Song Ideas

(as the original video for 'Build A Boat' was taken down by the owner this is the lip-sync that I created of the song)

'Build a Boat' by Maisie Peters is a song that we are extremely interested to look into with more depth, both Kirsty and i feel that this song had very good lyrics and imagery that we will be able to play with and bounce idea off of. We also feel that because Maisie is a small little know singer/song writer we will be more likely to achieve copyright permission. 

'Simple Song' by the shins is on of my favourite songs and i would love to create a music video for it, however as there is already a music video for the song I feel that my ideas may become conflicted with the original video. In addition as The Shins a quite a well known band we may struggle getting permission for the song.

'Bewlay Brothers' by David Bowie is one of my favourite Bowie songs from one of his most underrated albums 'Hunky Dory'. I would love to create a music video for this song as i feel it is such a beautiful song that tells a very interesting story about Bowie and his mixed feeling towards his brother who was committed into a mental health institute (and later after the album was released killed himself). I feel like this video could have such an important message regarding family and mental health issues. However as David Bowie is such a well known artist it will be a struggle getting copyright permission for the song. 

Finally 'Not Alone' by Harry Gardner is a song that really hit home for me. As myself and many others have experience losing a loved one to Alzheimer i would love to create a video to this as I would like to put my experience of Alzheimer into a music video making it such a strong message. In addition I personally know Harry and believe that he would be more than happy to let us use his song for the video. 

Production Diary 1

After analysing all these music videos in depth i have made a decision about what I want to try and incorporate in my own music video. 

After analysing 'Big Jet Plane' by Angus and Julia Stone I have realised that I would like to have a big focus on colours and what different ones represent (I had thoughts about having warmer colours for out childhood scenes to show comfort and happiness and then later on having more cooler colours to show the fact that as people grow up life becomes a lot more uncertain than when you were young) as this was something that I felt we failed to look at last year. 

Screenshot from 'Big Jet Plane'

'Drugs'

'Blue Neighborhood'

After looking at videos like 'The Blue Neighbourhood Trilogy' by Troye Sivan, 'DRUGS' by Eden and 'Criminal Minds' by Lukas Graham i felt that the main thing that stood out to me in those videos were the beautiful stories they were telling. Their narratives were so raw, and meaningful I decided that i want to bring that to my video as a narrative brings that extra depth to a music video. 

When analysing a lot of David Bowies Videos they are all unique and special in their own way, I would like to incorporate our own new uniqueness to the video making it stand out (what this uniqueness is I have yet to figure out). 

We also want to stick with Goodwin's theory of the lyrics directly linking to the music video, so therefore will be taking inspiration to Riptide but vance Joy, which whole music video consists of literal interpretations of of lyrics (something that I found very cool and intresting)

Lastly after looking over multiple videos that were animated or had drawings superimposed over the top, both Kirsty and I decided that we would love to incorporate that kind of technique into our music video.

Music Video Analysis - 'Drugs' By EDEN

Music Video Analysis - 'Riptide' By Vance Joy (Goodwin Analysis)

  

Music Video Analysis - 'Big Jet Plane' by Angus and Julia Stone (Colour Analysis)

In the music video ‘big Jet Plane’ by Angus and Julia stone colour represents and symbolises a lot as well as carried much of the narrative. The opening of the video has a light brown colour mixed with the sun bringing a warm comforting feeling, as well as a freeing feeling with the wind blowing through the girls hair, making the audience wonder who and where this girl is.

Then the colour tones change within a cut and we, the audience, are launched into the bland fake world that the girl really lives in, the audience can tell that she is bored from the dull grey colouring of the clips and the fact that she seems to be just imagining that she is free and that she is the person in the opening clips. 

Soon the audience is introduced to the fake bland world she lives in. There are so many different bright colours throughout the toy shop but the filter over the top of the clips dull it down making it look less vibrant and coming across as seemingly fake as the shop is trying to promote a happy welcoming atmosphere but the audience know the truth of the fake happiness and joy. The colours of her uniform, blacks, browns and generally dark dull colours, contrasts with the bright colours in the back ground, the pinks, yellows and greens, showing that although her environment it trying to present happiness, she does not feel that. She looks trapped in the colours and generally uncomfortable, for example she is literally behind bars in one clip from this section making it even more clear to the audience she is trapped in a seemingly exciting but dull world.

