Coursework Progress Details

Over the last few weeks my group for my coursework music video (Adam Romo, Michael Cassidy and myself) have had several meetings with our media teachers and our technician.

We spoke to Miss Blackborow and we played her our song choice (Promises - Nero [Skrillex remix]). She loved the choice and said it reminded her trending music in the 90s. We agreed that being so contemporary was a dominant positive in the decision to stay with the track and so decided that as long as we can decide on a concrete idea for the video, we could go ahead with the song.

We had to cut the down the song to the required song length of around 3 minutes. I produced a trial edit using Garage Band on my Apple iMac at home and posted this initial edit in our group message thread on Facebook. By doing this I could gain feedback from my team as well, which i would use to improve on this. They said that I needed to reproduce the edit on a high definition sound quality track (which I didn't have). So at school, during the open evening I editied a higher quality version of the track (with the help of Michael Cassidy) down to 3 minutes and 30 seconds, with permission from Miss Blackborow.

In our last lesson with Miss Dymiote, we brainstormed ideas on our artist identity, inspirational artists for our music video and whether we would be most successful constructing a video dominated by narrative, concept or performance. After producing this brain storm, we circled in green any key elements which particularly stood out to us and which we would elaborate further in our process in creating our music video and artist identity.

In this lesson, we also discussed our basis for an idea with our teacher and described to her, with the aid of the Modestep music video for the track, Feel Good that we felt it would be most appropriate to use a concept based video which merges into performance since its a convention for this dubstep genre. She agreed, and we conveyed to her an idea in which there are tensions within a relationship between a boyfriend and girlfriend and where the feminine identity here breaks the stereotype by being the unfaithful one in the relationship. This concept works in synergy with the lyrics, however at this moment in time when we described this idea to our media technician, Chris, he said it needed "fleshing out", which we took on board.

We played him the track now and he said that the initial build up is calling her something to be thrown in slow motion and then when the verse hits the height of tension and the lyrics say "Promises" for the first time, the object smashes. We found this feedback very useful and have considered this an essential aspect of our video.

Yesterday, we had a meeting with Miss Blackborrow and Chris in which we gave a latest position in our progress, which was mandatory before getting the go ahead for the formal pitch. We described an idea we discussed over Skype the night before, with Michael writing a draft treatment for our idea.

We had gained feedback from other media students in the day, however Miss Blackborow was the first to say she disliked the direction we took with the scenes of the relationship.

This lead to further discussion, in which we swayed from this narritive dominant idea to a more concept driven one where we would use a neverending white set for the performance and most of the video itself. Since, we wanted the identity of our DJ's to be hidden, we thought it would be engaging and enigmatic to actual remove the facial features of each person.

These ideas have lead to early test shots in the Seward Studio (a studio in our school) to test for green screening, lighting and camerawork (including shot distance, angles and pans) and generally experimenting to see where boundaries can be broken.

This is the latest progress on our coursework and I will continue to update the blog with this infromation.

Initial Song Idea

After much discussion with my group (Adam & Michael) we have decided to go with the song choice of the Skrillex remix of Nero's 'Promises' from the dubstep genre. We chose this song because it is contemporary, we are fans of the dubstep genre and we enjoy listening to the song. We also knew that we wanted to do a dubstep track and typically dubstep doesn't have many lyrics, however this one did have enough. We know we can develop a strong artist identity and narrative idea, so I look forward to the future of this project.

Lyrics:

   You got me so wild,
   How can I ever deny,
   You got me so high,
   So high I cannot feel the fire.
   And you keep telling me,
   Telling me that you’ll be sweet,
   And you’ll never want to leave my side,
   As long as I don’t break these,

   Promises, and they still feel all so wasted on myself (4x)

   You got me so wild,
   How can I ever deny,
   You got me so high,
   So high I cannot feel the fire.
   And you keep telling me,
   Telling me that you’ll be sweet,
   And you’ll never want to leave my side,
   As long as I don’t break these,

   Promises, and they still feel all so wasted on myself (4x)

Intertextual References: Daft Punk - Derezzed

This is the music video for the song Derezzed by Daft Punk and this track has been created for the remake of the film Tron with several intertextual references included. The narrative of the video doesn't show any actual footage of the film but is designed with the same concept of Tron in which we are taken from an arcade into this artificial game world.

The opening shot of the arcade in combination with traditional 8-bit arcade sound effects is nostalgic of the original film Tron and the 80s decade where video games were first being invented. Also, the design of the title of the arcade machine (which is also the name of the song) is very similar.

The animal-like creatures look like the Pokemon Groudon and Skarmory.

The video is dominated by references to the new Tron film Tron: Legacy because this video is based on that film. The references include the dress code of Daft Punk (when they were in the arcade), the design of the arcade graphics, the design of the animation which is the transition into the Tron virtual reality world and of course the design of the Tron world and all thats part, i.e. the landscape and the vehicles.

This technique of using intertextual references is part of postmodernism, which I think is definitely worth considering for use in our music video, since we can reference all aspects of real life whilst constructing and developing the narrative.

Analysis of a music video

Let You Go feat. Mali

Chase & Status

2010

I've chosen to analyse this video, Let You Go, by Chase & Status, because on a personal level I enjoy this song very much, but also much inspiration can be taken from it for use in our music video. 

The narrative mimics the life of TV show presenter Jeremy Kyle (in the video it is Patrick Chase) who is hypocritical by telling people how disgusted he is with their problems involving drugs, sex and domestic violence when he does this himself.

