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...