elements of these music videos interested us
Pitch Feedback
The overall feedback of our pitch was to ensure that we were consistent with our ideas and the theme of our video remained clear to avoid it just looking like a person walking round a house. The emphasis needs to be focused on the surreal aspect of the idea as this will not only aid the narrative of the video but also fits with the indie feel of the music. On the whole the feedback was positive allowing us to set targets for ourselves and ensuring our work is consistent. We were also advised to look at influential television programmes such as Skins and Shameless showing scenes that may be similar to those we want for the party. We could also look at The Simpsons or Friends relating to our emphasis on the sofa at the beginning.
Thursday, 24 September 2009
Our Initial Video "La Song - Supergrass"
our ideas for the initial video is going to start off with the camera panning through the inside of a house passing various rooms that have had previous events happening within it giving off a sense of mystery, all of which is going to be edited in slow motion. this will give the audience the expected idea of what will be shown in the rest of the video, the camera then finds one party go-er who has awoken and then zooms into him to show a point of view perspective all of this will synchronize with the start of the song as the music starts off slow this build up of the song carries on until they discover a camera, when they start to watch (what will be unmistakably the footage from the night before) this will synchronize in with the build up of the music as the camera zooms into the screen.
at this point the instruments all come in at once and it creates an atmosphere of how the night was, as the intro proceeds all of this is combined with flash backs to the party.
throughout the ending of the clip it is a combination of editing and camerawork as the different use of colors and images come together also adding to the storyline of the hole music video which relates to the lyrics of the soundtrack.
the finale of the film is the humorous clip of one of the party go-er waking up in the middle of an odd place.
at this point the instruments all come in at once and it creates an atmosphere of how the night was, as the intro proceeds all of this is combined with flash backs to the party.
throughout the ending of the clip it is a combination of editing and camerawork as the different use of colors and images come together also adding to the storyline of the hole music video which relates to the lyrics of the soundtrack.
the finale of the film is the humorous clip of one of the party go-er waking up in the middle of an odd place.
The video
Setting / Location - Main setting will be in a house in all various rooms and corners. such as bathrooms, kitchens, bathtub, shower, dining room, bedroom, balcony, sofa, trampoline, swimming pool.
Props - beer cans, vodka, shots glasses, wine bottles, cups, lazer, glow sticks, party poppers, food, drugs (pills and coke) guitars, drums, drum sticks, bongos, tamberine, recorder.
camcorder - vital prop
narrative / abstract - morning after a party when people start waking up, everything is slow and confused, one party go-er walks around the house seeing various different odd things like wasted people in a weird place or some weird object that you wouldn't expect to see also for the music side of things the band will be seen in different camera angles (Adam), then they find a camcorder and rewind it to the start, the footage is of the party and what had happened, this is where we use a special effect, the camera zooms in to the camcorder screen and the smaller screen becomes the main screen, this effect is good because it is reminding viewers of what happened at the party.
we start to discover how people got into the state they are in and how weird objects were including in the party. In the party we include edited scenes of the actual song being sung by Adam and the instruments being played by other people that can actually
then the screen pans back out to show the camera again.
right at the end some weird randomer who is seen throughout the party pops up in an unexpected place like (the American cemetery or long grassed field).
Genre conventions - pop rock - after we looked at other pop rock videos such as "rescue Signals - Every word you said" and "Damaged goods by The Hot Rats" we have found similar contrasts to our ideal video which were, Special effects by the camera editing like slow motion and flashbacks showing two events back and forth, also the use of different colors like sepia and saturated good use of filtering.
the typical outfits of the band and "characters" is indie rock however it doesn't particularly have to be dressed like this in the video, but when showing close ups and long shots of the band playing you can clearly see that this is the most common style of clothing that is being worn.
in our video the idea we have come up with is similar like the special effects - black and white/ sepia, flashes of many different images of the past, and the band playing. with the camera work we will be using a lot of close ups and hand held shots to represent the party go-er using the camcorder they have found.
Props - beer cans, vodka, shots glasses, wine bottles, cups, lazer, glow sticks, party poppers, food, drugs (pills and coke) guitars, drums, drum sticks, bongos, tamberine, recorder.
camcorder - vital prop
narrative / abstract - morning after a party when people start waking up, everything is slow and confused, one party go-er walks around the house seeing various different odd things like wasted people in a weird place or some weird object that you wouldn't expect to see also for the music side of things the band will be seen in different camera angles (Adam), then they find a camcorder and rewind it to the start, the footage is of the party and what had happened, this is where we use a special effect, the camera zooms in to the camcorder screen and the smaller screen becomes the main screen, this effect is good because it is reminding viewers of what happened at the party.
we start to discover how people got into the state they are in and how weird objects were including in the party. In the party we include edited scenes of the actual song being sung by Adam and the instruments being played by other people that can actually
then the screen pans back out to show the camera again.
right at the end some weird randomer who is seen throughout the party pops up in an unexpected place like (the American cemetery or long grassed field).
