Our Band!

Beckie and I spent a small amount of time looking on websites such as MySpace and Unsigned.com trying to find artists or bands to use for our music video. We found a couple of fairly local bands from London and like their music.
But before we emailed them and ask permission to use one of their songs for our video, we decided to use a band that we already knew - The Reservoirs. They are unsigned and have an album with 9 songs on it - giving is plenty of choice when it comes to picking just 1 song to use for our final video. However, as the band are from Southampton, we will be using actors to play the characters.

The Album's songs:

1. Strangers Are Harder To See In The Dark
This song is extremely upbeat and the intro doesn't last long, meaning that the singing kicks in quite quickly. This could be great for creating a relationship between the lyrics and the visuals as it is possible to think of a range of ideas as the lyrics could create different meanings.

2. Happy As Can Be
This song goes at a medium pace, it is not very fast but it is upbeat, meaning it isn't boring and there are a different tones throughout it. Again the lyrics come in quite quickly, so that the the intro doesn't drag on for too long. This song could be considered as soothing and cheerful.

3. Charlie
The intro for this song finishes just over 2 minutes into the song meaning I don't think it would be as effective as the others where the singing starts straight away. It would be harder to think of ideas for a whole half of the song where there is no lyrics. The beat also doesn't start straight away, which wouldn't be great as I want my video to catch the audiences attention straight away. However this song is very upbeat.

4. Scars On My Mind
This song isn't so upbeat and sounds slightly angry and gloomy, which isn't the type of song I would like to use for my music video. There could be a lot of ideas created after listening to these lyrics however the tone is too similar throughout.

5. Wormwood
The beat in this song is quite fast, and the lyrics could be classed as interesting. Throughout the first verse the tone changes and then changes back after, meaning the song isn't all the same throughout. This would also be a great song to show that connection between music and visuals and also lyrics and visuals.

6. Lead's Another Life
This song is very happy and upbeat but the lyrics are quite cliche, and the ideas would be limited as to what we could base our video on. As it is very cheerful it would be a good song to use for our final video but it would be hard to create one based upon the lyrics, it would be a stereotypical love story narrative video, which is what we are trying avoid. We want our idea to be as original as possible.

7. Day 1-3
This song has a very interesting guitar solo at the beginning; a great way to introduce the song and the video, but the tone doesn't change throughout, and the guitar is the only thing to make it stand out. There wouldn't be much we could do to create the relationship between music and visuals.

8. Behind My Back
This song immediately catches my attention with its upbeat tone and extremely catchy lyrics. This song would give us an opportunity to think of a range of ideas of what we could do for our video. The guitar in this song is very effective also, along with the drum beat.

9. Its A Pity You're So Pretty
This song is the slowest out of them all and isn't very upbeat. The lyrics aren't very well thought out, and there wouldn't be many different things we could do for a video for this song. I will not be using this song because it is so slow and we want to use a fast catchy song.

Email To Copyright Holder

Before using a song, we must send an email to the copyright holder of the song and ask for permission to use it. This is the email we sent to Todd, who was a member of The Reservoirs.

This is the reply we received from Todd, giving us permission to use The Reservoirs song which we were most keen to use - Strangers.

Analysis of Massive Attack - Teardrop

I analysed this music video just with what I heard, meaning I closed my eyes and just listened to music.
This song has aspects of a few different genres in it; Hip Hop, Electronic, Soft Rock and Trip Hop.

I categorised the analysis into 4 different sections, and then noted down ideas which I had come up with just by listening.

Feeling:
- It gives off a feeling of innocence, as if the girl is innocent
- It also creates a natural mood, like the singer is pure
- The music is very soothing and calming
- It also gives off a heavenly feeling, suggesting the artist is angelic

The Vocal:
- It is obvious that the singer is a woman
- Her voice is very feminine and calm
- It is also quite high pitched

Colours, Lighting, Style:
- I imagined the lighting to be low key and fairly dull
- I also thought that if there were any colours at all it would be pastels
- Overall I believed the style would be gloomy and not very bright

Concept:
- I imagined the story, according to the music, to be about death or the end of life
- I thought that the story would be about the girl singing
- I thought the location would be somewhere dark and cold, like a dark street or woods

I then watched the video, and the story was completely different from what I expected. It was in fact a baby lip synching inside its mothers womb, and I got the impression that she was singing to her baby. The feeling was still soothing and calm.

Previous Student Work Analysis

The genre of this music video is Electro Dance. I analysed how the colours and lighting portray this genre throughout the video.

- There were a lot of blues throughout the whole thing
- The actors used neon paint and UV lights for a glow in the dark effect
- Neon colours - pink, yellow, red, blue
- The band members were all wearing white t-shirts which glows under the UV light
- The whole effect of the colours was mainly cold (blue, turquoise)
- At certain points there were spotlights used and a glow around the characters
- There were flashes of light throughout the whole thing
- It came across like a rave in a nightclub, where this type of genre of music would generally be played

These factors all count within the connection between the genre and what is going on in the video, and they represent a what is in a typical type of video for this genre.

Subcultures Below Mainstream

Hipsters:
Into style and fashion - indie music

Punks:
Spiky hair, studded clothing - punk music

Scene Kids:
Have coloured hair, piercings

Ravers:
Into neon clothing, clubs - Electrodance/dance music

Chavs:
Wear hoodies, swear, criminals - rap/RnB music

Goth/Emo:
Black/dark clothing - rock music

Hip Hop:
Into dance, unity - hip hop music

4 Frameworks: The Avalanches - Frontiere Psychiatrist

Genre

This shot may show the genre by the setting which is a school hall/auditorium and the way these characters come across with their acting.

This shot shows the instruments being used.











Music and Visuals

This shot is visible when you hear the drums come into the beat, and is easy for the audience to understand what is going on as they can see the same thing that they are hearing.

In this shot you see these 3 men playing these instruments, and you can also hear it on the soundtrack, creating that relationship between music and visuals.

Again here, you here these particular instruments playing and you see the orchestra using them.










Lyrics and Visuals

Here the little girl says about a record, and then a huge one rolls into the shot, visualising what she has just said.

Here you hear the lyrics 'lie down on the couch' and you see a man doing so, creating that connection between lyrics and visuals.









Close Ups

The use of this close up shows that this woman has a lot of importance, as she does, she is representing the school teacher, also portraying how she is above everyone else who may be students.

This close up is of one of the lead singers, and that he holds a main part in this video, especially as he is holding the microphone up for him to lip synch.








These shots from this video demonstrate the 4 Frameworks of Goodwin's music video analysis.

AS Grade - Self Assessment

Target Exam Grade - B2
Exam Grade - B 76/100

Target Coursework Grade - B2
Coursework Grade - A 89/100

Overall Mark - A3 165/200

My Plan

To improve my coursework for A2 I will most definitely be focusing a slight amount more on the Research and Planning due to the fact it was the weakest part of my AS coursework. The reason for this was when any pictures etc were uploaded there wasn't enough annotation or explanation for them. Also my time management wasn't brilliant as we lost a member of our group and had to complete all of his parts of the work, meaning we were put behind schedule a little.