Reactions to our Pitch

After pitching to our teacher our initial ideas, she agreed that we were on the right tracks, but may need to edit and improve some aspects.
The main problem was that, while we had lots of ideas for scenes we could use, we had no real storyline to bond it together; always needed with a narrative! This was the main concern which we had to work out how to overcome.
After a chat amongst ourselves and with the teacher, we have decided to continue with the subject of death and a "funeral", but have a different slant on it.
One suggestion was that we use the story of a girl, possibly the same age as us (17-18 years), who has become a victim of bullying and has committed suicide due to it. The video would trace her friends' and families' reactions, and would deal with the guilt of the bullies. We would use lots of flashbacks of when she was being bullied and also when she was younger. At the end there would be a funeral, with several family members and friends, and possibly bullies standing out of the circle, still trying to come to terms with what they have caused. We think that with the right filming, we can create a very moving and meaningful video.
This idea will of course be developed, and it is only provisional for now. After half term, our group has decided to have a meeting in which the final idea will be decided upon and activities such as drawing up a storyboard and taking location shots will be allocated.

New Storyline

Our new idea is to use a girl, probably around the same age as us (17-18), who is extremely depressed. Bullying will be a potent theme of our video, as will heartbreak. She will have had an argument with her boyfriend and possibly have seen him out with another girl. There will be flashbacks to happier times and then cuts to her lying dead in a 'coffin'. The bullying will worsen as people post nasty things on her facebook and send horrible texts. At this point she will decide to take her own life. The video will end at a graveyard, showing a spatial difference between her grieving family and the people who previously bullied her.

This is the quote that inspired us :

This quote had as all thinking - depression, which can be derived from many things, a common being bullying, is a very personal topic among us. We had never thought of it as the "inability to constructa future" before, but it came clear to us that this was a very true statement. We want to raise a campaign, almost, surrounding this statement, showing the effects which bullying and thus, depression can have on ones life.

While researching cyber bullying, we found this article about a girl named Megan Meier who committed suicide after cyber bullying through myspace. We were sickened and chilled by this article, repulsed by the people who drew her to this and overwhelmed with sympathy for Megan and her family. Reading this article made us really want to create a campaign to raise awareness about cyber bullying.

Analyzation of the Lyrics

Char printed of the lyrics and did a lyrical analysis of them, then we all added different notes to the analyzation (hence the crazy range of different handwritings)



This gives us a clear idea of which imagery to use in the video, as linking with the lyrics, wether it be literally or metaphorically, is very important.

Basic Storyline

Our song is called "the funeral" and the basic idea is to have a half-dead person, or someone who is dead but does not realize it.

At the start of the video, the plan is to have somebody sparking up a cigarette and having a few puffs. There will then be an extreme close up to the cigarette starting to burn out, and we will continue to have extreme close ups to the cigarette gradually burning out throughout the video, representing how time is running out for the person.

We are going to use a church and possibly its graveyard, and a forest as the potential settings to our music video. We will need to make sure that the person is not just walking around, but each shot has a significance to the music video. The reasoning for the church as an establishing building is that it is where funerals are held, thus literally links to the video. Although, going against what I previously said, the person will be walking around for a portion of the video looking rather lost, this will not be the case for the whole music video; it will merely be used as an aid to emphasize the person's loneliness and isolation.

We are also planning to use tarot cards to intervene in the video; such as "the chariot" and "the fool". These will aid our portrayal of how the person's destiny is now to die.

The person will get more and more scared throughout the video, and a sense of frustration will mean that they will end up running, and possibly tripping around the woods. We want them to fall into a hole, which will represent a grave, and for dirt to be shoveled on top of them, possibly using a camera to show an upwards view of dirt being shoveled on top. This will show how they are finally buried, and their soul is dead as well as their body.

At the very end, possibly after the music ends, there will be a cut to the cigarette, which is now entirely burnt out. The person will drop it, and it will fall to the floor, which represents how said person has lost their grip of life.

Our Pitch

We have to do a dragon's den-style pitch of our ideas for the video and collect our teacher's and peers' views of it.



Here are the main points we plan to cover (I have attached my moodboard to also show to give a feel of the video, and will also show the other moodboards which my group members have created)

Identifying our Target Audience

We now must explore our target audience and read the needs which they'll need to create a good music video.
Using websites such as BBC switch and UK tribes we identified our TA. While Band of Horses is described as a "rock band", our music video is not particularly "rocky", more emotional.
I think that the three stereotypical groups who would listen to the music and watch our video would be; indies, scene kids and young alts


1) Indie

Indie is a stereotype of people who are set on listening to "different" music and wearing "different" and quirky outfits. As our music is quite "different", this will appeal to the stereotypical indies.

