House Style

House style is one of the most importaant factors for a music video and Digi Pak. I looked alot into how other artist create this theme throughout and found that the link between a single video and the album cover is not that strong as the cover has to repersent all the songs on the album. However their is still a conection often in the way the video is filmed.
 In the Kaiser Chiefs first Album employment I noticed a link in the way both the video and cover are dingy and dark. This is and idea we may use in our product however instead of the dark dingy colors we will use bright and vibrant colors.

Steel Wool Photography

One idea that we had discussed as a group was the possibility of using Steel Wool Photography. This is where you film (with several seconds ex poser) a person spinning lit steel wool. this creates a very interesting effect which can be seen above. I think that this, if shot in the right location could be very effective as an album cover as it is different and interesting. I have uploaded a video from Youtube to help show how this technique works.

Below you can see a video that I have made which shows how we used Steel Wool photography in order to create an album cover. It shows the dificulties that Matt had lighting it and i had to cut out several minuets of him attempting to get it alite untill he finally succeded. you can also see the out comes in the pictures. 

Lyrics Explanation - By Danny and Luke

I believe that this song represents the fear and sorrow that can come from growing older. It suggests that whilst people grow they try to understand themselves and the world around them but have to forget the bad aspects with drinking, smoking etc as they are unfulfilled. Life is still bittersweet. We are young, but we are sad.


This feeling is shown by using a school/teen feeling through out the song. "Can't help but think of all the flaws, Claw my way out of these walls". You get the feeling that there are so many things wrong with you and your school, you just want to leave it. The song shows an escape in looking up to the stars at night and taking your mind off you and your issues which aren't really that important in the greater scheme of things. The bittersweet is the feeling that it's supposed to be a great time when you are young and beautiful, but it's also the most depressing stressful part of life(Will he/she go out with you? Will you make the team? Are you going to get good grades? Not to mention how tired you always were and are your friends trusting and good or will they turn on you? that's what makes school/youth bittersweet.

 Their is truth to the words of the song.  When we are young we are still naive.  With freedom and youth comes experience and leaving our youth for adulthood requires his experience, skill and wisdom.  The need to become an adult happens virtually overnight and once the process begins their is no turning back.  The bittersweet may be the looking back at youth and wishing you had accomplished or experienced more or lament the idea of leaving youth altogether.  There is difficulty in this transition and the strife sends people to seek refuge in some sort of middle ground they reference to be " in-betweens" in the song.

The Killers Album Artwork

The Killers 'Hot Fuss' album

The Killers 'Day and Age' album

The Killers have a very strong house style throughout all their albums with their name being important in most medias they use. All their albums have the similar front covers with the name large in the mile and then some sort of scene in the background weather it is a city or desert. ' 'Sam's Town' differs slightly as their is a person in it however it is still the same idea as the others. The use of the light bulbs in the name helps to create a sense of showbiz.

Their videos are also often similar with many of them being shot in desserts, forests and similar surroundings, and the band are always performing throughout with a few cuts away to a narrative scene. There are strong links with the Album and each singles and vise versa and this helps to advertise and sell both.   
  
The obvious link between The Killers different album covers and also their music videos shows a very strong house style which helps to create a atmosphere in all of their products  this therefor allows the consumer to feel comfortable with their product and allows familiarity.

I believe that we should ensure that we use this idea and make a strong link between our album cover and music video. At the moment our recurring theme is a Volkswagen polo 1990 car (owned by a group member). There are parts of the video where the you can see the car being driven and we are also planning to use it for the album cover. My idea for this would to have the car parked in a deserted car park at night with the headlights on and the band members standing arround it leaning against the bonnet, roof and door.      

Video Analysis - By Luke

The Suburbs (Arcade Fire) directed by Spike Jonze.


The video itself is shot without the band Arcade Fire featuring at all. Normally within music video, more often than not, the band will be featured in a performance scenario or in an acting role. Within our video we want to provide a contrast between the narrative as well as the performance of the band to give a healthy balance as well as two different outlooks to keep the audience interested. 

