Tuesday 30 November 2010

Pitches and my chosen pitch

For my video, I have developed two ideas for my video, but have already decided against one, which I will explain first. This would include a typical “Lads night out,” including many close up shots of drinking (if I had the correct equipment I would have had the whole video filmed with the “Lads” having fixed cameras called Snorricam's to keep them central of each shot in ether a close up, or medium-close up, similar to the Radiohead video “Jigsaw Falling Into Place”)
(A Snorricam)


(Radiohead's Jigsaw Falling Into Place)

This would gain pace through the chorus’ and reach its climax in the final verse, where there would be a fight (“Dirty nights. Indulgent fights”(Goodwin 2)) most likely in slow motion between other drunks. By the time the chorus kicks in, the Lad’s have made their escape and are drunkenly running away. Although this is more accurate to the lyrics, I have decided not to film this, as it would be extremely difficult to film something such as this. The lack of light in clubs and bars would require us to bring additional lighting, as well as difficulties of staging a fight in a street at night without attracting the attention of police and other club-goers. If this was a professional recording I could be able to work around this, but for an A-level piece I need something much more simple.

That is the reason why I have settled on my other idea. Here, the focus would be of a group of teenagers (who may or may not represent the band) who hang around the streets with a lack of anything to do. They would most likely kick a football around, drink stolen alcohol and generally mess about. During slow sections I would use many over the shoulder shots that would be angled so as to show part of their face, as well as another person, or objects, such as the sun. If I had the capabilities I would change the focus mid shot between the two people, specifically in the pre-chorus to the second chorus, as if to look like there was a secret plan that is unspoken between them. This suspiciousness is brought to a climax in the second chorus when they steal something from the shop they are stud outside, and run throughout the chorus. Then during the slow section they could be gaining their breath back, but it should also seem reflective of the freedom of their youth. Then there would be a brief piece of action, a friendly push or kick, which would be in time with the gain of pace in the final chorus and outro. This would be filmed most likely in black and white, or another effect, to create a romantic and idealistic feel.

I have chosen this last pitch, as it is simpler for me to create on my budget and with my connections. It still is appropriate with the lyrics, as it is still teenagers who “seize the day” in their own way, and is in keeping with the rebellion of the final verse. I have decided on the narrative video not to include performance the band, as they are not always used in music videos, but the teenagers may sing the lyrics in close ups. It fits with the genre and the target audience, because a large part of the target audience of such bands are in the late teenage years, so would to some degree, associate with the teenagers in the video. The romantic effects may also allow those older than this age to reminisce on times of teenage rebellion, and still associate with the video.

I have taken note of Goodwin’s theory, as I have tried to fit the video with genre stereotypes and characteristics. I have used lyrics to inspire themes explored in my video, in particular “seize the day, today.” I have acknowledged the music, by including lip-synching. However, I am deliberately not including the faces of the band, as this could potentially become a motif among many of the band’s video’s, preferring more narrative focused videos. There is a sense of looking, in the concept of watching the antics of a group of teenagers, but on their level, as if the viewer was part of the group, and this was looking back romantically at these days. However, there are very little intertextual references planned as of yet, as I cannot think of how to include them fittingly, but there may be when it come to filming

Friday 26 November 2010

Lyrics and analysis

Here are the lyrics for An Army Of Light’s “An Army Of Lights.” I could not receive the lyrics from the band, but from listening to the song, this is what I have gathered.

Seize the day, seize the day today.
Dance the night, let's dance the night away.
Looking for a little light. Looking for an army of lights to shine
Looking for a little light. Looking for an army of lights to shine

Blinding. Blinding me,
Nothing's gonna stop us now.
Blinding. Blinding me,
Nothing's gonna stop us now.

Seize the day, seize the day today.
Dance the night, let's dance the night away.
Looking for a little light. Looking for an army of lights to shine
Looking for a little light. O, looking for an army of lights to shine

Blinding. Blinding me,
Nothing's gonna stop us now.
Blinding. Blinding me,
Nothing's gonna stop us now.