Genre conventions - pop rock - after we looked at other pop rock videos such as "rescue Signals - Every word you said" and "Damaged goods by The Hot Rats" we have found similar contrasts to our ideal video which were, Special effects by the camera editing like slow motion and flashbacks showing two events back and forth, also the use of different colors like sepia and saturated good use of filtering.
the typical outfits of the band and "characters" is indie rock however it doesn't particularly have to be dressed like this in the video, but when showing close ups and long shots of the band playing you can clearly see that this is the most common style of clothing that is being worn.
in our video the idea we have come up with is similar like the special effects - black and white/ sepia, flashes of many different images of the past, and the band playing. with the camera work we will be using a lot of close ups and hand held shots to represent the party go-er using the camcorder they have found.
Informing The Band
Our group had to somehow contact The Band (Supergrass) and ask for their approval to use their song for our music video, we contacted our group on BEBO !!!!!
Monday, 21 September 2009
Our Song Choices
1. La Song by Supergrass
2. Recondition by Autons
3. Dark Is Light Enough by The Duke Spirit
2. Recondition by Autons is quite an aggressive song leaving the potential for a darker opening sequence with darkened colours or even the use of black and white in the early evening. The overall idea for this video is for either one group or various age groups of people causing trouble on the streets showing no care for the repercussions. There could also be the inclusion of drug use, sex and alcohol. This shows the stereotypical relationship between drugs and violence and the youth of today.
3. 3. Dark Is Light Enough by The Duke Spirit
The song starts off and its a typical rock and roll genre, rumbling sounds angry guitars, the words are not really related to anything its more about the instruments and backing, therefore we thought that this portrayed concert themes even festival theme loads of people coming together in their wellies and jumping about in the mud, ruining eachothers tents, getting off their face, and jus rockin' n rollin' to the music.The main idea that we have thought about this song track was of us each playing an instrument up on a stage with the camera viewing us at different angles. Showing the bizarreness of the crowd and the whole idea of festival theme spirit and the festivity of the hole event itself.
Friday, 18 September 2009
Auteur Theory
The auteur theory was first created in 1950's by French cinema critics. They created a publication called La Cahier du Cinema. This contained discussions on who should or shouldn't be recognised as an auteur and to be recognised your work had to have particular characteristics which may be stylistic, structural, thematic or about process. Some people who may be recognised today are Jonathon Glazier, Anton Corbijn, Chris Cunningham and Spike Jonze.
We looked at Chris Cunningham who works regularly with artists such as Aphex Twin, Squarepusher and Portishead. This allows him to produce abstract video's which may not generally be accepted by the public. Throughout the video's we viewed there was a repetition of particular shots and scenes trying possibly to put emphasis on what is being shown. This grabs the viewers attention. In many of the video's there was a use of paler colours so the footage was not vibrant but it was also not black and white, possibly with the use of filters, it created a cold feel to the video. There is also a wide use of robotics giving an unnatural feel, adding to this is the wide use of digital enhancement and special effects or animation. This gives a very 'out of this world' feel to the video and as the genre of the music he generally works with does not require the artist to be shown the video can have a tangent of it's own. Chris Cunningham appears to attempt to scare or shock his audience and many of his video's are the length of short films or extended music video's rather than video's you would see in the charts today. We also noticed that he repeatedly uses dogs in his video's as we found them in both Come To Daddy and Rubber Johnny (both Aphex Twin). On the whole we not think that Chris Cunningham produces very abstract video's aiming to shock the audience and make them think. However the contents of the video, if there are lyrics in the song, will relate in some way to what is being said.
We looked at Chris Cunningham who works regularly with artists such as Aphex Twin, Squarepusher and Portishead. This allows him to produce abstract video's which may not generally be accepted by the public. Throughout the video's we viewed there was a repetition of particular shots and scenes trying possibly to put emphasis on what is being shown. This grabs the viewers attention. In many of the video's there was a use of paler colours so the footage was not vibrant but it was also not black and white, possibly with the use of filters, it created a cold feel to the video. There is also a wide use of robotics giving an unnatural feel, adding to this is the wide use of digital enhancement and special effects or animation. This gives a very 'out of this world' feel to the video and as the genre of the music he generally works with does not require the artist to be shown the video can have a tangent of it's own. Chris Cunningham appears to attempt to scare or shock his audience and many of his video's are the length of short films or extended music video's rather than video's you would see in the charts today. We also noticed that he repeatedly uses dogs in his video's as we found them in both Come To Daddy and Rubber Johnny (both Aphex Twin). On the whole we not think that Chris Cunningham produces very abstract video's aiming to shock the audience and make them think. However the contents of the video, if there are lyrics in the song, will relate in some way to what is being said.
