My initial ideas for the music video were that at the start of the music video we would have the character that will be portrayed having an argument with his girlfriend/wife and then storming out with all of his personal belongings. We had an idea of when the beat comes in for the song to drop a match on a load of old pictures and personal belongings as watch them burn, we came up this idea due to two reasons; one being the song is called pyro which is short for pyromaniac which is an obsession with setting fire to things, the other reason was because the song lyrics are "single book of matches gonna burn what's standing in the way".
We also had ideas for the next part which is when the lyrics are "bury all the pictures and tell the kids I'm ok". We thought that the character digging a hole up in the middle of a field or woods and burying his most important and meaningful belongings like photos of his children etc.
When the line "drunkards and babies seem to all agree" we had ideas to place this scene at a bar, with alcohol being consumed. For the line "I won't be your cornerstone" we pictured someone holding onto a wall but being dragged off of it.
Other ideas were from looking at previous Kings of Leon videos which always have instruments being played, so for the chorus of the song we would have instruments being played as if we were the band playing the instruments.
Feelings/Visual ideas
Visual ideas we had for our music video once listening to the song and lyrics became apparent more or less straight away. Pyro is short for pyromaniac which means having an obsession with setting things on fire, the lyrics link to this with "single book of matches gonna burn what's standing in the way" straight away we thought about basing the story around a man who was upset with his current life and wanted to leave his current situation with his girlfriend and kids. We thought about having the character driving off with lots of his shared belongings and burning them in a big bonfire and dropping a match on all the belongings as the beat kicks into the song. We want to base the video around fire and anguish; we have other for the video when the lyrics "little shaken babies and drunkards seem to all agree" we are thinking of setting this part of the song in a bar with a few characters laying around smashed out of their skull, we want the main character to walk into the bar and suck up the atmosphere.
Obviously more and more ideas will come into our head when we start creating our storyboard and going through the production process of the video.
Record company and label
RCA (Radio Corporation of America) Records signed Kings of Leon in 2002. They are owned by its parent company Sony Music Entertainment who have now taken full ownership of the record company and label.
Due to Kings of Leon being such a popular and well known worldwide band, they have a mass market audience with their music appealing to all generations and ages. Obviously there are certain age groups that will be into Kings of Leon more than another age group. Tracks such as Sex on Fire and Use Somebody got Kings of Leon to become well known, the album Only By The Night got them establishment in the music world, they were seen as the next big thing. Before the worldwide popularity, Kings of Leon were in a more niche type of market, there music was being listened to by fans mostly between the ages of 16-35; the target audience was more for people who were younger, liked the indie and alternative rock genre and could relate to being in a band. Ever since there real worldwide mass audience came into their marketing they have been aiming there music between the ages of 10 to 50 years old. My mum loves Kings of Leon, my friends mum loves them, my dad likes them, lots of people seem to love them although they have been aiming there music at a much more younger generation.
The methods used by Kings of Leon to target their audience can be refereed to social networking sites and social media, examples are the Kings of Leon YouTube channel which is connected to Vevo; all of their music gets uploaded, from advertisements, songs, interviews and extra content, all for their fan base and supporters to look at. The reason they have targeted YouTube is that they know millions of people use it; they have over 70 million views for their Sex of Fire video, this just proves their popularity. YouTube, social networking sites and the internet in particular are more suited to the younger generation of people, this is a big reason behind Kings of Leon targeting their audience at the age group between 16 to 30. They also use Twitter and Facebook to promote their music and target their fans, they have verified accounts on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. Social media sites are connoted with youth and the younger generation, Kings of Leon are aiming most of there music here at a young generation who use the internet and are into the modern day society.
When I create my music video and two ancillary tasks, I will be targeting the age group of 16 to 30 years old, the music is very modern alternative and indie rock. Kings of Leon are known for playing at festivals, again another prime example of their connection and connotation with the new generation, they stay in the modern times.
