Today, we had a guest speaker from Passion Pictures. He spoke to us about how we needed to go about planning and executing our music video, to make the process go as smooth and as easy as possible. He discussed Treatments, storyboarding, timelines and also editing. Unfortunately however I had to go to A an E so I missed half of the talk, but I still managed to write down some notes during his talk after I had arrived.
Some key points that he mentioned were as follows: 1. When writing the Treatment for the video, make it as visual as possible and try to show your visual ideas through your writing, not explaining with camera angles your going to use etc. The treatment introduces the artists, so it needs to be creative and exciting. 2. In the editing, don't use it to 'fix' or make your images better. The editing process is all about putting your story together which has been pre-planned, not by filling in gaps where you have missed some footage etc. 3. Dont fix it in Post-production! 4. He focused on explaining that we need to focus on thinking about how it will look, and what we will do to make it look good. All the little details add up to make the video, so we have to think hard about all the little details.
As a group we have asked quite a few people about being a possible contender to be involved in our music video, and more specifically the performance element of the band in our video. We need/have to ask/choose people who fit the stereotypical rock-band look, such as long hair, dark dressed and a key element is that they have to be able to play the musical instrument which we want to cast them to use in the video. If we have people who cannot play instruments, it will not look realistic or good, so this will ultimately leave us with an amateurish looking video, which we definitely do not want. Typical look of a band we would like to have:
For example, we have asked one boy, called Tom Saville, who plays the drums, has long hair and dresses in a very rocky and cool fashion. He has temporarily agreed, but our teacher has advised us that he will most likely not be available as he will be a popular choice for everyone. As a result, we have to ask more people as a sort of backup option, so that we are prepared for any unwanted and unexpected circumstances.
We will need to get on a move on with the casting, so that we can get started on rehearsals which we will need to execute perfectly, as this is a fundamental part of the video.
Today, we had another discussion about our 'secret lives concept' with our teacher Phil and our group members. We again talked about the possibility of it looking too poor to use, and again how it may not attract the attention of our audience. We have decided to consider changing the narrative of our video, and possibly including a different 3rd element, such as a lip sync etc. We have yet to decide this and we are in the process of planning this different idea.
Today, we decided to have a class discussion as one entire group to help give feedback and extra ideas to each group in our class. Here is a picture of our group discussion. Our group discussion revolved around, once again, what particular events and activities that the people would be doing in our video. These include Cosplay, a hoarder and a serial killer.
This group discussion was extremely helpful, as it allowed the group to brainstorm even more ideas, and select ideas which we liked and disliked. Similarly to our issue however, is that the class struggled to come up with viable ideas which we could use, and also agreed with us in that it would be quite difficult to keep an audiences attention for a long time if we don't do it correctly.
Today, we continued developing our idea. We started to think about a timeline that we would soon need to write, and specifically what the audience would actually see on camera. We also discussed possible things that people would be doing at night, as this was one of the main themes in our video. An issue we are having is that we are worried that people won't really care about what the people will be doing and that they may lose interest, so we are considering all other possible concepts which we could include instead.
I will be analyzing the music video for Homesick by Catfish and the Bottlemen, to look for similarities in music video conventions and elements used in the alternative rock genre. This is a picture of the band. Their star image is quite similar to our band. They have long hair, dark in-style clothing and have a very anti mainstream image about them. This look is very atypical of rock bands.
This is the music video for Homesick.
3 elements The main theme in this music video is the band playing at a concert. However, there are 3 strands in this video which are apparent. At the beginning, there are shots of the band chilling out before a show, being calm and also at times riding a bike around the building. This element is one of 'behind the scenes' which is a cool idea, as the entire video is the journey through the night of one of the bands concerts.
Secondly, the next element used is the performance itself. The band is shown performing to a huge crowd.
Finally, the last element of the video is that the entire video is shot as if it is in the form of an old movie reel, as it is made with hundreds of individual pictures put together and there is a a shot of the reel burning away at the end, as if its an old style movie.
Example of many pictures used to create video:
Visuals in the video
As mentioned before, the entire videos camerawork is done with a timeline of pictures, showing the progress of one of the band's concerts. This is a unique style to a music video and is very cool. There are lots of close-ups of the bands faces too, which is used to make the audience feel closer to the band, and allows them to feel at one with them and also at times as if they are there themselves watching the concert alongside them.There are multiple shots of the bands performance too, from high above the stage and from backstage too. These are in tangent with the editing of the video, which is very fast paced and that each picture on lasts a split second.
Additionally, the whole video is tainted with an overlooking black, white and grey color scheme. This is to fit with the tone of the track, as the song is all about his girlfriend arguing and breaking up with him. The dark colors can be used to reflect upon his sadness and the gloomy life he has afterwards.
The costumes of the band are one of common sightings in typical alternative rock bands too. They are all wearing very dark clothes and have very long hair. Long hair is a classic symbol of rock bands and the rock genre, as it is very against the idea of having mainstream short hair as people cannot imagine the ruling people in society to have long hair.