The video itself features the life of everyday teenagers in their local area and the activities that they get up to - perhaps providing a microcosm for teenagers in general. They are shown riding their BMXs, firing BB Guns at each other and meandering about. In the video, there is a military aspect where the army instill marshall law in the town which shows the difference between the innocence shown by the teens in the video and then later highlights this loss of youth innocence as the army take this away from them. 

When looking at this video, the loss of innocence is not important in terms of our research as we want to show how the youth can be presented as nothing but teenagers in their normal everyday life. So by focusing on Spike Jonez's portrayal of this, we can be inspired as to how to show the youth in our video which is titled 'Young Blood'. It is our plan to also show young people in events such as around a campfire, walking through the woods and on bikes for example, similar to the Suburbs video. 

The first shot is of a boy walking in front of a rather suburban setting, which immediately introduces the viewer to the characters' surroundings. This is then repeated in a long shot of all the teenagers riding their bikes through a typical American housing estate. The camera then tracks alongside one of the characters who again is stereo typically presented wearing a beanie hat and vest, symbolic of casual teenage wear. At this time the lyrics say "In the suburbs, I used to drive", which can be seen as a literal and iconic representation of bike riding as it is so familiar for a young person in the childhood. Jonez then carries on to show their friendship and youthfulness as they jump off their bikes and let it ride away before celebrating with each other at the achievement of the bike continuing to stand without them on it. It depicts the simple things that make a teenager happy and are integral parts of their life. We want to rein-act these simple events and show the joy of being a young person in our music video ultimately. 

The next scene shows the group on top of a bridge firing their BB Guns at a stranger and then laughing in a medium shot. Whilst this is happening, two of the characters are aside of this and are shot in a close-up intimately- showing young love and romance as a normal part of growing up and how innocent love is endearing. Here we see two components of teenage life happening alongside one another, love and fun. The romance side of thing we want to be represented within our video and this can be seen hopefully in the camp fire scene with couples spread out around it in quite a cliche situation. Spike Jonez shows these as he himself is quite young for a director and therefore has these memories fresh in his memory. As we (our group) are still this age we are living through them right now, therefore our representation should be even more accurate than his, so theoretically ours could be more credible.



Although it is a complicated video, when you take away the involvement of the army, the core of the video is teenage experiences and within our video 'Young Blood' we want to demonstrate this. The opening lyrics set the platform for what is to unfold in the video -"We're all young and naive still, we require certain skill". We want to let this curiosity of a teenager be shown and them developing their life experiences - which reiterates the gaining skills message.

Location - By Matt

Location has a huge influence on music video can completely separate differences between high and low quality videos. Therefore it was key for us to try and find the best places t film the narrative and performance.

Narrative

The narrative is made up of numerous locations and scenes. As we trying the capture the idea of youth and having fun we wanted to have different groups of people and friends enjoying themselves in relatable places, adding a sense of realism to the piece. This means however that each individual segment will have to filmed on a separate day and overall filming and production may take loger purely due to travelling etc. 

Field walkthrough from Crazydodobird 

First play i went to was a filed which is local to our area. This is just one of many fields some are very open similar to this and some are slightly different. This is the area which we were planning on using for a group with the balloons like in the foals video. 

 

Skate park walkthrough from Crazydodobird

This is one of our local skateparks that we were planning on using during the video to film tricks. There are also other skateparks

 

Tunnel walkthrough from Crazydodobird

Risk Assessments - By Luke

Young Blood - Lyrics

We're all young and naive still
We require certain skill
The motive changes like the wind
Hard to control when it begins
The bittersweet between my teeth
Trying to find the in-between
Fall back in love eventually
Yeah yeah yeah yeah

Can't help myself but count the flaws
Claw my way out through these walls
One temporary escape
Feel it start to permeate

We lie beneath the stars at night
Our hands gripping each other tight

You keep my secrets hope to die
Promises, swear them to the sky

The bittersweet between my teeth
Trying to find the in-between
Fall back in love eventually
Yeah yeah yeah yeah

As it withers
Brittle it shakes
Can you whisper
As it crumbles and breaks
As you shiver
Count up all your mistakes
Pair of forgivers
Let go before it's too late
Can you whisper
Can you whisper
Can you whisper
Can you whisper

The bittersweet between my teeth
Trying to find the in-between
Fall back in love eventually
Yeah yeah yeah yeah
The bittersweet between my teeth
Trying to find the in-between
Fall back in love eventually
Yeah yeah yeah yeah
 
I believe that this song represents the fear and sorrow that can come from growing older. It suggests that whilst people grow they try to understand themselves and the world around them but have to forget the bad aspects with drinking, smoking etc as they are unfulfilled. Life is still bittersweet. We are young, but we are sad.