Sex on Fire was released in September 2008 by the alternative rock band Kings of Leon from the album Only By The Night. The song is seen and labelled as the best Kings of Leon song to date with over 80 million YouTube views for its music video. The song made it to platinum and number 1 across countries including the United Kingdom and Australia. The band openly admitted they never intended for the song to be called and feature Sex on Fire, it just randomly came about and they kept with it. Kings of Leon wrote the song and it was produced by Angelo Petragila and Jacquire King.
Music Video
Directed by Sophie Muller, Sex on Fire has an amazing 70 million views on YouTube showing how popular the song and the band are.
Analytical
The video is very sexual and tense, the beginning of the video has extreme close ups to the face of the lead singer Caleb; the reason behind the extreme close up shot is to show the tension in his face. The video is editing in to the beat so that the shot changes every 2 seconds to make it seem as if is moving with the beat. The location is very dark and mysterious connoting something sinister and evil, we see Caleb laying on a bed, he seems agitated and confused. The lighting is set out to concentrate on Caleb on the bed with the rest of the room very dark, focusing more on Caleb, the light again is to show the tension and to focus on him. Caleb is singing to himself as he is lying on the bed, we see other band members faces appear in shots throughout, we also see a black bird. The camera is very disoriented and blurry, as if the viewer is looking at it from Caleb's point of view, he almost seems drugged up or drunk.
We then see Caleb standing up with the band in some type of warehouse, the lighting again is very similar to the last location we saw Caleb. He is with the band and again it looks slightly performance based as the band are performing with all their instruments, Caleb with his microphone. The camera then focuses back on to Caleb who is back on the bed, he is now sat up slightly, this happens as the song reaches its chorus with the lyrics "your sex is on fire". The next verse Caleb is singing from two different locations, one being the bed and one being in this warehouse with the band. Caleb keeps holding his face and starts to become more agitated. As the song teaches its half way point Caleb is now being held down by his other band mates (brothers, cousin) onto the bed, he is trying to rise up but they are keeping him down. It's as if he wants to go and do something stupid but his band members (family) are holding onto him and help him through this moment, this is connoting his frustration and anger. The other band members are then shown, they appear to be watching the lead singer when he is lying down they seem to be discussing something about him. This links in with the line "lay where you’re laying" and "I know they're watching".
At the end of the song we see Caleb rise up and breath smoke out of himself, it is black and looks like some sort of toxic waste. It's as if he has released all of this pain and anger throughout the song and he did this by singing. He then takes a shower and he seems relieved, as if he has gotten out of this trance. It was some kind of sexual trance that had taken over his body, and the song helped him get through it.
Notion - Kings of Leon - Only By The Night
Song
Notion was released in June 2009 by the alternative rock band Kings of Leon from the album Only By The Night. The song wasn't as successful in the charts like other Kings of Leon songs but it did make it to number 1 in the US alternative billboard charts. Kings of Leon wrote the song and it was produced by Angelo Petragila and Jacquire King.
Music Video
The video was directed by Phil Griffin. The main reason a music video was created for this song was to give it a promotional push as it wasn't doing as successful as first thought. It currently has over 10 million views on YouTube which can be deemed a big success.
Analytical
The video is located in a lowly lit room with debris falling around, the room seems to be imploding on itself. The debris is falling onto the instruments as the band are playing them, it creates a very distinct look, the dust rebounding off the instruments into the bright lights. The lead singer Caleb is looking into a brick wall and seems to be singing to it, its as if he has nowhere to go. He talks into wall and says "Give me a sign" and this is when the room starts to implode and self destruct as the band are playing in there. The camera shots are very shaky and distorted to connote a rush and destruction, it never settles or focuses, it always stays on the move. The video again is combined by a performance based and narrative based video, we see the band performing, but we also see another story throughout the video of Caleb walking into a direct traffic of people who are going the other way and knocking him unbalanced.
