Lyric Analysis

From this task, we were able to dig deeper into the hidden meaning behind the lyrics and possibly use this as our focus in the narrative for our music video.

Slow Motion Experimentation

To improve our use of slow motion, we filmed a couple of examples which we thought that demonstrated this very well and that we could experiment with this in some of our performance parts in our music video.

Genre Research

- The music video is completely narrative based and has no artist representation to it. Song is about two homosexuals being chased down by thugs because of their sexuality. The music video has a powerful narrative which highlights the difficulties of being gay in this society. The video does not just focus on the negatives of being gay, they also show the powerful love that the couple have for each other.

The music video includes a lot of cuts and jump cuts which helps the audience to see more of the narrative in three minutes. The music video also has some continuity editing to show the scene of people running. This is editing technique is one way of keeping the audience up with the narrative. For the whole music video the director has chosen to place the film in black and white. the editing for the running scene is fast paced show the frantic nature of the situations they are desperate to get away from the thugs chasing them. This shows the audience that this event has already happened and it is part of our history. The dark colours also show the evil that is within the world and what the couple in this video have to overcome to be excepted. Low angle shots are use for the gang to show that they are the dominant characters. the low angle also emphasises the dangerous nature of the gang because they are overpowering the shot with a dark background.






The song is a about a man not getting the woman he adores whilst he is alone. The visuals in the video portray this well because the facial expressions from the artist suggests he feels deserted and lonely. the Music video is quite slow but it flows brilliantly with the tempo of the song is slow as well. When the two characters meet, the boy singing is put in the dark, as he becomes sad and upset that he has lost the girl he loves. Whilst the two characters who are now together are covered in bright lights. There are a lot of close ups of the artist Calum Scott. This is effective because it shows the artists pain and emotion in the artists face as he is standing on his own. The artist closes his eyes throughout the song showing his emotion and putting his feeling across to the audience.



Credit to James Lewis

From this task, we learnt that there are common camera angles, uses of editing and mise-en-scene for each different genre which makes the videos represent the song's genre and also makes the videos different from one another.

Audience Research - Focus Group Video Discussion

The video that the students were watching was the below clip:




We learnt that;
 - The song choice matters
 - The performance needs to be good
 - The one-take nature of the video was good

Basic Information about the Chosen Band

Courtesy of James Lewis

From this we have learnt some background information about the band and their songs other than the one that we will be using. We also learnt some background information and history from their record label.

Audience Research - Music Video Consumption

For us to get the information we needed to know about how people consume music videos, we created a series of questions to answer;

- Do you watch music videos? If so, where?
- Why do you watch them? If you don't, why don't you?
- What do you like to see in them (Performances, narratives, etc)? Why?
- Do you download them? If so, how do you?

From this we learnt;
 - Not a lot of people watch music videos now because of services like Spotify
 - Some people who do watch them, watch them because they are a good distraction from something (escapism)
 - Some music genres don't have music videos
 - The videos are quite good because you find out more about the song and the narrative behind it
 - For the people in the music videos to have fun
 - People don't download the videos because there are free ways of watching them YouTube, Spotify, etc.

Permission to use Chosen Song

Courtesy of Kit Fielder

Here, because of copyright, we learnt that we would have to email the copyright holder for the song that we would like to use. We had to detail what we would be making it for and what we would be doing to the song.

Video and Lyrics

Music Video and Song



Lyrics

[Spoken]
So, what would you little maniacs like to do first?

[Verse 1]
Watching through my fingers
Watching through my fingers
Shut my eyes and count to ten
It goes in one ear out the other
One ear out the other
Burning bright right till the end
Now you’ll be missing from the photographs
Missing from the photographs

[Verse 2]
Watching through my fingers
Watching through my fingers
In my thoughts you’re far away and you are whistling a melody
Whistling a melody
Crystallizing clear as day, oh I can picture you so easily
Picture you so easily

[Pre-chorus]
What’s gonna be left of the world if you’re not in it
What’s gonna be left of the world oh

[Chorus]
Every minute and every hour
I miss you, I miss you, I miss you more!
Every stumble and each misfire
I miss you, I miss you, I miss you more!

Watching through my fingers
Watching through my fingers

[Verse 3]
Caught off guard by your favorite song
I’ll be dancing at a funeral, dancing at a funeral
Sleeping in the clothes you love
It’s such a shame we had to see them burn
Shame we had to see them burn

[Pre-chorus]
What’s gonna be left of the world if you’re not in it
What’s gonna be left of the world oh

[Chorus]
Every minute and every hour
I miss you, I miss you, I miss you more
Every stumble and each misfire
I miss you, I miss you, I miss you more

[Spoken]
If you want to be a party animal

You have to learn to live in the jungle.

Now stop worrying and go and get dressed.

