Music Video Analysis

After analysing the music video I have found points in which I would love to use as inspiration but I need to stress the difference that I am intending to have for my own, individual version of the songs music video. Although I speak of the fact I enjoy the ending features of the "party" scene, my footage is from from the fantasy, magical dream-like world in which Florence is singing in. As well as this the video shows happiness and celebrations of what seems to be love. The whole music video seems to shows a "party" celebration with everyone. This could suggest the connection with the song title, "you got the love", the video shows everybody is happy and sharing their positive feelings with each other as they all have the love, and they all want to share it with one another.

With this taken into account, I would like to stray away from the idea of a celebration. I may include footage of a "party" like atmosphere but in a much more dramatic and sadden way as the celebration is going to be taken out in my version. The celebration of Love will not exist and the sadness of not feeling love or feeling as if the love is lost is going to replace the happiness.

The Final Idea Planning

Music Video

I have come to the conclusion that I am going to create a music video. This now allows me to look into the different genres I may want to use and/or the different songs I may use to produce a music video and begin the process of creating it.

Song Idea 1 :
Calvin Harris - Flashback



I like this song and the idea behind the music video a lot as it shows intention to create a story connecting to the song title 'Flashback'. Playing with the song title 'flashback' is a clever theme that could indicate looking back in time and maybe looking at something you are not proud of which seems to be the idea for this video. So my idea, if I were to choose this song, would also connect to the song title but not in the same way. I love the idea of looking at a image and creating a flashback to where the image was taken, so for my idea I was going to create a party atmosphere with pictures being taken though-out the night. Then as my main actor wakes up in the morning, laying on his bed, feeling rough, the house and bedroom are covered with the images from the party the night before. This almost creates a flashback and helps the male remember the night before, as we can all assume he was under the influence of alcohol at the party and may not be able to remember much.  

Song Idea 2 :

Florence and The Machine: You Got The Love

I find this song to be very passionate and could almost be put to any type of situation due to the fact that 'love' can be shown though many different way. This is what I like most about this and this makes me believe that I could create something creative that would look great as a music video for the song. The music video itself is very basic and just included Florence herself on a sparkling moon flying in the air. This is obviously very difficult for myself to copy due to the lack of money and material and skill. But this is seen as a good thing to me. This shows that I would not be able to copy the music video and only ever be able to create something that is individual to me and my own ideas.

I would have a female as my main actor and would copy the look of the fiery red hair due to the great fantasy style that the song generates. I again would like to create a party atmosphere and would like to put it in slow motion to create that build up to the chorus. My idea for the chorus is to find couples and gives them card boards with the words 'You got the love' on and have loads of couples together to create that line as it is sung in the song. I find this to be very personal and also adds character as the individuals will be real couples that are really in love. I hope for this to bring a sentimental feel to the music video as the lyrics are emotional. But the tune to the song is dance-like and so the parts of the music video that is the slow-motion party clips to connect with the dance tune. 

The History Of Music Videos

A brief look back at what music videos are:

A music video is a short film or video that accompanies a complete piece of music, most commonly a song.

Modern music videos were primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music and songs.

Music videos are often called 'Promotional Videos' or more simple terms 'Promos', due the fact they are usually promotional devices.

Although the origins of music videos date back much further, they came into prominence in the 1980s. In the 1980's, the term 'Rock Video' was often used to describe this form of entertainment. Although now the term has fallen to disuse.

Music videos use a wide range of styles of film making techniques, including...

Animation (the rapid display of a sequence of images to create an illusion of movement. The most common method of presenting animation is as a motion picture or video program), live action filming (not produced through animation), documentaries (is used to broaden a category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record) , and non-narrative approaches such as abstract film (is a sub genre of experimental film. Its history often overlaps with the concerns and history of visual music). Some music videos blend different styles together, such as animation and live action. Some music videos do not interpret the song's lyrics, therefore making it less literal than expected. Other music videos may be without a set concept, being merely a filmed version of the song's live performance.

1902-1917: The phonoscène era

The phonoscene was a forerunner of sound film. It combined a chronophone sound recording with a chronograph film shot with actors lip-syncing to the sound recording. The first phonoscènes were presented by Gaumont in 1902 in France.

1926-1959: Talkies, soundies, and shorts

The beginning steps to the advertising and producing of sound film were taken in the United States in the late 1920s. At first, the sound films incorporated synchronised dialogue (known as "talking pictures" or "talkies") and moving images, this could be seen as the beginning of what is know today as Music Videos. By the early 1930s, the talkies were a global phenomenon.

