Song Choices

When choosing a song to make a music video we had to consider:
1) How recent is the song?
2) How well known is the band/artist?
3) Does it fit into aimed genre and target audience?
4) How long does the song last for?

By asking ourselves these questions whilst looking for songs we were able to narrow down a song short list.

In the drop down list below is the songs we chose to go onto our short list. All of the songs below fit into our indie genre. We looked through numerous you tube videos in order to create a short list of 7 songs. In order to help narrow the songs to our chosen one we listened thoroughly to all the songs and thought about which songs would fit into our ideas.

Bloc Party - Flux Foals - Olympic AirwaysThe Drums - Lets Go Surfing I Blame Coco - Caesar The Script - Nothing The Script - Rusty Halo Chase and Status - End Credits

FINAL SONG CHOICE

The group and I with the help of opinions decided to choose 'Flux - Bloc Party' for our final song this upbeat song is perfect for the type of atmosphere we want to create.

This video is filmed in a made up city where monsters are causing havoc. The story line here is the army portrayed by the tanks and helicopters fighting these monsters. The monsters are tearing down the city. The start of the video uses a fast camera pan which reflects the pace of the melody. To compliment the fast tempo of the song strobe lighting is used throughout the video. The lighting is vibrant throughout which means all the special effects added to the video are emphasized. The lyrics of the song do not have much relation to the music video:

If your right hand is causing you pain
Cut it off cut it off
If your colours have started to run

Let them all run, run away from you
There is lightning in this room
Above our heads waiting to strike
Im a thinker not a talker
Put your faith, your faith in God

We were hoping for some romance
All we found was more dispair
We must talk about our problems
We are in a state of Flux

Id kill for an adventure
Just you and I in the Curzon Bar
Dancing till we knew
So all that we've learnt disappeared
When you shouted at me
I saw my father in the second grade
Concerned and kind
But yet unable to reach me

We were hoping for some romance
All we found was more dispair
We must talk about our problems
We are in a State of Flux

State of Flux [x9]

We need to talk [x5]

We were hoping for some romance
All we found was more dispair
We must talk about our problems
We are in a state of Flux.

This song is all about 'the state of flux' which means change; this is represented in the video as monsters tearing down the city is what we would consider a change to normal society.

What would we do with this video?

Initial ideas...

Myself, Voke, Sophie and Emily listened to this song over and over and brainstormed what we though would fit into this type of song. The plot we came up with was a male aged around 18 up who has a drug problem. The whole song represents his struggle to get more drugs and how the habit effects his life. However we can not ignore the lyrics in this song. The song mentions 'romance' in the lryics however we did not want to typically create a boy girl senario. Therefore we thought we would make this video backwards for example at the end of the song there would be a picture of the girl he loves and has lost and the beggining is where he is now. That way all would become clear at the end of the video.

The image above represents what we are trying to create in our music video. I have taken various pictures from Google which include: Drug taking, Camden Town, Graffiti, A typical indie boy, Strobe lighting, Police and the London Underground. We feel that these images are appropriate for the Flux music video. From the above you can see that we have chosen a potential location for this song 'Camden Town'. The busy streets, small alleys and graffiti give a perfect setting for what we are trying to create.

Conventions of a Music Video

Conventions of a music video

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Andrew Goodwin

He identifies 5 aspects of music videos that audiences should look out for, these are:

1)Seeing the sound portrayed in the music video

The audience must look at the structure of the song in order to relate it to the visual images. What we hear can create a band identification for the audience, an artists voice is unique and audience can recognise them from this. A music video can be a two communcation device which shows the artists telling a story and allows us to listen.

2)Whether it is a narrative or a performance

Andrew Goodwin says that music videos should ignore common narrative as it is important in their advertising. Music videos will rarely give us a complete narrative and so audiences tend to get a 'gist' of the story and then will make up their own conclusions. Narrative and performances mix together in order to give a coherent repeatability which makes it easier for audiences to watch without getting bored. He says lip syncing is important as it creates realism for the audience, they need to believe this is real.

3)How the star image is shown

When an artist first starts out is important to develop a star image so that they are recognisable to their fans and new audiences. This should be portrayed in their music videos in order to develop a coherent house style.

4)Visual relations to the song

He splits this into 3 things: Illustrate - Images can be used to illustrate the meaning of the lyrics and genre which you find is most common. Amplify - This is when meaning and effects in the music video are constantly shown in order to keep them in our mind, this means we will want to watch it more which increases the popularity for the song. Disjuncture - This is opposite of the other two when the meaning of the song is completely ignored.

5)Technical effects of the music video

This is the use of camera, editing, mise-en-scene, sounds and addect effects. These all help to enhance the popularity of a music video.