Radioactive - Kings of Leon - Come Around Sundown
Song
Radioactive was released in September 2010 by the alternative rock band Kings of Leon from the album Come Around Sundown. The song made it to number 1 in the US alternative billboard charts. It made it to number 7 in the UK charts, so it was deemed as success and the most popular song from the album. Kings of Leon wrote the song and it was produced by Angelo Petragila and Jacquire King.
Music Video
The music video was directed by Phil Griffin and has over 10 million views on YouTube. The video came under fire and received at lot of criticism; especially from NME, they voted it the second worst music video of all time saying "the music industry gasped in disbelief as the Oklahoma boys leapt into a muddled mise-en-scene of questionable racial subtext."
Analytical
The video was made in a sepia tone format to refer the bands southern sunny origins. The video is half performance based half narrative, with the band playing in some parts and a narrative story of the the lead singer Caleb running with African children and singing along with them. The video has a party BBQ type look to it with the band celebrating with these children. The video zooms in and out of them and the events that are taking place such as football, eating etc. The message of the video is to try and make people see that the money they raise for these children, orphans and those struggling in Africa do pay off and allow these children to have some sort of luxury and fun. The video keeps the sepia tone throughout, it makes the video look old fashioned and retro like. The camera shots are quick, moving from one to the other consecutively.
The extras in the video are singing the chorus along with the band, it has a choir like feel to it, all the extras and children are dressed up smartly in what could be seen as church clothes. There are lots of group shots in this music video to symbolise and connote a togetherness which is the point of the video. The lyrics "It's in the water, it's in the story, it's where you came from. The sons and daughters in all their glory" refers back to ancestors, giving a sense of togetherness and feel good, celebrating their heritage. Kings of Leon remain in their typical southern outfits with skinny jeans and a chequered pattern top. At the beginning the lead singer Caleb is in a more smart outfit to what the audience are usually used to, he is wearing suspenders, a shirt and some smart trousers, along with the children who are wearing smart clothes too, it symbolises a party and celebration.
Similarities (Music Videos)
In all three videos and numerous of other Kings of Leon videos, they are always mostly half performance based, half narrative based with the band performing and a story going on in the background featuring either themselves or somebody else. In all three videos they keep the same sort of clothing throughout, always in black jeans and a chequered colourful top. They keep the same clothing to symbolise who they are, always a very similar to style to represent themselves. In the first two videos the lead singer Caleb is in a black vest top, this is because both videos are very tense, the first being very sexual and the second being surrounded by heat and a building imploding on itself with rubble and debris everywhere. All the videos link to the lyrics and song title, for example Sex on Fire was a very sexual and tense video, in some ways it looked quite disturbing with the way Caleb was laying on the bed in some sort of trance. Notion links well to the video because notion means "a vague awareness or understanding of the nature of something" showing that in the video when the building is imploding, he knows about it but he is slightly ignoring it and keeps on performing. For Radioactive, the lyrics link to heritage and the past, to always remember your family and where you come from.
The mise en scene for all three videos always fits the environment, for clothing, lighting etc, Sex on Fire was very tense and the sexual, the lighting was bright on Caleb laying in the bed, dark everywhere else to concentrate and have more emphasis on Caleb whilst making a dramatic effect. The camera shots in all the videos are also consistent, always have close up to the face of the artist to show emotion. The camera shots always have the band performing, quickly moving from shot to shot of the band playing the instruments in all three videos.
Differences (Music Videos)
Of course every music video has differences, otherwise it would be pointless creating a music video for each song. The whole point of a music video is to reference the song in a way that can make the viewer understand the song more, just like a story. Things that stand out as big differences compared to other music videos that Kings of Leon can be seen in Radioactive especially, they usually perform on their own but in this music video they performed with African kids who offered a back up choir to the main chorus for the song. This hasn't been done on previous videos. When it comes to my own video I need to make sure I am looking at similarities in their videos and using the similarities as examples to put into my own music video, the differences between the music videos will allow me to add my own ideas as each music video is individual and has something that makes it stand out.
