, it always ends up drivel. One day, I'm gonna grow wings", there's a close-up of the guys fingers twitching and his eyelids bursting open. He then gets up, bleeding everywhere and just runs, runs and runs, eventually, with a noticeable difference in light, and a lot of blood and sweat shed, he reaches home scoops up his kid and hugs his wife, tears in his eyes.

So basically, although it gets dark, the video would really be a celebration of life (as I actually feel the song is, if you listen to the shimmering guitars and the soaring lyrics - it's no funeral dirge). The audience can be left to judge the motives of the guy...

Numero Tre
Aphex Twin - Jynweythek Ylow

This would be a concept video, in the form of a montage. However, there would also be a narrative, however this would be veiled through the use of the montage, and the audience would actually have to decipher the narrative, all whilst (hopefully) being overwhelmed by the beauty of the song and the striking scenes that they are being bombarded (lightly, it'd be a slow bombardment) with.

Anway, the song itself is an instrumental, and it has a very other-worldly, Japanese Zen garden feel to it. Taking this into account, I'd like to do a video with nature dominating it, with any human element not being far away from it (i.e. a window shows the natural world outside if it's indoors). The montage would have a guy playing chess, or reading, or meditating (as yet undecided) by a window with shafts of sunlight being cast on him. For some reason, he gets up (cue close up of chess piece/book being set down with out of focus guy walking away in background) and walks outside (where the camera joins him). Gradually the weather worsens (with this being shown through shots of the wind picking up and blowing leaves, corn, branches and shots of the sky clouding over, the landscape getting darker from the cloud coverage) and we join the guy in the middle of a field (where he possibly meets someone), watching a storm begin.

So yeah, that's my roughly explained idea for a natural, zen like music video.

Finito (for now)

I have a few more ideas, but I've got work early tomorrow morning so I've got to leave the ideas for tonight. Until next time then...

2. And I don't write bitter, when I'm stuck in the ground, so don't teach me a lesson, cause I've already learned…

Sooooooo had some more ideas this morning.

And with James in Germany I thought I would spew them onto here before I forgot them.

First of all was:

Jack Penate - Torn On The Platform

Hehe Reggie Yates particularly loves this song. So he was raving on about it on radio one this morning.

Plus the video is a tad boring ... one of those concept videos where if you don't like the concept then the music is spoilt... Another song about failing relationships lol.

The idea was we could film someone being late to catch a train. So he has to wait on the platform ... anxious ... waiting for the next train. However the geezer has had to take two trains to get to where he’s going and by missing the second train he's going to be late obviously. So he rings up the love interest and apologises for being late ... she don't take it too well and cancels the date. So now the geezer is "Torn on the platform" wondering whether to go home and give up ... flashbacks of arguments bad memories in sequence to this bit when the Jack stops sing and the bass drum goes dum dum dum dum ... or to go to her. Eventually it ends with him arriving at her house in the rain soaked with flowers and her letting him in. Awww nice ending.

Yeah would be tricky rigging the weather but as it’s an indie song the video doesn't need to be too impressive looking.

The Strokes - Heart In A Cage OR Radiohead 2+2=5

Had this idea for days but I don't know how to visually represent it because it such a complex video idea.

Basically both songs are about society stealing your soul. Therefore I decided to take influence from Plato's analogy of the cave.

Basically the analogy goes that there are some prisoners in a cage chained together and facing a wall. Cast onto this wall are shadows that the prisoners believe to be the real world. However after one breaks free and escapes from the cave he goes outside and is enlightened by the sun to the real world. Where as the other prisoners are stuck ignorantly in the cave believe the shadows cast are the real world. When the escaped enlightened prisoner comes back and tries to tell the ignorant prisoners what the real truth is they kill him (don't ask me how considering there chained up). It all represents how Philosophers have escaped the cave of ignorance (society's view) to think properly ... and this is why Philosophers should rule the world. As they think with reason instead of just ignorant accepting everything.