This feeling is shown by using a school/teen feeling through out the song. "Can't help but think of all the flaws, Claw my way out of these walls". You get the feeling that there are so many things wrong with you and your school, you just want to leave it. The song shows an escape in looking up to the stars at night and taking your mind off you and your issues which aren't really that important in the greater scheme of things. The bittersweet is the feeling that it's supposed to be a great time when you are young and beautiful, but it's also the most depressing stressful part of life(Will he/she go out with you? Will you make the team? Are you going to get good grades? Not to mention how tired you always were and are your friends trusting and good or will they turn on you? that's what makes school/youth bittersweet.

 Their is truth to the words of the song.  When we are young we are still naive.  With freedom and youth comes experience and leaving our youth for adulthood requires his experience, skill and wisdom.  The need to become an adult happens virtually overnight and once the process begins their is no turning back.  The bittersweet may be the looking back at youth and wishing you had accomplished or experienced more or lament the idea of leaving youth altogether.  There is difficulty in this transition and the strife sends people to seek refuge in some sort of middle ground they reference to be " in-betweens" in the song.

Clothing Ideas For The Music Video - By Luke

As the song that we have chosen is to of the indie electronica genre, the clothing and styling of the band members is absolutely crucial to how the band will be portrayed to the public.

The main focus for us is to create a typical indie band and to try and keep strictly to indie styled clothing and hair styles etc. This will prove difficult but if done correctly it will give us the star image that we want to give the band. This is seen in our research as most artists have an iconic look which not only attracts a fan base but also reflects their persona. A key example of this is the band 'Kiss' who consistently wear leather with their black and white face paint - giving them their identity.
Recently we have been searching the internet for different sort of outfits for the band members to wear and we decided on the lead singer, as she is a female that she should wear a typical floral type dress for the performance part of the video, here are some ideas;

When researching what makes an indie outfit we looked at a selection of blogs and websites such as googling 'How to dress indie?' - sites such as 'WikiHow' came in very useful as there are lots of tips that we can use to enhance our own knowledge that we have already. The research sort of already confirmed the image we had in our heads of what 'indie' actually is but we could just get a better insight through the experts advice. We could then go away onto websites (below) with our new knowledge. The key thing to remember was that indie literally means 'independant' therefore we have a lot of flexibility and options

Florence Welch is a fashion icon and we can use her example to see what makes a unique female music artist as our lead singer as mentioned is a girl and we want her to stand out in the music video - by creating a qwerky alter-ego we can achieve this look. 
Florence usually performs in flowing dresses which contrast against her hair colour. Because she has such a distinctive hair colour and style, she compliments it and almost highlights it as her identity even further. Even when she is dressed casually as you can see, she dresses with independence and this reflects her personality.




This little slideshow shows some of the ideas that we have had from looking at fashion websites such as; Topshop, Urban Outfitters, ASOS etc. and google images. As a group we may need to purchase a the perfect outfit for the lead singer. We want to portray her as a fashionista, leading the way for other people to follow. In this case, she needs to stand out as being a unique individual who does not neccessarily follow any trends - she sets them herself. This being said, the style needs to be in keeping with the indie feel of the music video otherwise the two elements of music and fashion will not compliment each other. They need to show what direction we are heading in.

The other narrative based part of the video is going to be slightly different, as its going to be lots of different groups of people doing lots of different activities, the clothing will be tailored to who the people are and what they are doing in the scene that they are in for example, in the camping scene, all the actors will be dressed up warm around a camp fire wearing jumpers in sleeping bags etc, in the scene thats in the field it will be the same sort of attire that they were wearing during the performance.