Notion is individual in terms of its imploding room and destruction it contains, lots of fire and damage being done, connoting a very evil, sinister and dark situation. Radioactive is a more charitable type of video with Kings of Leon providing food, entertainment and fun for kids in Africa. Sex on Fire is a more serious and sexual video that connotes weirdness and a craziness we haven't seen in previous Kings of Leon videos.
Three Album Covers
Come Around Sundown
Released in 2010, this album cover links to the album name nicely, Come Around Sundown, with a sunset in the background over two palm trees and some kind of lake. Connotes a peaceful and calmness, the music in the album is also very relaxing and chilled. Its a soft album, not as hardcore as previous KOL albums. The artist name is at the top of the album, in a white text, and the album name is at the bottom of the cover, both in the same font and colour. The text does not stand out at all, it is very dim and blends into the album as well, it doesn't stand out, but the thing is with album covers, the artist name and album name are not as important as the actual image on the front of the album, that is the thing that attractive the viewers to it, how it looks and how it comes across, people can distinguish albums from the image on the front and not the text on the front. The image is the most important as it is on this.
Only By The Night
Released in 2008, again like the previous album, the album cover links to album name: Only by the Night, with all four band members faces featuring creating one whole face with an owl in the centre separating all four faces from connecting. An owl connotes the night time, linking to the album name Only By The Night, as owls are only known for being out at night. The album name and artist name is situated at the top of the album cover; in the top left corner it says KINGS_OF_LEON with the underscore symbols on, it makes it looks very advanced and computer like. In the top right corner it says >ONLY_BY_THE_NIGHT> again using the underscore and greater than symbol, I think they used to this to to make the album name and artist name stand out more. When it comes to creating my own album cover for this band I will be taking this into consideration, but none of the albums really keep a consistent basis to work on. This album cover is personally one of my favourites, it is very distinctive, and looks very creative, I love the blend of the four band members faces with the owl, it is really one of a kind and stands out from most other album covers in todays music.
Because Of The Times
Released in 2007, this album cover is a lot more plain and basic when comparing it to the previous two album covers that I have just annotated. This album cover has a pitch black background with a white skull that looks as if it was taken from an x-ray. There is also a smashed light bulb that is more smaller above the album name and the artist album. The album name doesn't reflect the album cover, unlike the past two album covers where the album name is refereed to well in album cover; maybe the album name and cover link to the current modern time we are with the x-rayed skull and smashed light bulb symbolises technology. The artist name is in a bold white font and stands out very well over the black background. The album name is in a more lighter font in lower-case with a light brown colour.
Similarities
The three album covers and designs all link the album name well enough to see a pattern and relationship developing into Kings of Leon's album artwork. Come Around Sundown links very will with the artwork by having the sun-setting in the background over a really nice picturess lake with two palm trees, it connotes warmth and summer which is reflected into the songs that are all really mellow and peaceful. The second album cover Only By The Night is also similar to Come Around Sundown in the sense of linking the album name to the album artwork, an owl connotes the night time, which is seen only in the night, hence Only By
The Night, they also mix each band members face into 1/4 of the album to create a face linked with parts of their face and the owl. The final album cover which is for Because Of The Times is very hard to annotate, it doesn't link to the album artwork as simply as the others but the story behind the artwork is that the I mean that the shattering light-bulb is almost a metaphor for the Kings of Leon discography: the music hasn't just evolved – it’s moving in a whole new direction.
Differences
Each one of the artworks for the albums are all very different, they have to be as the audience needs to establish which album is which easily. Artwork isn't just about how fancy it looks, its about how it registers into the mind of the audience, it has to be a attractive, but it has to be distinctive to stand out and to make people remember it. Also the layout is different in all three albums, Come Around Sundown has the artist name at the top and the album name at the bottom. Only By The Night has both the album and artist name at the top. However, Because Of The Times has the album name and artist name in the centre of the artwork, all very different. This is good news for me as when I come to making the album artwork I can put the album and artist name in any of these places.