It's clear that this music video is dominated by narrative, and it almost feels like the song was written to work in synergy with the background story.  The video is in a disjucture crossed with amplification structure. The disjuncture element to it is that the music has no obvious connection the visuals, however it is the deeper meaning, the amplification, where the link between the music and narrative lies. The lyrics "there's nowhere to run, no place you can go, nowhere you can hide," work with the narrative because it seems like these words are directed at the antagonist as a threat.

A convention from many drum and bass genre music videos is use of lens flares and this has been us to present Patrick with this God-like presence. The blinding white studio light bursts out from behind him, and since the shot is a low angle and close-up we can see that the live audience is in admiration of him and is listening to him as if he's some leader in society. 

The narrative is incredibly ironic and is shameful to the extent that its even laughable. As the track hits the second verse Patrick says "If you can't be good, be honest". He then bows to the audience and as he comes up the shot cuts to him looking up from snorting drugs in his car. From then on we follow his night of activities frowned upon by society (use of recreational drugs and prostitution), even though he says he's "disgusted" by this. Each event is emphasised by the pace of the music and the instruments included. Like when the night kicks off with the prostitute, the shots are much shorter in length and cut to the beat with the energy of the action kept in consideration.

From this video, I can take inspiration for my own music video by considering disjuncture in combination with amplification as a structure, since this it's interesting and the track itself is of a similar format to our chosen song, the Skrillex remix of Promises.

Music Video Director Research

All Star

Smash Mouth

2000

Pretty Fly (For a White Guy)

The Offspring

1998

I have chosen to research the music video director and current feautre film director and television producer, McG (Joseph McGinty Nichol).

The above music videos were just two of around fifty music videos directed by McG. He has now become a feature film director filming blockbuster hits such as Charlie's Angels and Terminator: Salvation.

In his music videos he has very distinctive directing style in which his motifs involve using heavy saturation and sunshine. He often uses saturated shots to leave two dominating, vibrant colours, most commonly blue and orange becuase they are aesthetically pleasing, show artistic knowledge (pairs in the colour wheel) and overall, creates a positive vibe for the audience.

Sunshine is a clear motif in his videos. He includes many lens flares with enhanced colour correction and saturates the sky (which is always cloudless) to leave a very vivid and uplifting blue.

Since his music videos were mainly late 90's to early 00's pop, he uses the genre covnention of balancing the narrative with the performance fairly equally. He has a motif within performance shots itself where he often uses a fish eye lens for added quirkyness and depth to the shot in combination with close-ups / mid close-ups of band members directly addressing the camera. This works subtly in synergy with the pace of the track and draws out the energy of the artist/group.

From analysing McG's music videos objectively I can take inspriation from his style and use of motifs since I particularly like his use of heavy saturation and sunshine. When discussing how my group and I would like to film our music video, we constantly refer back to use of lens flares and saturation to accentuate colour and energy as much as possible.

Feminine Identities

Beyonce "If I were a boy"

Chase and Status "Time"

David Guetta feat. Akon "Sexy Chick"

Beyonce's image is all about being a powerful woman and in "If I were a boy" video it has been accentuated through taking a role of authority. Here she is a policewoman, usually a role taken by a man, however she has broken the stereotype here to show that woman can be superior in society too.

In the Chase and Status video "Time" we are shown two stereotypes of females hidden from public view. In this video the woman is a victim of domestic abuse by her husband/boyfriend and yet she continues to show affection for him. She attempts to accept the violence to be strong for her chidlren, perhaps showing that not only is she in the typical victimised role, but she is a caring mother figure as well.

The daughter is affected more subtly, but not necessarily less severely. She is the distressed daughter who has to continue to fight emotional family issues at home and keep them to herself.

In "Sexy Chick", we have the stereotypical sexually objectified woman. This is emphasized through the mise-en-scene with the many beauty and scopophilic shots of attractive woman in bikinis and bathing suits, presenting the very stereotypical feminine identity.

What my music means to me

Childhood

Sooty and Co theme - Sooty and Co.

This song for me is perhaps my most emotional. I used to love this show, I have literally hundreds of toys from the show of my favourite puppet and immediately when i hear this, nostalgia kicks in and brings me to tears. It's that song that many peopel have which reminds them of their childhood vividly and brings back all kinds of memories. Also, since I'm a sentimental guy, this song affects that bit more than many other people.

Early teens

My Humps - Black Eyed Peas

I never really listened to music until recently, but when I thought I'd give it a go this was the song going round at the time. Discovering this song and the Black Eyed Peas allowed me to begin to develop taste in popular music and from there I progressed into other genres.

Today

Blind Faith - Chase and Status feat. Liam Bailey

In recent years I have developed my music interest much more rapidly than in any period of my life. It has become clear where my interests lie and who my favourite and most inspirational artists are. I struggled deciding on this one since there are many angles I could have taken on this. Do I go with the Flux Pavillion remix of Cracks or Nero's adrenaline pumping Me and You?

I sided with this song by Chase and Status because currently it is my all time favourite song and it pretty much represents my perfect song in a nutshell. I am a massive drum and bass fan and I have taken to dubstep strongly as well, but my music taste is quite varied, in that I like slower paced and more emotional songs with deep, meaningful intentions in the lyrics. This song I believe shares all these components and overall creates an adrenaline driven song which continues to impress me both on my iPod and live at V Festival.