Video Inspiration: Camera Shots and Dance

We really like the style of this video, as well as the dance. It is something that we are going to try and create, possibly using the effect of the repeated movements as we feel as though this might fit into our video also.

We want to do a close up of the male dancer's face (Cam) at the beginning of the video and this is a good example of this, because we want to try and get the emotion into Cam as well, and because this is black and white it fits our theme and video ideas well.

We really like the blurring effect that is done on this video, without the bugs of course, and doing this technique is something that will definitely be able to fit into our video and something that we are going to attempt on our filming day.

The use of black and white in this video is the main thing that we are taking from it, the setting and the dance also is something that we may take from it however this is still undecided and we will have to see on the day whether this is a good idea or not.

Email confirmation

This email has been sent to us to confirm our booking foe the 07/10/2014 at 3.30-7.30 to film our video.

Dance post

After the first rehersal with cam we have made up one travel section and tried some lifts out to see what would work the videos posted are only marked, the next time I see cam on Tuesday we will add everything together and by the end of it have a final dance that we will film the following Tuesday after. I feel confident hat it will e done on time to meet the schedule and will post our progress throughout sections of the dance.

Revised Video Ideas

After more discussion of what our video is going to contain we have talked more about what the characters are representing and the stories they are telling to the audience. This is really important because we need to know the story we are telling before we tell it so that we can give it everything that it deserves. For example, we have decided because the male dancer/singer has the power over the female dancer (his kind of love interest) it means that she hasn't found out about the conflict that the singer is facing and she doesn't know about the other woman that he is thinking about. So because of this, we thought it would be a good idea to have a moment in the video when the female dancer finds out about this mistrust and disloyalty. When this happens the dance will change completely and become incredibly violent and angry, also just before this happens there will be a flash of extreme light to show that the mood has changed and the lovers who you think at the beginning of the video are really in love, turn out not to be.
Getting a proper story line in place is incredibly important to the integrity of the video because it means that it won't be hollow or anything that doesn't represent the meaning of the song. Having a story line in place, especially one that is heavily influenced by what the song is saying and the message behind it.
Also after this big flash of light, we were thinking of including a disco ball. Not to have actually in the shot but to create an extra texture to the video. This is obviously still just a thought that might not even make it into the video but it is important to think of different ways of doing things. This idea was mainly inspired by our chosen inspirational band, Arcade Fire, because on their most recent album they sing about 'reflektors' and include a lot of disco ball lighting in their recent videos and also in their live shows. This would just be something that is in homage to them.
Of course, these are all passing ideas so far. We have yet to plan the dance which will be done this week and hopefully once that has been established and recognised then we will be able to move forward with the rest of the video.

Advice from Music Video Director: Lucy Needs

This is my email that we sent to the music video director, Lucy Needs. We felt the need to send an email because we were struggling to form ideas, and even though we feel as though that we have finally reached a point where our idea for the video is coming together and we have a reasonable idea which can be very successful; we still wanted to get some advice and clarification of what to do with our idea. We decided to contact the music video director, Lucy Needs. She has directed the videos for the majority of Slow Club's songs, including one song off of the first album, two songs of the second album and currently one song off of the third album. The song used from the most recent album, Complete Surrender, is a video that we find to be very inspirational in both style and substance. So I asked her if she had any ideas as to how to go about creating the  vision and style that was seen in the video. As you can see, she recommended to create a slow mo throughout the video. This seems like something we might be interested in trying because of the fact that it is a very professional thing to do and we would be interested to see how that effect might turn out. Obviously this is something that we would have to consider quite strongly because if it goes wrong, bearing in mind that we have never made a video or used this technique before, we have to think whether it would actually be worth it or not because if it does go wrong then we might be producing a rather lacklustre music video. However, in saying this, I think it could be a technique that could be really beneficial to the look and feel of the music video and we want to make sure that we are pushing ourselves to our boundaries.
She also said about editing with the use of lights, to all of this this sounded like a really interesting technique that may actually be something to think about when creating our video. As we are making basically a dancing video, it would be good if we could get it to look like a one shot video because then that could really add an experience to the video and the use of light to essentially cut that would be something that would be very useful to use because we would be able to get the feel of the one shot video but we still would be editing and using cuts which is definitely beneficial to this particular video. We found this experience and the advice that Lucy gave us back to be so completely helpful because to hear how the professionals do it makes everything sound like it makes sense rather than our group going forward with this project with no clue how to make this. The interaction with Lucy is something that is going to inspire us all throughout the process.