[Bridge]
You might have to excuse me
I’ve lost control of all my senses
And you might have to excuse me
I’ve lost control of all my words
So get drunk, call me a fool, put me in my place, put me in my place
Pick me up, up off the floor, put me in my place, put me in my place

[Chorus]
Every minute and every hour
I miss you, I miss you, I miss you more
Every stumble and each misfire
I miss you, I miss you, I miss you more

[Outro]

Watching through my fingers, watching through my fingers
Cause every minute and every hour
I miss you, I miss you, I miss you more

Source: http://www.directlyrics.com/bastille-good-grief-lyrics.html

Having a written version of the lyrics mean that we can analyse them easier and also give them to the actor that we will be getting to lip sync the song in our music video. It also allows us to group together some of the lyrics that link and then create a narrative around them.

Thinking of a Concept/Song

Credit to Kit Fielder

Credit to James Lewis


After a discussion amongst ourselves, we decided that Bastille's Good Grief would be the best choice. We weighed up the pro's and cons of each song and we thought that Bruno Mars' Lazy Song was too gimmicky and the lyrics to Foster the People's Houdini would be too tough to interpret and create a narrative around it that was different to the original.

This task allowed us to learn how to review and critique a song and its music video. This will now allow us to start drafting a narrative for our chosen song and thinking what we could do with the performance side of our video.

Music Video Analysis

TASK 1

TASK 2

Ed Sheeran - The A Team
This music video only features a narrative and does not include any performances at all. The audience does see Sheeran but only as a character in the narrative and not singing or playing along to the song. The music video tells the story of a young girl who appears to be homeless and begging for money but is also a prostitute and addicted to drugs. This narrative fits the song because Sheeran sings about angels not being able to fly because of how cold the outside world is and selling love to another man. This combined with the visual narrative makes the audience make the connection between the two young women.




Shinedown - Bully
Bully is a combination of narrative and performance. For some of the time, the video is showing the narrative of people being manipulated and bullied into being fearful, warned or to forget. The other portion of the music video is showing the band members performing the song and the lead singer showing a lot of emotion which implies that he doesn't agree with bullies, the theme of the song.





Fat Boy Slim - Weapon of Choice
Fat Boy Slim's Weapon of Choice is a performance based video only because it features Christopher Walken dancing to the song. We know that this is performance based because the things that Walken performs do not relate to the lyrics of the song. The song talks about having a weapon of choice but during the video there is not a single weapon in sight. The way that Fat Boy Slim conveys that this is a performance is by getting Walken to use each hand to the lyrics "a little bit of this, a little bit of that".




The Verve - Bitter Sweet Symphony
This music video is a performance based narrative. The way that this is done is that it has the lead singer of the band walking down the street whilst still singing along to the song. This means that the video is performance based but also has elements of a narrative because he is walking down a street instead of in a studio or gig.




Emma Blackery - The Promise
This music video features Emma Blackery performing on a guitar and singing the song in the video whilst a girl, who gets bullied at school, watches her family fall apart. This video is also presented in a mixture greyscale and colour adds emotional weight to some of the lyrics when its needed.


TASK 3














Disturbed - The Light
During the music video, we see the band members from Disturbed. They are all wearing black clothes with silver studs or buttons on them. This follows the stereotype of heavy metal bands because they are usually seen as people who wear dark colours. We can also see that the leader of the band, the singer, also has lip piercings and ear piercings. Stereotypes of this particular genre also say that they wear leather jackets, either have long hair or no hair at all, and heavy, black boots. Although, we can't see the last stereotype in this video, the band, Disturbed, does adhere to the rest of the stereotypes.

All the band members are male and all get their own camera shot at least once. Not one of them is cut out or displayed less than the other. However, the lead singer is shown a bit more often than the other band members and, sometimes, also in a different location to the others. As shown in the image below, he is frequently seen in a low angle camera shot which implies that he is powerful. Although, in this shot, he is not the only person in it which could mean that the music video didn't want to convey a big gap between the lead singer's importance and the other band members'.

Avril Lavigne - Bad Girl
This pop music video is very different from the stereotypical videos. Usually, pop music videos feature bright colours such as pinks and yellows but this video features a black and white  film grain on it which completely eliminates all colour except for the red of the lips. Other stereotypes for pop music includes the lead singer acting a bit unintelligent, girly and giggly. In this music video, Avril Lavigne doesn't act at all what people would think that she would from those stereotypes. The video actually represents her in a very sexualised and an objectified way. This is due to the fact that the entire video is either a close-up of her face or an extreme close-up of her lips. In the image below, it also shows her flicking her hair in a flirtatious way, further enforcing my point about the way that the video is presenting her.

TASK 4

This task taught me;
 - Genre stereotypes in music videos
 - Common and uncommon micro-elements in music video
 - The narrative doesn't necessarily have to be related to the song

Concept for Album Poster

From this task, I learnt;
 - What does and doesn't work (Example, the second image didn't work with the other picture in)
 - I was able to use the rule of threes in this poster (poster split into three and which segment the eye is down to first)
 - I was able to make the poster flow

Branding Research

This task has shown me the importance of synergy when creating a brand for our particular band:

- Social Media is very useful for spreading our brand
- Present ourselves in a way that associates ourselves with our selected genre
- Create a font that is easy to recognise and is visually appealing