1960–1967: Visual innovation
In the late 1950s the Scoptiton (a visual jukebox) was invented in France and short films were produced. Its use spread to other countries and similar machines such as the Cine box in Italy and Colour-Sonic in the USA. Manny Pittson began pre-recording the music audio, went on-location and taped various visuals with the musicians lip-syncing, then edited the audio and video together. This is the beginning of the music video industry.

1974–1980 – Beginnings of music television

The long-running British TV show Top of the Pops began playing music videos in the late 1970s. A good video would increase a song's sales as viewers hoped to see it again the following week.

1981–1991: Music videos go mainstream
In 1981, the US video channel MTV launched, airing "Video Killed The Radio Star" and beginning an era of 24-hour-a-day music on television. With this new outlet for material, the music video would, by the mid-1980s, grow to play a central role in popular music marketing. Many important acts of this period, most notably Duran Duran and Madonna, owed a great deal of their success to the skillful construction and seductive appeal of their videos.

1992–2004: Rise of the directors
In December 1992, MTV began listing directors with the artist and song credits, reflecting the fact that music videos had increasingly become an auteur's medium. Directors such as Mark Romanek and Hype Williams got their start around this time; they brought a unique vision and style to the videos they directed. Some of these directors, including, Gondry, Jonze and F. Gary Gray went on to direct feature films.

2005–present: The Internet becomes video-friendly
The earliest purveyors of music videos on the Internet were members of IRC-based groups who recorded them as they appeared on television, then digitised them, exchanging the mpg files via IRC channels. The website iFilm, which hosted short videos, including music videos, launched in 1997. Napster, a file sharing service which ran between 1999 and 2001, enabled users to share video files, including music videos.
2005 saw the launch of the website YouTube, which made the viewing of online video much faster and easier; Google Videos, Yahoo! Video, Facebook and MySpace's video functionality, uses similar technology. Such websites had a profound effect on the viewing of music videos; some artists began to see success as a result of videos seen mostly or entirely online.
In 2009, 30 Seconds To Mars' music video "Kings and Queens" was uploaded to popular video-sharing website YouTube on the same day of its release, where it has gained over one hundred million views the same day. It also received over forty million plays on MySpace. "Kings and Queens" was featured as one of the iTunes Store video of the week and was one of the most popular downloaded videos ever to be featured.

Idea Planning

When thinking about what idea I would like to go for I have a few negatives and positives for each idea. I feel laying it out and looking at the pros and cons of each idea will help me make the most out of what ever idea I eventually choose.

Idea 1
Short Film

Positives:
A short film is a very creative idea that has no limitation for imagination used in it. For this you can think completely out of the box and make weird and wonderful ideas come to life. This would be a positive for myself as I have no limits and could go as wild and crazy as I wished, and so the mise-en-scene could be quite easy to find as there aren't any expectations to what the background SHOULD be like, or how the characters SHOULD act.

Negatives:
The negatives of a short film is that the idea I come up with may not be so weird and wonderful and how I imagine it to look like may be too difficult to actually create in real life. The fact that a short film is approximately 5 minutes long means that you need to engage a audience and create a relationship between the audience and the characters in such a short amount of time. This is very difficult to do if the idea or theme of the film is not very good.


Idea 2
Music Video

Positives:
A music video is a very fun idea to do. You can be very creative and it is quite an easy option when creating a certain mood that relates to the chosen song. I could go for the 'singing' through out the music video type. Or I could look into the lyrics and think of a story to create that connects to the word that are sung. I could quite easily find the necessary details to create the right mise-en-scene for the music video. Also the fact that music is different genres, I can base my song on a genre and then following along a theme makes it slightly less complicated to create something that does look true to music video.

Negatives:
The negatives that I find for the music video idea is the fact that I would need to possibly gather a lot of people to take part in the music video (depending on what I wish to do in the music video or if the chosen song is a band or single artist). The main problem I also have with the music video idea is the choosing of the song. It is so important the song I pick and the type of genre it is. There is such a massive variety of different songs, I really need to find one that I can create a genuinely great music video for without all the money and effects that real-life production teams have.

Idea 3
Documentary

Positive:
A documentary can be very interesting when on a topic of high interest to myself. If I had a specific subject or situation that I wanted to learn more about and to spread to the world and help others who also wish to know the same information. I also really enjoy speaking to people and learning about other people experiences and knowledge, plans and ideas. I think a documentary is very good for somebody who is very interested in the world and interested in other people and are keen to learn.

Negatives:
The negatives of a documentary are that you need to keep the audience engaged and you need to have a topic of interest for the audience. I think the main factor of a documentary is that the topic or subject I would be looking into I need to make sure that I have a genuine interest in it and would genuinely like to know more about the topic. If not, this affected the audience viewing and makes it hard for the viewers to engage in the documentary.