Thursday, 17 September 2009
Auter Theory
Auter theory was first created in the 1950s by French cinema critics such as Adre Breton. La Cahier du cinema was their publication that discussed who shouldn't be recognised as an auter and those who were chosen had particular characteristics, these characteristics were found on their stylistics, structual, thematic or about their process.
We looked at some of the work by most recognised auters such as Jonathan Glazier, Michel Gondry, Anton Gorbijn, Spike Jonze and Chris Cunningham. The auter that I have examined to identify it's signature was Jonathan Glazier, which meant that I had to watch different videos that he had directed.
The first video was by Jamiroquai called virtual insanity and the setting was a simple room with walls that emphasizes some kind of mental hospital, which links with it's title "insanity". The furnitaures move about as Jamiroquai dances around them, then a black hawk comes out of nowhere and just flies across the room. At the end blood floods out filling half of the room red which really stood out as of the plain white room, meanwhile he moves towards the camera without walking but simply by how they have made things move to trick our minds.
The dead weather "treat me like your mother". The setting is in a field and it starts off with a male and a female, dressed in metal/rock outfit, they used a track camera to follow them both as they walked across the field. At the end of the scene the male and the female just starts shooting eachother with a machine gun, showing no blood and or other gorey effect but simply just to show its random bizarreness.
Rabbits in the headlights by Unlike... a guy which looked quite insane as he was walking in the middle of the road, not caring to get hit whilst talking to himself and making movements as if someone was irritating him. The guy finally gets run over a few times but showing no hurt done to him he gets up and carrys on doing the same thing.
After looking at those three video clips from different artists directed by Jonathan Glazier, I've noticed that Glazier has a theme of bizzare insanity image which have been clearly shown on how the actors in the video are represented, also the lyrics from Jamiroquai and its setting. They have all been set out to look like a reality scene with people that are somehow insane or disorientated in the head, which haven't been explained to how they might have gotten into that situation. The contrasts of the setting and the actions and or story makes the audience reflect to the surrealism of it's actual reality. For example in the video by Unlike, where the guy is walking in the middle of the road most likely trying to kill himself is set in an underground road, where people driving past are trying to avoid him, this does happen if one chooses to do so. It can be seen as a reality story but it seems surreal as it only happens if anyone ever dares to do it. The insanity theme which he clarifies from the video "vertical insanity" shows that those are based from an insane person's head which makes the surrealism effect.
The mise-en-scene are all quite similar and simple, set in either fields and other places that we have access to. However the use of camera work that he has mainly used in all videos, tracking, are all linked to show the same effect that follows the insane character within the video, as if the camera is the Dr and the charater playing the crazy person role is the patient.
Another video directed by Glazier, is of a girl who drank excessive amount of pure vodka spirits, the camera work used to interpret the realism of this video is hand held, and the effect that the hand held gives is very effective, as the girl downs the alcohol she eventually starts showing impressions of someone being really drunk but somehow not yet paralletic and or in any way not dead with alcohol poisoning. The unsteadyness of the view of her reflects to what she's feeling.
There was one deigestic sound that was used in the video "rabbits in your headlights", where as the guy walked through the tunnel he spoked to himself, the deigestic sound proves that this guy is crazy, we don't understand what he is saying but that is exactly the point of it, because what he was saying was a load of nonsense as to what he was doing.
We looked at some of the work by most recognised auters such as Jonathan Glazier, Michel Gondry, Anton Gorbijn, Spike Jonze and Chris Cunningham. The auter that I have examined to identify it's signature was Jonathan Glazier, which meant that I had to watch different videos that he had directed.
The first video was by Jamiroquai called virtual insanity and the setting was a simple room with walls that emphasizes some kind of mental hospital, which links with it's title "insanity". The furnitaures move about as Jamiroquai dances around them, then a black hawk comes out of nowhere and just flies across the room. At the end blood floods out filling half of the room red which really stood out as of the plain white room, meanwhile he moves towards the camera without walking but simply by how they have made things move to trick our minds.
The dead weather "treat me like your mother". The setting is in a field and it starts off with a male and a female, dressed in metal/rock outfit, they used a track camera to follow them both as they walked across the field. At the end of the scene the male and the female just starts shooting eachother with a machine gun, showing no blood and or other gorey effect but simply just to show its random bizarreness.
Rabbits in the headlights by Unlike... a guy which looked quite insane as he was walking in the middle of the road, not caring to get hit whilst talking to himself and making movements as if someone was irritating him. The guy finally gets run over a few times but showing no hurt done to him he gets up and carrys on doing the same thing.