We decided that the males in the performance part of the video will be wearing clothes that represent the indie genre also, for this we also looked into fashion website for the males like; Topman, Urban outfitters etc. Here are some examples of what we are looking for.....although some have hipster/electronica elements fitting into groups such as Scenester kids.

Make your own slideshow with music at Animoto.

Styles that I personally like are the bright and vibrant AZTEC ones. This is actually very in fashion at this present moment in time with the winter season. You can see these styles appearing in a lot of retail stores...it is the idea of patterns and bold colours being put onto a piece of clothing. It makes a big statement and has 'indie connotations'. When looking at websites this was a prominent theme. Also a lot of people at our age of 17/18 have started to settle into this Aztec niche market and if adults in bands are wearing this style they do look much more young and almost appear more creative and exciting.

The band Spector are good examples of making bright colours look qwerky and quite trendy. Normally it is common to think you stand out in a bad way but they have their own unique style and star image. Their style I think opitimizes them. Thry are normally seen with tie-dye shirts in yellows, reds, blues and various other colours. It separates them from the crowd and also highlights this fashion revolution.  I think that the clothing item of a shirt looks smart yet can be made casual at the same time - looking rather effortlessly cool.

Bands like Foals have the common look of skinny jeans and short sleeve shirts - shown in the Balloons video. It gives a summery feel despite the fact that we will be shooting our video in the middle of the winter period. They look tailored, especially with button down collars as these give the look a more casual appearance. Foals provide a contrast to Spector as they are more often seen in pastel coloured shirts as opposed to a variety of vivid colours.

Band History

The lineup: David Beadle, Thom Powers, Aaron Short, Jesse Wood, Alisa Xayalith. 
  
Background: The Naked and Famous have  slipped into the market, since they committed commercial hara-kiri earlier this year. The five-piece from New Zealand, began as an electro duo in 2008 after the two members, Thom Powers and Alisa Xayalith, met at music school. They have taken the sound indie rock and turned it into a their own style of electric rock. That's have found a gap in the market and are filling it with a commercialised version of a successful, cool American band's most popular tracks.

The New Zealand post-punk revival band from Auckland formed in 2008 when Thom Powers and Alisa Xayalith recorded two EPs with engineer Aaron Short, a fellow student at Auckland's MAINZ music college. The EPs were subsequently released on a local independent label and Powers and Xayalith began performing live with Ben Knapp (bass) and Jordan Clark (drums).
In 2009, the group recorded the single "All of This". Aaron Short became a performing member of the group and Jesse Wood (drums) and David Beadle (bass) joined the band as full-time members.

The band were involved in NME's rising stars for 2011 and did an interview. There is a clip from that interview below.

 The group then set about recording the single "Young Blood" and their debut album, recording mostly at home and at Auckland studio, The Lab. "Young Blood" debuted on the New Zealand chart at number one on 14 June 2010 – the first New Zealand artist in three years to do so. The Naked and Famous released their debut studio album, Passive Me, Aggressive You, on 6 September 2010 on their own label, Somewhat Damaged. The album was produced by Thom Powers and Aaron Short and mixed by Billy Bush.

Target Audience

 In order to get a good understanding of what and who our target audience will be, we decided to interview variety of different people above you can see the videos of the people we interviewed. There are also pictures of each individual and an explanation to each piece of there style. The videos were edited by myself and the pictures were labeled by a colleague in my group, Luke Chance. While we did this the other members of the group went about working on the brief.

We, as a group decided that the most appropriate target audience would be the 'The Indie Scenesters'. the definitions of the variety of groups that are about are on UK tribes  'UKtribes.com'. The definition of Indie Scenesters on this website is 'The Indie Scenester still likes to be ahead of the game when it comes to discovering new music. They still can’t quite shake off the skinny jeans though'.
   
Fashion is important for this group and tend to not wear mainstream outfits instead choose to be different and stand out.