2) Scene Kids

Scene kids are people who are very set on image, and like indies, want to be different and stand out from the crowd. They can sometimes be seen as angry or emotional, and thus would like the music from Band of Horses.




3) Young Alts

Young Alts are set on something 'different' but are unsure what, nethertheless, I feel that they would suit Band of Horses music because they are different, and thought-provoking, which is what our video is all about.
It is also worth noting that radio, internet and tv are heavy media consumptions for Young Alts, therefore it is encouraging that they would listen to a lot of music throught these media platforms, and would probably have a broad interest in music.

Conventions of a Music Video

To produce a high-quality music video, we need to look at the conventions of one.

I have found a good slideshow which portrays the conventions of a music video here :

The conventions applicable to our video are :

Dress and Costume - must be appropriate to the genre and setting, as it reflects the mood/genre of the song. Must be dark for sad, slow songs and possibly more vibrant for fast-paced, upbeat songs.

Lyrics Establish the general happenings of the music video, can provide metaphors to use in a music video and sometimes the lyrics are used literally to show what is happening in the video. We will need to make sure that our ideas for the music video fit in with the lyrics, ie. a "funeral" is suggestive of a church/ graveyard.

Genre This is reflected in the dress, mise en scene and sound of the band, and is very important in a music video

Music (tempo) reflects the video's effects and editing, for example, slow tempo would utilize a sombre mood to the video, possibly dark or neutral clothing and gloomy settings. However, a fast tempo would make use of bright colours, and possibly instances of pathetic fallacy. A strong drum beat can represent several things, such as continuity or doom. Whereas instruments such as the violin represent classical music, which would in turn give the video a sophisticated feel.

Editing we would make use of slow transitions to create a calm and complecent mood, and quick cuts to convey rapid transitions. Editing can also be used (as seen in my video analysis of Your Love is My Drug) to create effects such as hallucinations or optical illusions

Intertextuality is the act of referring to another video or media product within the video. This can be used to emphasize points by relating it to another, possibly more well known product. This is depicted in my analyzation of Ke$ha's "Your Love is My Drug" where an allusion to "Yellow Submarine" by The Beatles is present.

Camera Angles In music videos, as with all film products, camera angles are used to convey different gestures. For example, an extreme close up would be used to convey a specific expression, or a full shot of a person would illustrate their complete self. High camera angles suggest inferiority, and low camera angles suggest dominance. Also, if we wanted to give a sense of our character's surroundings we would use a pan or tilt.

Lighting is always essential to the mood of the music video. It simply relates to: a light atmosphere would result in bright lighting, and a more depressing atmosphere would have dark and lighting. This closely links to pathetic fallacy; in a cheery video, bright lights would be used to represent good weather and hence a good mood, while we will use dark lighting to represent the end of hope and ominosity.

Genre Specific Video Analysis

As my first analysis had a more 'poppy' feel to the song, i decided to analyze a video more suitable to the genre which we are working with.

I am going to analyze My Chemical Romance's I don't love you. Although it is partially a performance song, it does have some good narrative that not only ties in with what we are doing genre-wise, but actually gives inspirations for connotations we could use in our video.

Here are some examples of good techniques used throughout the video to reflect the mood and style of the music video.

This is a scene depicting isolation; the woman is standing on her own and the scene appears unfriendly, with bare trees and leaves on the ground surrounding her. She is wearing a white dress and set against the black background, this conveys her separation from the world around her. She is looking over the horizon, seemingly searching for something.

Looking over her shoulder could convey not being able to look forwards, the person's head is still stuck in the past.

The quick cuts to the performance of the band playing give a real sense of personality to the video; as if the band are singing about something which has really happened to them.

The expression on Gerad Way's face is solemn and sombre. This is fitting to the song as he looks dismal, as his relationship has been lost. The circles under his eyes connote lack of sleep, suggestive of a turbulent time in his relationship. The close up of his face shows his anguish well, as do the contrasting colours.