We the track the girl out of the main part of the shop, to the back where the bright colours end and the colours are the same at the uniform that she wears, the audience see through the facade that the shop create giving them a very bleak outlook on it and a hope that she is able to get out and be free. Once outside it does not get better for her, the sky is overcast creating a dull grey colour over the clip symbolising that there is no escape and that the dull uneventful world of the shop spreads further. Finally, the audience have real evidence of her want to escape and be free with the picture of the island in her locker, which she looks longingly at. The picture is brighter than everything else in the room and draws the audience’s attention to it to make this point clear.

There is another change in colour and the filter over this section looks rather blue, however unique and better than how it was in the shop as it is more real. The audience see her picking off her brightly coloured nail varnish, possibly symbolising her giving up on her dream of being different, free and traveling. We also see colour in the television screen where Angus and Julia Stone are singing, drawing the audience’s attention to them, additionally they are singing on a beach with a beautiful bright blue sea in the background maybe hinting that she should not give up hope on traveling as well as all the pictures of the places she wants to go.

When it cuts back to the girl walking through the shop again we see that she is less carefree than the last similar scene, her lack of bright colours really show out in this scene as the walks through the row of bright black primary colours, which symbolised how she is not content with how she is with her life. Additionally she her sorting and clearing away the colours further symbolised her want to get away from the place she is in. This is cut in-between back to the light scenes that we saw at the beginning, she again looks carefree and at piece, genuinely enjoying herself. Then we see the first pieces of real nature that is not in pictures, the green grass and the blue skies give everyone hope that she is finally happy with where she is and what she wants to do. The final scene is very ambiguous as she is back being ‘trapped’ in the colour of the shop, cleaning the glass. This saddens the reader as they hoped she would escape and finally be happy, instead her spray on the glass symbolises tears and the audience are left with an ambiguous ending.


Overall, I believe that Big Jet Plane is a truly beautifully crafted music video and while watching it you can see how much through and effort went into it. For example, off the topic of colour, the editing of the video fits with the speed of the song perfectly, they are both slow and smooth making the video much more effective. A lot of the aspects in this video had given me inspiration for my own music video ideas.

Our Influences

After looking at many different bands and artists we have decided on many different people that will influence our artist (e.g. her style and demeanor) and the general themes of our music video. 

'About A Boy'

'Big Jet Plane'

I personally really like Angus and Julia stone and the unique music videos that they produce, more specifically 'Big Jet Plane'. They are very different from any other band/duo and this uniqueness that they                                       hold I would like to have with                                       Our video and Artist.

As David Bowie is my all time favorite artist I am going to try and incorporate as much of his vision as I can. 

'Blackstar'

David Bowie

He is a inspiration for me, someone who represents uniqueness and not to be afraid to be yourself. This is something that 
I want to present with                                             our artist. 

'Life On Mars'


There are also made different individual songs that we have looked at:

Facts - Retro Oceans - This music video is similar to the idea that we have for our own one consisting of a love story between two different ages and a story of falling in love. It is also set on a beach that is also a similar theme to what we want to have.

Glue/Swim - Fiddle Friends -With Glue we really liked  the lyrics on the screen a long with the different uses of colour creating atmosphere. 

With Swim we were instantly drawn to the animation of the paint as thought that it would look amaising if we were able to use that technique in our own video. 

Don't Delete The Kisses - Wolf Alice - This video is conpletely centred aroung trains and transpost. It tells a complete love story only on transport. I feel this may be sweet to incorperate in our love story. 

In Bloom - Neck Deep - This song uses colours in a very intresting way, is shows fully grown men in an pop-punk band surrounded by colours that are generally associated with femaminity. In feel that it will be very fanicinating looking at the colours in our video and challanging stereotypes with them. 