 

 

Topman is a very popular shop between indie tribes as it offers a wide selection of alternative clothes. denim shirts, striped t-shirts, baggy tops and vintage looking out wear are all very popular within this group and top man can provide them all. Above you can see a image that I have taken from the Topman website it shows a model wearing cloths typical associated with indie  Scenesters. It is also common for them to roll up there sleeves ans short and long sleeved shirts as well and rolling up the bottom of there trousers to show the ankles. common footwear worn would be Van's, boat shoes, desert boots and espadrilles. Commonly associated with the indie is the 'Old Man' look also called 'Vintage' where many people wear striped and patterned jumpers and shirts with colors such as beige being very popular. and knit wear often is worn.  Although baggy jumpers and tops are popular skinny clothes are also extremely popular and very common with skinny jeans a must for all indie 'wannabes'.




Top shop is the equivalent of Topman except for women. It again offers a wide variety of cloths in the indie style and to the left you can see a model showing one of the outfits typically found in this shop. the women style tends to contain a wide variety of light colors with light pink, light blue and beige all being common in there outfits.


However Topman and Topshop both also offers a assortment of cloths for people with a less extreme sense of fashion such as plain polo shirts, jumpers, suits, skirts and dresses.


Music is also extremely important as is how you tell the difference between the true indies and the ones who just try to be. Music is like a religion and there are rules to it, they do not like music that is in the charts or what is extremely overplayed. Instead they listen to bands such as 'Bombay Bicycle club' and 'Kasabian'.  

 

Song Title and Directors

Our first idea was to create a performance video with maybe a small amount of narrative added in. some of our early song ideas were 'Time is running out' by Muse and 'Closer' by Miles Kane. we liked these songs as they are both upbeat and have instrumental sols which we would like to include in our videos. We also looked at songs by 'The Foals' and 'Bombay Bicycle Club'. these last two bands in my opinion are rather dull and there is not much variety of tempo throughout.

My personal favorite was 'Time is running out' by Muse. this is due to the catchy chorus which I believe would be perfect for a performance video. also there is a part where the music builds up with the drum beat for the first chorus which would be perfect for a close up for the drummer.

David Fincher

In the end we decided to use the song 'Young Blood' by 'The Naked and Famous' this was a group decision as we all liked different aspects of the  other songs and this one seems to include most of them, with instrumentals and good chances for narrative scenes.   

I also then looked at different music video directors and the best seemed to be... 

•  Chris Cunningham - Madonna
• David Fincher - Madonna/ the Rolling Stones/ George Michael
• Michel Gondry- Paul McCartney/ the Rolling Stones/  Kylie Minogue/ Foo Fighters
• Spike Jonze - REM/ Jay Z



Michel Gondry

• Hype Williams - Missy Elliot/ Nicki Minaj
•  John Landis - Paul McCartney/ Michael Jackson

Michel Gondry particularly stood out to me as he has worked with some of the biggest artists in the world including Paul McCartney, but also he has worked with a lot of artists that I enjoy to listen to. Therefor I decided to have a greater look into his past. He was born May 8, 1963 in Versailles France he is an Academy Award-winning French filmmaker, whose works include being a commercial director, music video director, and a screenwriter. He is noted for his inventive visual style and manipulation of mise en scene.

Another director that I was interested in was John Landis who has worked with artists such as Sir Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson. The main thing that intrigued me about this man was the fact that he directed 'Thriller' which is widely considered the greatest music video of all time. The way that the background dancers are perfectly in time is one of the greatest dances in music videos and has influenced all since then. 

MTV Rocks

MTV Rocks (formerly MTV Two, MTV2 Europe and M2), is a 24-hour alternative music channel operated by Viacom International Media Networks Europe. The channel is widely available throughout Europe on subscription satellite and digital television services. It was released in October 1998 as Mtv two but then in 2007 it went under a large rebranding and was renamed as Mtv rocks and some of the current programs include 'Biggest, Hottest' Loudest' and 'The Official Rock Chart'.

You can see the MTV website by clicking on this link MtvRocks.

As the name suggests this channel plays predominately rock and alternative music with acts such as The Killers, Foo Fighters and the Red Hot Chilli Peppers often appearing on it.