Room hire

room hrie

Band Inspiration

The main source of inspiration for our music video is the band we are taking the song from for our music video, Arcade Fire. The band, who originate from Canada, are a seven piece that specialise in the Indie/Rock/Alternative genre. The reason why we have gained inspiration from them is because they are very different than all the other bands on the market and they make music that seems to speak to people on such a large scale. On their recent Reflektor Tour, they managed to fill massive venues with fans that sang all of the songs right back at them. The aura they give off is electric and this is something that we want to replicate in our music video, even though we are only going to be using the lead singer in our music video we still want to take publicity shots of our band with all of the members so that we can see how everything is looking and gain more inspiration from them as to what the final video is going to turn out like. We are excited as a group to see how this develops and what we are going to be achieving, we are confident that this video is going to do the song that Arcade Fire created justice and have the right style and look that they would want to see in any of their own music videos. We were also thinking of getting in touch with any of the directors that have actually made Arcade Fire's music videos because then they will be able to tell us exactly what that type of band would want from their videos and what they would want to achieve. We believe that this could be really beneficial to our final piece because having an expert opinion on the matter means that we can go further with our video and make something that looks really professional and impressive.

Here are examples of some of their most recent videos and they all have a look of something that we would like to replicate and take forward into our coursework. What we like in particular about these videos is their ability to look incredibly slick and yet still have an air of quirkiness about them that makes them stand out in comparison to other videos. In all of these videos there is a strong story line, for example the video for We Exist highlights the inequalities that transsexual people etc face. This is clearly highlighted throughout the lyrics of the song and also the visuals to go along side it. Even though we are not having a video with this particular message behind it, we are still wanting to create a message of unrequited love or love that slowly dying and we are wanting to produce a video that won't necessarily be telling the story in a direct fashion but in a way that can be clearly seen to be the case. With these videos, even though they are using the lyrics of the song it is done in a way that may not be necessarily obvious on the first viewing, which is essentially what we want to do and why we are inspired by the videos on the first place.  

25 Word Pitch Old and New

 OLD


NEW

Song Choices and Video Ideas

The song that we chosen for our music video is Arcade Fire's My Body is a Cage, we have chosen this song because of the fact that it is a fairly emotional song that seems to pick up to a crescendo halfway through. We feel like this is an important aspect of a song choice because we will be able to do quite a lot with the song and create a music video that will be very impressive and dramatic. Also because it is a man singing and also a woman in the background, it means that we have have both a male and female singer which we think will balance the video out nicely and hopefully create a nice narrative between them in the video. 
The video idea that we have had is very dramatic and hopefully will turn out very powerful and emotive. It will start with a man sitting on a chair in a bare room that is dark with a side spotlight on him so you can only see the left side of his face (it will be a very soft focus light), next we will be able to see the woman standing next to him facing away. It will start with a long shot as well at this point and slowly but surely pan into the duo to create a dramatic and emotive moment. When listening to the song you can hear that it is very slow and quiet, for this moment it will continue to be the opening shot and be a long sequence with no cuts in it. Again this will slowly be panning into the duo. For this song in particular we think that this idea of keeping the opening of the song quite soft and personal. As the song picks up so will the video, however the video will hopefully pick up before the song because the video might turn out quite boring and slow if it doesn't, however this is something that we can alter and see what works when we start filming.
The video will include some form of dancing and also include quirky transitions that will add an element of confusion to the video, this is because we were thinking that we will transition through the video by sweeping to the next shot. This will give a sense of the room being a lot bigger than it is and we will have the duo, or whoever the band may turn out to be, in different places doing different things with different sets behind them. 
We think the video probably sounds more ambitious than it might turn out to be when filming, as we will have nobody actually performing with instruments in the video it is important that we make the video interesting and engaging. We are very conscious and committed to producing the best video that we can and hopefully with this idea and hopefully what will end up being the final product be will seem very professional.
There are a lot of other songs as well that have caught our eye however we think this is the best song and the best idea that we have had so hopefully this will be able to go ahead.
We think it is important to remember our limits and that we are not professionals, however it is about believing in the video enough to make it seem very professional. We all believe that this idea can be really impressive.

Song Inspiration and Corresponding Genre Inspiration

Here are a few examples of the types of videos and also the type of genre we are going for, as you can see with all of these videos they are all very quirky and different whether they are a narrative or a performance video. This is important for us to emulate because it is really good inspiration and also can give us more ideas into how we can develop our music video ideas and create something that can really stand out. With all of these music videos they all seem to have a set colour scheme that can be really beneficial to decide on because then that gives the music video its professional vibe. We will try and create something very similar to these, at least something that is shown to be inspired by these. We are confident as a group that we will be able to achieve a video along the same lines as these.

Dance inspiration