After looking at those three video clips from different artists directed by Jonathan Glazier, I've noticed that Glazier has a theme of bizzare insanity image which have been clearly shown on how the actors in the video are represented, also the lyrics from Jamiroquai and its setting. They have all been set out to look like a reality scene with people that are somehow insane or disorientated in the head, which haven't been explained to how they might have gotten into that situation. The contrasts of the setting and the actions and or story makes the audience reflect to the surrealism of it's actual reality. For example in the video by Unlike, where the guy is walking in the middle of the road most likely trying to kill himself is set in an underground road, where people driving past are trying to avoid him, this does happen if one chooses to do so. It can be seen as a reality story but it seems surreal as it only happens if anyone ever dares to do it. The insanity theme which he clarifies from the video "vertical insanity" shows that those are based from an insane person's head which makes the surrealism effect.
The mise-en-scene are all quite similar and simple, set in either fields and other places that we have access to. However the use of camera work that he has mainly used in all videos, tracking, are all linked to show the same effect that follows the insane character within the video, as if the camera is the Dr and the charater playing the crazy person role is the patient.
Another video directed by Glazier, is of a girl who drank excessive amount of pure vodka spirits, the camera work used to interpret the realism of this video is hand held, and the effect that the hand held gives is very effective, as the girl downs the alcohol she eventually starts showing impressions of someone being really drunk but somehow not yet paralletic and or in any way not dead with alcohol poisoning. The unsteadyness of the view of her reflects to what she's feeling.
There was one deigestic sound that was used in the video "rabbits in your headlights", where as the guy walked through the tunnel he spoked to himself, the deigestic sound proves that this guy is crazy, we don't understand what he is saying but that is exactly the point of it, because what he was saying was a load of nonsense as to what he was doing.
The picture above is the dvd cover of the Aphex Twin song Rubber Johnny. The cover shares many of the same visual characteristics and the video itself.
Analysis of Aphex Twin - Come to Daddy
'Come To Daddy' by Aphex Twin shows genre characteristics as settings and actions in the video appear unreal or 'out of this world' as would generally be associated with this type of music. Many of their video's have this feel using things such as aliens and robots to take the audience away from a feeling of normality or reality. As their music is very alternative it allows for their video's to be very abstract so a video that would normally be looked upon as not normal in the charts is easily accepted as ordinary.
Although the work of Aphex Twin can be very abstract it still applies by many of the points made in Goodwin's criteria. There is an obvious relationship between the lyrics and visuals even though there are few words in the song and those that are there are repeated throughout. The video shows a 'creature' effectively collecting souls relating to the line 'I want your soul' and it growing in strength as people gravitate towards it. This also relates to the line 'come to daddy' as everyone appears to be heading towards the same character showing a authoritative or more influential figure. This is an illustrative relationship as the visuals overall show what is being said in the song. The use of children in this video once the creature is present also emphasises what is being said in the lyrics as it is like children running to their father however it puts a nasty twist on it as the object being run to wishes to remove the children's souls. This is quite a horrifying scene for the audience to see. There is also a clear relationship between the music and visuals. This is seen as the music is quite hectic and fast paced with an angry or aggressive feel paired with a video that changes shots quickly and with a slightly jumpy feel. As these shot changes are also on the beat of the music it emphasises the mood of the music. The colours are very drained throughout the video as well although not in black and white giving an eerie feel all together echoing the unrealistic feel of the video.
The record label does not require things such as close up shots of the artist or shots of performance however there is a very memorable visual style that occurs throughout their work. This style plays on the advertising campaign of Aphex Twin which aims to shock the audience and grab their attention using things such as a humans face which has been digitally altered to make the listener stop and look. The overall feel of this video is this as well as it has many elements of shock or horror to it with some quite brutal, emotive scenes such as when an alien type creature is towering over an old woman shouting. Repeatedly in this video and in many other Aphex Twin video's the eyes of any people or animals in the video cannot be seen. This is like a motif that can be seen across the artist work and creates a sense of wondering and fear within the audience.
There does not appear to be much intertextual reference however the use of an alien like creature could make the audience think of alien based films. The opening to this video also has the feel of a horror film as the colours are dark and depressing and there is no one around except for the old woman and her dog.
The record label does not require things such as close up shots of the artist or shots of performance however there is a very memorable visual style that occurs throughout their work. This style plays on the advertising campaign of Aphex Twin which aims to shock the audience and grab their attention using things such as a humans face which has been digitally altered to make the listener stop and look. The overall feel of this video is this as well as it has many elements of shock or horror to it with some quite brutal, emotive scenes such as when an alien type creature is towering over an old woman shouting. Repeatedly in this video and in many other Aphex Twin video's the eyes of any people or animals in the video cannot be seen. This is like a motif that can be seen across the artist work and creates a sense of wondering and fear within the audience.
There does not appear to be much intertextual reference however the use of an alien like creature could make the audience think of alien based films. The opening to this video also has the feel of a horror film as the colours are dark and depressing and there is no one around except for the old woman and her dog.