Mood Board

This is the mood board I was required to create to present ideas for the upcoming music video for 'Insomniac'. They include the use of a small toy gun as a prop, the themes of sleep deprivation and substance abuse, locations around the city of Norwich, contemplation of artists such as Dali, the theme of death and the infleunce of imagery in film, such as in Carnival of Souls.

Evidence of provided permission to use the chosen song

After deciding on my song, I was required to get sufficient permission from the band to use their material. This screenshot depicts the Email sent via the band's information page to secure permission & make sure the use of the song by a student was allowed. (Personal information has been removed.)

The Jubilees - 'Insomniac' lyrical possibilities

The lyrics to my chosen song (Insomniac by the Jubilees) are as follows:

Wide awake, I can’t sleep now; I’m climbing up the walls

Wide awake, I can’t sleep now (I can’t sleep now)

Mind astray, I won’t come down, until the morning comes

Mind astray, I won’t come down (I won’t come down)

Help me out

I’m tired, chasing your shadows round streets I can’t remember

So take me home

Help me out

I’m tired, wasting my lifetime on things I won’t remember

So take me home

The powerful lyrics of the song were the main catalyst for ideas on the planning of the video. The song repeats 'wide awake, I can't sleep now' amongst other sleep and insomnia-related lyrics, therefore the general idea for a video follows a lone, sleep-deprived actor. The song also hints as a gradual loss of sanity, opening up possibilities for a dream sequence or surreal flashbacks. 'Chasing your shadows' hold possibilities for a love interest and a primary dilemma in the construction of the video. The shadows chime in with nightmarish images brought on by the substance abuse and insomnia of the character.Whether his situation is simply a dream or rather a hallucination will be ambiguous. 'Wasting my lifetime on things I won't remember' may allow me to delve into contemporary issues such as drug abuse.

Goodwin's theory on music videos, illustrated in a Prezi presentation

Andrew Goodwin's theory on music videos consists of six points which when compiled together create a stereotypical music video. I have detailed each point with examples and explanations within this Prezi presentation, which you may now view.

Homework: Goodwin's theory w/ examples on Prezi

Song choice for promotional music video: The Jubilees - Insomniac

For the filming of my music video I have chosen this song, 'Insomniac' by The Jubilees. The song is short enough to build a fast-paced music video around without having to cut parts of the audio. The lyrics are powerful and inspiring for an insomnia-themed subject to the video. The rhythm is catchy and can be build upon with editing which cuts to the music. I am extremely happy with this song and I already have many possible ideas for a video.

Possible songs for use in music video

As the task was to create a music video to promote an unsigned British band, I was required to choose a song by a lesser known artist/group. Initially I struggled to find something which appealed to me, especially due to the tediousness of working out whether an band was still unsigned.

I narrowed the search down to three artists, one of which was suggested by a teacher and another being a song used in previous years of the course. These two songs were in that shortlist, though I did not choose either as my artist to promote.

The first was 'The Fall' by Black Market Karma. I found this particular song on YouTube & decided to choose it for the quality of both the musical and live performance elements. If I were to construct a music video with a chronological narrative, it would be slow-moving and may involve frequent fades. The reason I did not choose this piece is because that the lyrics failed to inspire that many visual ideas, the song needing to be cut in some places for length reasons and, of course, a professionally constructed video already being complete and published to the site.

The second possible choice was 'Zero Integrity' by Daniel Cope. Unlike the previous song, Zero Integrity has very clear and meaningful lyrics which may be easy to interpret into a visual narrative. The video for the song itself is also a static live performance typical of the music category on YouTube, so there is no room for bias in the construction of a video. I chose not to use this song partly because the acoustic style of the song did not necessarily appeal to me, and partly because the narrative possibilities of the lyrics did not appeal to me as much as that of my chosen song.

Homework Task: three music videos of interest

The first piece of homework assigned on the A2 course for media was one of finding and embedding various music videos. We were given a site of mterial (Music Video Jam) to browse through and were asked to select three music videos of interest, explain why we have chosen them and embed them onto our blogs. All of the videos were acclaimed for being well-made and somewhat innovative, some of which being more peculiar than others. These are the three videos I chose:

1: Ratatat - Mirando

http://youtu.be/Fk8qcGOtBFw

Having watched Predator earlier in the year, this particular video caught my attention, as the entire production is comprised of clips frrom the film that have been edited, reverseed and set to music. I found the video fairly amusing for the brief scenes of the enemy soldiers being shot that were re-cut into frantic dancing, aided by my prior knowledge of the film.

2: Gorillaz - Stylo

http://vimeo.com/12046823

I first watched this Gorillaz video last year on MTV. I have come to expect videos such as this from Gorillaz from watching their back catalogue of similarly constructed films. The formula is of well-animated, fairly unique videos strung together by the loose conceptual plots of each album and starring the 'virtual' members of the band, 2D, Murdoc, Russel & Noodle. This video uses computer generated images alongside live action to deliver a solid entertaining five minutes of Gorillaz' music, co-starring Bruce Willis. To chose the video for the fact that I am a fan of both Gorillaz and Bruce Willis.

3: Blockhead - The Music Scene

http://youtu.be/NhheiPTdZCw

Again, I came across this video some time ago. I first heard about it via the video's viral spread across video & social networking sites and was blown away by it. The visuals are gripping from the start and thoroughly enjoyable.