The scenery here is strongly suggestive of a dead relationship; the tree is shed of its leaves and is nearly left bare. A tree in full bloom can be representative of a full and thriving relationship, thus the tree with dead leaves portrays a dedecent and lifeless relationship. Coincidently, this reminds me of a line we have used in our song choice "the dead leaves..... for they don't have trees to call their own"

This extreme close up shows a hand with what appears to be blood falling into it. Blood is a widely-used icon of guilt, therefore this represents how something horrible has gone wrong for which guilt is still felt. As the hand is an open body part, it conveys how all the wrongdoings are still blatently present and within touch.

Gerad is here looking away, as if he cannot face the relationship head on, and as if he has been dishonest in his relationship.

The mise-en-scene here looks very dismal, with the backdrop of the tree and clouds. The clouds represent how forlorn and overcast the relationship is. There are also suggestions that it will never get better, as we see no end to the clouds.

The spatial relationship appears hostile and the woman is standing away from her partner. It appears here that he is trying to give to the woman, but she is rejecting it.

This over-the-shoulder shot depicts the spatial relationship between the two. The look in her eyes conveys desperation and longing, but the fact that we cannot see the other person's face suggests the enigma of the relationship.

In this over the shoulder shot, we see the woman's headshot. She looks lost and desolate, almost as if she is looking at something in the distance. This gives the impression of an icy relationship, as do her apparently 'frosty' lips.

Here, we can see the blatant difference between the two; highlighted by the colour of the couple. One is dark and the other light, which could symbolize good and bad. Nonetheless, we see how different they are to each other through the rotating axis of the camera.

We are interested in using a number of these conventions for our video, such as

• the black and white theme will be present in some of our video to imply blandness and a loss of vitality
• the theme of a broken realtionship will be in it, so we may use similar metaphors and imagery as the director of I don't love you does
• There will be hints of spatial relationship as the relationship between the two main characters breaks up
  

Band of Horses Research

To get a really good idea of what we want to include in our music video, we need to look into the band.

I googled them to find out more information:

This is their official website :

Research I found :

• American Rock Band
• Members = Ben Bridwell, Ryan Monroe, Tyler Ramsey, Bill Reynolds and Creighton Barrett.
• Three albums ; everything all the time (2006) , (2007) cease to begin, (2010) infinate arms
• The Funeral was their first single in 2006
• Other singles = the great salt lake (2006), is there a ghost (2007), no one's gonna love you (2007), compliments (2010) and laredo (2010)

Interview from Youtube

Ideas

Moon

from :

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_does_a_moon_symbolize/

I'm trying to find ideas for the music video. The idea of using the full moon (must be remembered that this would limit the times we could film) seemed quite eerie and chilling, a perfect theme for our video. Researching it further, i realized this could be a definate possibility- as we are using the theme that someone is dead but does not know it; closely linking to the subconcious theme- that the person is living on a subconcious level. Of course this idea will need to be further developed but using this representation, the moon is definatley a possible motif that we could use in the video.

Tarot Cards

Tarot cards have deep spiritual meanings, which is the kind of thing we are looking for. All people like to get their tarot read to distinguish their fate, including celebrities such as David Bowie and Brad Pitt!
Use of tarot cards for physcoanalysis :

Psychoanalysis
"Carl Jung was the first psychoanalyst to attach importance to tarot symbolism. He may have regarded the tarot cards as representing archetypes: fundamental types of persons or situations embedded in the collective unconscious of all human beings. The theory of archetypes gives rise to several psychoanalytical uses. Since the cards represent these different archetypes within each individual, ideas of the subject's self-perception can be gained by asking them to select a card that they 'identify with'. Equally, the subject can try to clarify the situation by imagining it in terms of the archetypal ideas associated with each card. For instance, someone rushing in heedlessly like the Knight of Swords, or blindly keeping the world at bay like the Rider-Waite-Smith Two of Swords.
More recently Timothy Leary has suggested that the tarot trump cards are a pictorial representation of human development from infant to adult, with the Fool symbolizing the newborn infant, the Magician symbolizing the stage at which an infant begins to play with artifacts, etc. In Leary's view the tarot trumps may be viewed as a blueprint for the human race as it matures."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarot#Psychoanalysis

Tarot cards can thus be used to metaphorize the emotional state of the person who we are depicting. Using Leary's theory, we could use the card representing the last stage of life- or maybe the person could even be "the fool" again, representing how he/she is as hopeless and as vulnerable as a newborn child.

I remember reading somewhere that 'chariot' represented death. Looking into this further, i can see that it is actually a lot deeper than that, as this website shows.