Three Magazine Posters
Come Around Sundown Poster
For this poster, the worldwide album artwork was not used, instead they used the UK album artwork, mainly because this advert was in British newspaper and was being advertised by music selling chain HMV. It is near enough the same in terms of design and its colour/text scheme, we see the band name going back to its familiar position on the actual album cover, along with the album name which has the date of release, website address and logo of HMV underneath, all this key information gives the reader everything they to know from the band name, album name, date of release and location of the product, the whole point is to make it as easy as possible for the audience to see the album which is A4 size. Again the colour used is very similar to the orginal album artwork, a very warm and friendly bright sun set colour connoting happiness, peace and relaxation, which links to their album as the music replicates this.
Aha Shake Heartbreak Poster
This poster is literally a replicate of the album cover put onto the poster, everything from the colour, layout and text is exactly the same apart from the website address and the date of the albums release. The font is kept consistent, all the styles and colours are also kept the same throughout the poster, creating a professional finish. The fowler in the centre which is blossoming is meant to represent the career of Kings of Leon who have just started at this point to gather momentum and fame.
Talihina Sky (Story of Kings of Leon Documentary)
This poster is advertising a documentary on Kings of Leon that was about their career and how they started up and their rise to fame. This was released on DVD and this was promoting the sale of the DVD to help gain recognition. This looks very similar to Come Around Sundown in terms of the colour scheme, black and a sunset image, connotes the Southern America environment that Kings of Leon come from. We also see two horses with two people sat on them with cowboy hats, this again connotes the Southern American tradition. The text is kept consistent with black writing over the yellow sunset and a golden colour over the blackness underneath, it all looks very professional.
Track: Pyro
Artist: Kings of Leon
Album: Come Around Sundown
Released: December 2010
Length: 4.10
Label: RCA Records
In the end we decided to go for Pyro as we felt we could reference the lyrics well into the music video. The song is really nice length too, not too long or short, it has a time of 4 minutes and 11 seconds. Pyro is from the album Come Around Sundown which was released by Kings of Leon in 2010. Angleo Petragila helped produce the song alongside Jacquire King. It got to number 69 in the UK charts, which is considered very good for a alternative rock song which doesn't come under the mainstream category. All four members of Kings of Leon were involved in the writing of the lyrics.
Lyrics:
Single book of matches, gonna
burn what’s standing in the way Roaring down the
mountain, Now their calling on the fire brigade Bury all the
pictures and tell the kids that I'm ok if I'm forgotten
you'll remember me for a day
I, I won't ever be
your cornerstone, I
All the black
inside me is slowly seeping from the bone Everything I
cherished is slowly dying or its gone Little shaking
babies and drunkards seem to all agree Once the show gets
started its bound to be a sight to see
I, I won't ever be
your cornerstone I, I don't wanna be
here holding on I, I won't ever be
your cornerstone, I Watch Her Roll, can
you feel it? (4x) I, I won't ever be
your cornerstone I, I don't wanna be
here holding on I, I won't ever be
your cornerstone I, I don't wanna be
holding on, I
Myself and Nathan selected 4 songs that we thought would suit a music video, the songs we selected we both really liked and had listened to several times. We went with Kings of Leon as our chosen artist to create this music video and ancillary tasks for.
The songs we chose were:
Beautiful War - Kings of Leon
Radioactive - Kings of Leon
Pyro - Kings of Leon
Birthday - Kings of Leon
Beautiful War, Radioactive and Pyro are more emotional and meaningful songs. Birthday is a more happier and feel good song. We wanted to make sure we had a mixture of different songs from the same artist so we could have a good contrast of the music they create.
We liked Beautiful War alot, it had some great lyrics that we felt we could implement really well onto a music video, we were going to have a love story about a couple who are at war with each other but always seem to end up together no matter what they go through. We wanted to have some sort of war going on behind them as the video concentrated on them. We also were thinking of doing a video about a solider who leaves his girlfriend behind as he goes to fight in Afghanistan and were going to feature letters to and from.