All these artists and bands use a variety of fasinating techniques that I would love to try and incorperate in our music video.

Practice Shots and New Camera Techniques

After looking through last years series of shot we achieved I believe that this year we should experiment with different types of shots and different angels. So Kirsty and I went out and took some practice shots. 

This was one of a series of shots I played with by myself. Its a low shot with a silouette of Robyn. Myself anf Kirsty like these series of shots so much we may even use one of two of them in our final music video. 

Another shot we had a play around with was this birds eye shot of Robyn on the grass. I found that this shot was very aesthetically pleasing and I would like to incorporate it in the actual filming of the video. 

We also filmed some normal shots such as close ups, mid-shots and long shots:

These shots I felt were very simple by very pretty. 

We also played with some extreme close ups;

I felt that this shot would be very effective and I particularity like the way that the fire looks. 

After looking at the close up we decided that we would try and play with different tilts; 

However after both looking over the shot we decided that a downwards tilted shot would make our character look small and vulnerable but we wanted her to look strong and empowered.

So we took an upwards shot as although the tilting motion was quite julty (making us feel that we are going to need a smoother way to re-create the shot) we liked the angle.

We also decided to play with canted angles deciding that we really liked the way it looks concluding that we may use it for our lip-syncing parts

Key Concepts

Star Profile - David Bowie

David Bowie’s insane music career has spanned for over 5 decades, in which he has changed his style, personas and music genre more times than he has released albums. His revolutionary style, personality and voice has influenced so many artists since his journey began and even after it has ended.

Bowie started his career as David Jones, playing with a number of different bands, even leading his own band called Davy Jones and the Lower Third (with a few singles but nothing hugely successful). However out of fear of being confused with The Monkeys own Davy Jones he changed his last name to Bowie (inspired by the knife developed by the 19th century American pioneer Jim Bowie). After this Bowie started his own solo career in one of the most experimental times of his life (joining a Buddhist monetary for a few weeks in 1967 and forming a mime troupe).

In 1969 (a year before his marriage to Angie Bowie) Bowie returned to full time music, signing a deal with Mercury Records. By the summer Bowie released his first top-five entry on the UK Singles Chart; Space Oddity (which he said was influenced by Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey).

Space Oddity sparked interest with the general public (greatly due to the BBC using the single during the coverage of the Apollo 11 moon landing). After the released another 2 albums; The Man Who Sold the World (1970) which further encapsulated Bowie in stardom with a greater rock vibe than Bowie had even experimented with before, and Hunky Dory (1971). After this Bowie introduced the world to Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders from Mars.

The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (1972) along with his claims of being gay (in a time when it was still an unspoken about topic) made Bowie a superstar. He became Ziggy and would dress up in elaborate wild costumes when performing, seeing a new age of rock music (being the end of the Woodstock era).
 
Just as quickly as Ziggy arrived Bowie changed, continuing with glam rock without the Ziggy persona with the album Aladdin Sane (1973) featuring his collaboration with Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, also in this time he produced albums for Lou Reed and Iggy Pop. He then showed his appreciation for the early Mod scene with his cover album Pin Ups.

By the mid 70’s Bowie dropped the glam rock style and released two albums David Live (1974) and Young Americans (1975). In the Young Americans album Bowie releaser his first American number 1 single, Fame, which was co-written with John Lennon and Carlos Alomar. In the 1980’s living in New York Bowie released Scary Monsters in which had the song Ashes to Ashes in it, which was seen as a kind of update of Space Oddity, then three years later recorded Lets Dance (1983). 

Over the next decade Bowie bounced from music and film, despite some modest hits and the much-hyped album Black Tie White Noise (1993) (a wedding gift for his new wife Iman), Bowies music career faltered. He kept a rather low profile until the release of his album The Next Day (2013), which jumped to number 2 on the Billboard charts. Then later following year, Bowie released a greatest hits collection, Nothing Has Changed.

On January the 8th 2016 (his 69th birthday) Bowie released Blackstar and two days after on the 10th of January 2016 the icon died, After an 18 month battle with cancer. Leaving us, Blackstar, ‘his parting gift’.