They host award shows every year with some of the biggest names in music being invited. An MTV Video Music Award (commonly abbreviated as a VMA) is an award presented by the cable channel Mtv to honor the best in music videos. Originally conceived as an alternative to the Grammy Awards (in the video category), the annual MTV Video Music Awards ceremony has often been called the "Oscars for youth".
  In September 2002, the MTV2 Europe introduced its own on-screen presentation and graphics, and started to use much more original programming, the jewel in the station's crown being Gonzo, hosted by the then MTV UK & Ireland DJ and now BBC radio 1 DJ Zane loweand regularly featuring interviews with bands along with contributions from members of the MTV2 Internet forum

 In 2000, the idea of audience choice, a new level of interaction was introduced. This was called 360 degree programming' where views could pick an hour's worth of music videos using their website - this would then be broadcasted through the night. The viewer would be emailed the time of the video they selected and the option to forward it to friends.

When entering the website it is very clear the sought of music that it promotes. there are alot of articles on rock bands such as 'My chemical Romance' and 'Linkin Park'.


It also has links to Mtvs other channel websites such as 'Mtv base' and 'Mtv Dance'  also you can see the most popular music videos at the moment on a scroll bar on the side, which helps people get up to date with current music.

Green Day - 21 guns

The video above is called '21 Guns' and is by the American band 'Green Day' from there eighth album '21st century breakdown'. It is part performance and part narrative.  It plays on the idea of the 21 gun salute, which is a saying for a warship emptying their guns in order to show that they have no hostile intent it is also often used as a reception for heads of state. The first interpretation fits in well with the music video as it is about surrendering and giving up on a fight that is not worth dyeing for. it is directed by Mark Webb who is quite well known. Webb won the MTV Video Music Award for Best Direction for this video in 2009.

It is about what is worth fighting for in life and what is worth letting go. the idea in this song and video is that although pride is important you should not let it stand in between you, and happiness. there.

 The first lines asks a question about 'do you know what is important to you?' and we see a man looking at a bullet which again refers to war and he then drops it suggesting he is giving up and as the bullet hits the ground the first guitar strums start. Then there is a close up of the actual bands Billie Joe Armstrong lead singer we see that he is trying to hide his emotions as his girlfriend is at the window looking out which shows that they have grown apart again seen when they are seen at opposite ends of the room. And the lyrics ask weather it is worth the pain. which suggests that they should forget there pride and forgive each other. The band say that 'it is not about giving up instead realising what is important'.

The couple are then subject to stray bullets coming through the walls as the chorus sets in, we see a long shot of the woman covering her head in fear as bullets come through the wall around her. The band who are seen in a similar room to the couple are also affected by it but act as if they don't notice, a medium close up shot of the guitarist playing on and singing calmly whilst bullets shoot through the walls behind him is an example of this. Compared to the couple who panic, therefor showing that they don't want to die which may suggest they don't really want the relationship to die.

I also think that is like the band are narrating a silent movie as they are almost watching things unfold and explaining. the fact that they are not affected by the bullets would suggest they are not real almost like a guardian angel.

Also the bullets could be seen as their pride which is keeping them apart and after the chorus the music becomes calmer and the couple both become calm and walk towards each other, not caring about the bullets which shows that they have overcome that and realised that it is not worth the pain of not being together therefore, surrendering there pride which again refers to the earlier line '"Does the pain weigh out the pride?'and when they meet in the middle they kiss.

The video is shot in a your average city apartment and the couple are both dressed fairly plainly, which i believe is to suggest that they are just normal people, therefor the viewer can see that this could be them if they do not listen to the meaning being portrayed. they are both wearing black leather jackets  and have similar color hair may suggests simelarities. therefor connecting the two.

Fairly often in this song the video cuts to the beat of the music, examples of this can be seen at the beginning when the bullet hits the ground the beat comes in and the video cuts to the band, it is also common when the camera is on the band for it to cut to the different members and this if often done to the beat of the music, especial the drum beat.

The video for this song is similar to a lot of the music videos made by this band especially in the album '21st century breakdown' where there is a separate narrative story and also visuals of the band playing the song, a good example of this is in the video for 'Wake me up when September ends'. However other videos especial in earlier albums have been made very differently compared to this one which is very serious and solom whereas in videos such as 'American Idiot' and 'Holiday'the video is much more relaxed and fun with a fast tempo.   

There is a defernate message trying to be portrayed in the song and the video helps to portray this to the full extent. you can tell the words are asking the question if things are worth the pain and not to let your pride get in the way of something that you want.