The second song we looked at was Radioactive by Kings of Leon. This song again is a very emotional and heart felt song, the lyrics link to going back to where it all started from with "It's in the water, it's in the story,
it's where you came from. The sons and daughters in all their glory it's gonna shape them". We were going to refer the lyrics into the music video by implementing a sense of belonging and youth, all starting where we came from but we found that hard to mind map into ideas, we would need people to our background and Kings of Leon's background but since they are from America and live a very different life it would be too hard to do that.
Birthday was a song we really liked, it had a really exciting and party sound to it, we had good ideas for this. We were thinking of having a group of friends all together getting drunk, messing around. We wanted to make it have a happy upbeat feel just like the lyrics and the music does. In the end we decided we wouldn't go for this for or the other two songs that I just spoke about.
We decided in the end to go with Pyro by Kings of Leon, we had broke down and listened to all four songs numerous times and mind mapped all the songs into what ideas we could have and create for the music video.
Pyro is a song we both really liked and as soon as were listening to it ideas kept popping up to how we can create a video for it. We had ideas about fire, running away, which all coincide with the lyrics. We will speak more about the ideas for the music video as this is the song we went for so there is a lot more to come in terms of what we have planned and how we are going to create a music video and two ancillary tasks for this fantastic song.
Demi Lovato Music Videos
- Changing throughout videos in different year periods. Growing a lot more mature and becoming more of a women instead of a girl
- Bad girl gone good, opposite of Miley Cyrus.
- Outfits are different in all three videos, starts off very young and then becomes more smart/mature.
Adele Music Videos
- Depressing sad videos, with car crash scene. Links to her life, a bit like a car crash in her past relationships.
- Chasing Pavements links between two people. 'Chasing something you can never find'.
- Someone Like You is in black and white, depressing sad, no acceptance.
- Roling In The Deep is very upbeat, strong willed, about her past relationship... AGAIN! Long-shots, pyrotechnics.
Bruno Mars Videos
- The Lazy Song is directed by himself, very humorous and young. Having fun.
- Locked Out Of Heaven is very ecstatic, lots of dancing and jumping to the beat, more serious performance based, some random stories of other people going on in the background.
- Treasure is very retro and features a lot of editing effects, old looks style performance based.
BMTH
- Originally death core style of metal
- Crazy videos, jerky camera, head banging, moving with the beat, cold, snowy icy, reflect the songs, cold, heartless loud angry etc.
- Sleepwalking, snow again, girl wakes up, lyrics and song link very well together.
- Blessed With A Curse, girl sat alone, manor house with maids, very sad and depressing, reflecting the lyrics and song title well.
Kings of Leon
We decided to go with Kings of Leon as our artist for our music video, they have a great selection of songs and we really liked their albums. They are meaningful in their song writing which is another reason we went for them, they have great lyrics which make it very easy to come up with ideas for a music video for them.
Early Days Founded in 1999 by the three Followill brothers and their cousin all from Nashville Tennessee in the United States. They loved the rock music and lifestyle after watching their favourite bands and were influenced by bands such as Thin Lizzy, The Rolling Stones and The Clash. They played at gigs across the south of the United States and gradually started to become well known and very popular. They were signed by RCA Records, but the record company only wanted two of the brothers, but they insisted they would be stick together and so they did and became Kings of Leon.