To videoly represent this I was thinking of showing a guy playing football or painting ... something creative ... and then being sold a TV by a man in a suit. The guy then sets up the TV and gets addicted. He starts wearing the shoes and clothes advertised and starts thinking exactly the way the TV tells him to. Eventually ... ain't decided this bit yet ... the guy realises the truth. The guy walks through a door to like a football stadium or an art gallery (previously mentioned hobbies that the guy has now forgotten) and then as he opens the door and walks through it cuts to a shot of him climbing out the box. This represents him realising the truth again putting the TV back in the box and putting it in the loft or summing. And then the last shot is him trying to convince his TV addicted friends to stop watching TV and come outside but they kill him and the video ends.

So yeahhh as I said quite complicated.

Radiohead:


The Strokes:


Muse - Assassin

This song freaking OWNS hard. So gutted Muse didn't play this song when I saw them as I would have gone mental.

I keep thinking how incredibly cool it would be to have a gun fight video in suits with some walking parts that pay homage to "Reservoir Dogs". Dunno what the story would be but it looks awesome in my head every time I listen to this song.

Plus anything with guns and suits is automatically cool unless it's got Vin Diesel in it.



So yeahhhh a few ideas.

Laters

1. While the boys chew lego, so now we can't build castles for robots, because the pieces don't fit together...

So yeah ... me and Sibley were thinking if we start early with the whole production for the music now, then it would allow us to breeze through the shooting and editing phase.

We haven't decided whether we want to do a narrative or a concept based video yet. However we have decided that an amateur live performance video will look pretty lame and we wanna keep it professional looking lol. Plus James only plays bass basically and I own a guitar ... but that leaves no rhythm section.

Also another unwritten decision is that we don't want to rely on actors to heavily ... as the thriller opening enlightened us to reliability issues we can have with them (we would of finished it much sooner ... leaving more time to edit ... if Zal hadn't messed us around).

I've found listening to music while trying to get back to sleep ... after doing a paper round ... is the best conditions for being creative. Thus my first idea was created:

The Maccabees - Lego

Its quite an epic song that uses metaphors to describe a failing marriage. So I thought it would be interesting to show this divorce through the eyes of a small child. How they see the world and situations much differently to us.

So I was thinking a POV video as a kid. Something that looks like peep show without hearing what the kid is thinking. With the kid only seeing the adults legs (like tom and jerry) which leaves us able to change the adult actors around ... if necessary ... as we could step in by just putting on certain trousers.

• The kid picks up a Disney holiday magazine thing (cue prop) and hands it to mum ... but she jus chucks it on the floor.
  "Mum said no to Disneyland"

• And then walking through a massive church doors with a camera technique conveying the kids is bored.
  "And Dad loves the church, Hallelujah!"

• The kids picks up some Lego and chews it...
  "While the boys chew Lego So now we can't build castles for robots Because the pieces won't fit together "

• Then the kids is getting taught how to cross the road ... and squeezing the dads hand really hard to feel safe. Making it looks like a good memory.
  "So look left and look right, cross the road but hold my hand, so look left and look right, cross the road and hold my hand, and we'll hold on, and we'll hold"

• Then someone walks in ... like and older brother or something ... and the kids drawing a picture of the family on the kitchen floor.
  "Only one where one stood for, and closest to the kitchen floor, the family favourite"

• Then the music suddenly stops and the kids in the back seating of the car asking "are we there yet?" and the father says no and then presses play on the radio and the song comes back on.
  "Today we learnt that screaming 'are we there yet!?', doesn't get you there any faster"

• The kid gets out the car and practices the whole looking left and right trick he learnt earlier.
  "So look left and look right, cross the road but hold a hand, so look left and look right, cross the road and hold my hand, and we'll hold on, and we'll hold"

• And then the music mutes again and the scene dissolves to the parents having a row and then the dad slamming his wedding ring on a table and leaving with his bag. The kids chases after him and runs across the road (using the trick again) but the dads already got in a car ... the dad says goodbye tearfully ... and then the kid just watches him drive into the distance. Flash backs of squeezing his hand to feel safe.
  "Crossed the road and said goodbye, you crossed the road there wasn't a dry eye, you crossed the road you said goodbye, there wasn't a dry eye, there wasn't a dry eye, you crossed the road, you said goodbye, there wasn't a dry eye and I wanted to die"

• And then the ending shot is the picture the kids was drawing earlier with the character of the dad fading away to leave a white space.

Anyways heres the song:


Tis a weak idea ... but it’s always something to fall back on as its so simple.

Laters