After reading this page, I have summarized that the chariot basically represents

• a struggle, either external or inside oneself
  
  could be a war, possibly battling between two minds
  
  
• eventual victory or peace, over enemies, nature, or what is within you


• different forces pulling against each other - but there is only one way that the person/ object can go. This conveys the war and the eventual force to go in a particular direction.


• can convey a journey or trip


• always only one charioteer - battle being fought alone.


• can be seen as ruthless - prepared to go to all costs to win.

I think that we can definatley use this in our video. Our character is obviously going to be going through a struggle, and a battle within them. There is going to be a clear war of opposing minds, maybe leading to the relief of death. The different forces can be represented in - is the character dead or alive? on what level is he/she dead? however eventually, all forces have to subside to make way for death. Additionally, the fact that there is always only one charioteer conveys how the person feels isolated and alone. On another level, the chariot could represent death itself, fighting against the person - it will victor over the person, no matter what costs it must take.

Top Hat

The top hat gives a formal and realistic feel to the death - top hats are often stereotypical funeral attire which gives the funeral a very conventional feel - displaying the restraints battling against the person who refuses to admit that this is his funeral; the top hat assures the audience and the character that indeed, it is.

Cigarettes

Cigarettes are often used to convey deep thought, frequently used when a character is aimed to appear pensive. Thus we can use cigarettes to illustrate how our character is spiritual and deep thinking, and can show how due to this, they have some kind of special life that goes on living even after their physical death. Furthermore, a cigarette burning out can show the passage of time, it being lit at the start of the video and burnt out at the end. The loss of fire can show loss of passion and life, and quick cuts throughout the video to the cigarette in the process of burning out will show how the person's life is gradually getting smaller and dying out. At the end, we could have the dead person obviously losing their grip and dropping the cigarette. The drop can convey the finality of life; the dead cigarette will now lay on the floor, which successively metaphorizes the dead person who will now lay dead in the ground.

Moodboard

I created this in photoshop, just to convey some possible ideas milling around my head about what we could do for our video. We need to have an eerie atmosphere, here highlighted by the ouiji board, "ghost bike", and woodland and church scenes. This has definatley spurred me on to other ideas, and I will keep revisiting my moodboard and building upon the ideas in order to find inspiration which our group could use for our video.

Funeral - Band of Horses

THIS IS OUR CHOSEN SONG

Lyrics

I'm coming up only to hold you under

I'm coming up only to show you wrong

And to know you is hard and we wonder

To know you all wrong, we were

Really too late to call, so we wait for

Morning to wake you; it's all we got

To know me as hardly golden

Is to know me all wrong, they were

At every occasion I'll be ready for a funeral

At every occasion once more is called a funeral

Every occasion I'm ready for the funeral

At every occasion one brilliant day funeral

I'm coming up only to show you down for

I'm coming up only to show you wrong

To the outside, the dead leaves, they all blow (alive is very poetic)

For'e (before) they died had trees to hang their hope

At every occasion I'll be ready for the funeral

At every occasion once more is called the funeral

At every occasion I'm ready for the funeral

At every occasion one brilliant day funeral



rates to Char Bailey for finding this badboy

After we all listened to this and conversed as a group, we decided that this song would be the ideal one to suit all our needs and create an interesting, abstract and verging on obscene video- definatley the type we were all going for! There is so much we could do with this song, it has so many deep meanings and it has loads of levels which you can look at the song.

We've decided to look on death and the significance of it as a broad theme in our video. Using this, we can find lots of metaphors and imagery, and it is an interesting subject to explore. When is someone really dead? Can they be dead physically, but still living in their soul? are questions we would like to explore in the video.

In a nutshell, we would like the video to be about a person (probably male), who dies at the start of the video. References are shown throughout the video that they are dead, at least on a physical level, but only at the end, when it is the "funeral" and they are buried, do they realize that "the funeral" which is being sung about is infact his.

A repeated line is "i'll be ready for the funeral", and a plaguing question throughout the video is - is he/she ready for the funeral?

More Possibilities

We've found some more possibilities, after all talking together as a group :


Funeral - Band of Horses Indie Rokkers - MGMT Stop and Stare - Fenech Soler Self Machine - I Blalme Coco

Thinking about what song

While at the gym (the best place for thinking), I listened to our 'shortlisted' songs and thought about how we could create an interesting and unusual music video with them. Then I went home and mindmapped the song which I thought had the most potential.

Here's the fruits of my labour:




I thought thinking about how we could create an actual video from the tracks would aid us in deciding which song to use for our video.

Still thinking though...