Band Members Caleb Followill – lead vocals,rhythm guitar. Matthew Followill –lead guitar,keyboards,piano,backing vocals. Jared Followill –bass guitar,keyboards,synthesizer, backing vocals. Nathan Followill –drumsandpercussion, backing vocals. Albums
Youth & Young Manhood (2003)
1. Red Morning Light
2. Happy Alone
3. Wasted Time
4. Joe's Head
5. Trani
6. California Waiting
7. Spiral Suitcase
8. Molly's Chambers
9. Genius
10. Dusty
11. Holy Roller Novocaine
Aha Shake Heartbreak (2004)
1. Slow Night, Slow Song 11. Velvet Show
2. King Of The Rodeo 12. Rememo
3. Taper Jean Girl 13. Where Nobody Knows
4. Pistol Of Fire
5. Milk
6. The Bucket
7. Soft
8. Razz
9. Day Old Blues
10. Four Kicks
Because Of The Times (2007)
1. Knocked Up 11. Trunk
2. Charmer 12. Camaro
3. On Call 13. Arizona
4. McFearless
5. Black Thumbnail
6. My Party
7. True Love Way
8. Ragoo
9. Fans
10. The Runner
Only By The Night (2008)
1. Closer 11. Cold Desert
2. Crawl
3. Sex On Fire
4. Use Somebody
5. Manhattan
6. Revelry
7. 17
8. Notion
9. I Want You
10. Be Somebody
Come Around Sundown (2010)
1. The End 11. Birthday
2. Radioactive 12. Mi Amigo
3. Pyro 13. Pickup Truck
4. Mary
5. The Face
6. The Immortals
7. Back Down South
8. Beach Side
9. No Money
10. Pony Up
Mechanical Bull (2013)
1. Supersoaker 11. On The Chin
2. Rock City 12. Work On Me
3. Don't Matter 13. Last Mile Home
4. Beautiful War
5. Temple
6. Wait For Me
7. Family Tree
8. Comeback Story
9. Tonight
10. Coming Back Again
As you can see, all six of the albums do not really keep a consistency in the artwork. They all have one thing in common and that is the band name being at the top of the album artwork. I think it is good that every album cover is different and doesn't hold too many similarities so it is easier to distinguish which album is which so they all have a piece of individuality about them. Notice how the album name also links with the album artwork; for example Come Around Sundown has two tall palm trees with the sun-setting in the background. Mechanical Bull has a picture of a sign saying Mechanical Bull and a race track finish logo printed on the wall. Only By The Night has a picture of the lead signer with an owl blended and mixed into his face, owls are connoted with the night time, again linking the artwork and album cover.
For my artwork I am going to make sure the album name is linked and has a key relationship with the album artwork. I want to do this so I can keep a consistency just like Kings of Leon have.
The song is converted into a conversation, instead of a performance based video, it is narrative. It works well with references in the lyrics shown in the music video clearly. A really British type of music video with the clothing, language, vocabulary, pub, cafe, English fry up etc. Video features a variety of different people talking into the camera the lyrics of the song, as if they are addressing the audience and telling us "Don't Mug Yourself". The location of the video changes consistently in a clever way as it automatically changes with a clever switch.
Rock DJ - Robbie Williams (Narrative)
Very weird video, He is surrounded by women, trying to grab their attention as they go around on roller skates.He begins stripping down, to then stripping his skin, muscles and organs until he is only left with bones. It is very messed up and has been censored by major music video companies due to this. The women around him are eating his flesh on the floor, it is very disturbing. I am not sure how the lyrics and song title even link the video, it all seems very different. Maybe that was the point? To be diverse and different to everyone else, so people would remember the music video and it would grab more spotlight?
Notorious B.I.G. - Sky's The Limit (Performance)
Beginning of the video reflects his wealth and stature: mansion, cameras, big gates, expensive cars, nice suit etc. The song name is Sky's The Limit, this reflects how far he can go, meaning he can reach anything now he is famous, he has the money and has the fame/spotlight. The video has children featuring as Biggie, maybe to show that it doesn't matter who you are or how young you are you can have the world at your feet. All dressed up in jewellery and suits, sunglasses, all representing power and money. I think the video has something to do with children growing up to quickly, the kids both boy and girl are all in expensive maturer clothes.
Daft Punk - Around The World (Performance)
Performance is staged around a world which links to the title of the song. 4 or 5 different sets of people such as gymnasts, skeletons, jocks, mummies, robots etc. All the people link to the song with the robots being at the top and the skeletons at the bottom. The camera stays in the same place throughout as the dancers move around, they move to the beat which looks really professional and goes well with the video. The video represents different cultures, death, life etc with mummies and skeletons representing death, gymnasts and jocks representing life and robots representing the future. Lots of panning and zooming in and out shots of the dancers going up and down the steps, following them back and forth.