Distorted minds. Broken lines.
Nothing'll stop us now.
Dirty nights. Indulgent fights.
Nothing will stop us now.

Blinding. Blinding. O!
Blinding. Just blinding me.

From these lyrics, what I have gathered is to quite literally “Seize the day,” live life to the full, and not let anything stop you. In the last verse, the lyrics change to symbolise when this can have negative effects, I am guessing taking inspiration from the effects of alcohol on nights out, which is very typical of British indie rock bands, for example, Arctic Monkeys. However, the upbeat last chorus gives the impression that the singer has overcome this, as “nothing will stop us.” The title and reoccurring image of "An Army Of Lights" connotes the landscape of a British city at night, and by proxy, the hedonistic world of "sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll."
These lyrics have inspired me to create a youthful, but almost hedonistic video, most probably including alcohol.

Thursday 25 November 2010

Animatic - Hero - Chad Kroeger feat. Josey Scott

For our animatic, we took time in deciding on studying a video that was iconic personal to us, that had the ability to represent a modern, mainstream rock video. For this we chose Hero, by Chad Kroeger featuring Josey Scott. Both artists have become famous through the alternative rock bands Nickleback and Theory Of A Deadman respectively. Due to the mainstream success, particularly for Nickleback, as well as the fact the song was written to be the lead single in the soundtrack for Sam Raimi’s adaptation of Spiderman, it is expected that this video had a larger budget than many music videos, which are usually created with a notoriously small budget. The video was directed by Nigel Dick, perhaps most famous for directing the video for Band Aid’s “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” Whilst being interspersed with clips from the film itself. In the group I was part of, I took the responsibility of drawing a brief outline of each shot, whilst others drew outlines and coloured in each shot. There were very little difficulties in this, except for the fact that it was very time consuming. We then took images and edited them into the below video. We had some difficulty here in getting the changes of shot at exactly the same time, as well as this being very time consuming, but this served as good practice for editing our final pieces and getting us back into the habit of working on iMovie. Another issue was that some shots we were not able to include just as they were in the video, such as very quick zooms, and quick movement that almost resembles a trucking shot, in which the focus is shifted from one side of the screen to the other. In these instances, we simply kept the same shot without the movement, as we could not find an effect suitable to resemble this.


Saturday 20 November 2010

An Army Of lights

An Army Of Lights are primarily an British indie-rock band, with noticeable influences in folk and acoustic musicians. On first listen, they reminded me of artists such as The Maccabees and Bombay Bicycle Club, and NME have described them as "The Futureheads fronted by Turin Brakes or Mystery Jets". Such bands have developed large fan bases, aimed at those in the teens and early twenties. Both are frequently featured in magazines such as NME and Q, as well as played on radio stations as Radio 1, which are all associated to some degree with young and mainstream alternative fan bases. With this in mind, I will take influence from bands such as these, as well as other folk and rock acts such as Arcade Fire and Noah and the Whale, who also have rather similar music styles and have achieved much mainstream success in recent years.

Monday 15 November 2010

NME Breakthrough and An Army Of Lights


After searching for Local bands over the summer, and having very little success, my choice of band and song is "An Army Of Lights" by An Army Of Lights. I found them through NME Breakthrough, which lead my to their website and Facebook. I have sent this as a message over Facebook (hence the casual tone) and they replayed positively, giving permission for me to use their work.

"Hey!
So, I found you guys on NME Breakthrough and I'm really loving your stuff! I was just wondering, if it was possible, if I could use your track 'An Army Of Lights' for my A-level media coursework. I need a good unsigned band, and that track really sparked some ideas, which I'd love to carry out! All I'd need is your permission and the track sent to me somehow, preferably as an mp3 attachment or something. Sadly, I can't pay you or anything (as I said, I'm doing A-level, I hardly have any money anyway!), but it would be incredibly helpful if it would be OK :)
Cheers anyway, and hope to hear from you soon!"