Initial Ideas

Choosing a song

One of the first things we thought about when creating the music video was the genre of the music we would like to use, as we viewed this as one of the main aspects when it came to the filming, production and set up of the video. One of the initial ideas we had was to have our theme as a modern up to date pop music, this offered a wide range of diverse artists ranging from “Lady Gaga” to “The Hoosiers”, although we could not settle and agree upon a particular artist or song. We found that this theme and genre of modern pop was much too diverse to choose from.

From the modern pop idea we decided we should try and venture away from the expected and what the majority of people would do, this led us to do a music video based on a song from the past we looked at a few bands and artists including “David Bowie” and “Blur”. In the end we chose to do a song by “The Cure” as although they are from the 80’s they sou1nd like they have a sound of current Indie Pop bands of current times, even though back in the 80’s they were considered to be quite gothic and post punk.

So we had decided to use a song by “The Cure”. The first song we were going to use was “The Lovecats” as the song itself was upbeat and known by many. We decided against this idea as from watching the music video for the song there was not much else we could do which hadn’t already been done in the existing video without it looking like we have copied them. We then narrowed down the songs which were left as to what we thought were the most popular songs leaving us with “Boys Don’t Cry” and “Close to Me”. We chose “Close to Me” as we felt the song had more substance i.e. through the lyrics compared to “Boys Don’t Cry” where in terms of the lyrics there was not a awful lot to work with and the video would have to be mostly performance as it would be difficult to have a meaningful narrative relating to the song. So we chose to go with “Close to Me” due to the upbeat nature of the song and the personal preference of the group.

Video ideas

For our music video one of our initial ideas was to have a “top of the pops” themed video, with a set up of a stage and crowd. One of the reasons for this idea was popularity of “top of the pops” around the 1980’s, with the cure even performing on the show.

One of the other ideas we had was to have the video of us getting ready before we performed on “top of the pops”. This idea gives us more scope to work with, more freedom and we can be more abstract in what we actually do.

The idea has similar concepts to the “Lovecats” music video in the sense it is based in a room and we hope to gain a similar look and feel for our video. One thing we want to achieve which we feel there video didn’t do is to have our video feeling more claustrophobic which will help maintain a hectic fast pace to the video.

Another idea we had which stems from the getting ready before the “Top of the Pops” involves us travelling to the gig which we as a band will be playing at and then the video ending with us performing on stage. We feel this idea provides us with a variety of locations and although it may be difficult to keep a constant feel for the video with three different locations we feel if done correctly it could show off what we can do.

We decided in the scene where we are in the room we wanted to keep a abstract feeling by use of different camera angles and use of different techniques. One of the shots we plan on doing is a shot through a fish bowl this will create a different shot and will contribute to the abstract feel. Another technique we want to use for the same effect, is to take some shots of the lead through a broken mirror so he has several reflections.

This is where we were planning on filming the sequence where we are going into the BBC. We plan on going up the stairs and just into the main doors of the actual building and then filming the parts where are inside the building in a different location.

We are hoping to film outside the academy on the day of a gig so we can capture shots of the crowd. We are also hoping do the shots where we load a taxi/car with all of the equipment we need for the gig. Although we will be doing this shot from a side angle so the academy does not have to be in the shot therefore it is not essential to do the filming for that here, it may make more sense to do the filming for this in a quieter area.