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