I will be working with Nathan Cross for the creation of my music video and other tasks. We both share a similar music taste and have decided to focus on the Alternative Rock and Indie Rock genres for our music video.
Artists we have looked at in good detail were Kings of Leon, Arctic Monkeys and Foals. All three of these bands have released new albums this year (2013) so all of their songs are pretty fresh and haven't had music videos created for them yet. We are very carefully listening through the albums in good detail, we want to find the right song that will allow us to have two or three different ideas so we can fall back on it if something goes wrong. We are looking for a more downbeat, sad song. We have ideas but we can't use them to our full potential until we have found the right song and idea. We have also looked at past albums from the three bands in case there are any other songs we might like to use. We want this to be perfect so we are being very through and detailed in our research process for our selected song.
The reason we have research the following artists was because they all fall into the same genre bracket that we are looking at: Alternative and Indie Rock.
The three albums we have selected from these artists were:
Kings of Leon - Mechanical Bull
1. Supersoaker 11. On The Chin
2. Rock City 12. Work On Me
3. Don't Matter 13. Last Mile Home
4. Beautiful War
5. Temple
6. Wait For Me
7. Family Tree
8. Comeback Story
9. Tonight
10. Coming Back Again
Foals - Holy Fire 1. Prelude 11. Moon
2. Inhaler
3. My Number
4. Bad Habit
5. Everytime
6. Late Night
7. Out Of The Woods
8. Milk & Black Spiders
9. Providence
10. Stepson
Arctic Monkeys - AM
1. Do I Wanna Know? 11. Knee Socks
2. R U Mine? 12. I Wanna Be Yours
3. One For The Road
4. Arabella
5. I Want It All
6. No.1 Party Anthem
7. Mad Sounds
8. Fireside
9. Why'd You Only Call Me When You're High
10. Snap Out Of It
We are currently in the process of narrowing down songs that have a good balance of music and lyrics so we can implicate our ideas onto the music video as well as possible.
We decided to go with Kings of Leon as our artist. We both really like Kings of Leon, their albums and songs are fantastic to use as examples.
We also did some research on previous Foals and Arctic Monkeys albums just to see if there is any sort of pattern in the album artwork and layout.
Foals - Antidotes (2008)
1. The French Open 11. Tron
2. Cassius 12. Brazil Is Here
3. Red Sock Pugie 13. Dearth
4. Olympic Airways
5. Electric Bloom
6. Balloons
7. Heavy Water
8. Two Steps, Twice
9. Big Big Love
10. Like Swimming
Foals - Total Life Forever (2010)
1. Blue Blood 11. What Remains
2. Miami
3. Total Life Forever
4. Black Gold
5. Spanish Sahara
6. This Orient
7. Fugue
8. After Glow
9. Alabaster
10. 2 Trees
Arctic Monkeys - Suck It And See (2011)
1. She's Thunderstorms 11. Suck it And See
2. Black Treacle 12. That's Where You're Wrong
3. Brick By Brick
4. The Hellcat Spangled Shalalala
5. Don't Sit Down 'Cause I've Moved Your Chair
6. Library Pictures
7. All My Own Stunts
8. Reckless Serenade
9. Piledriver Waltz
10. Love Is Laserquest
Arctic Monkeys - Humbug (2009)
1. My Propeller
2. Crying Lightening
3. Dangerous Animals
4. Secret Door
5. Potion Approaching
6. Fire And The Thud
7. Cornerstone
8. Dance Little Liar
9. Pretty Visitors
10. The Jeweller's Hands
In the end we decided to go with Kings of Leon because we feel their image is suitable for our music videos, they are a very good band and we love their music. We went with them because we are big fans and we know their songs, style and videos all really well so when it comes to creating the video and the two ancillary tasks we will be best prepared. We are in the process or narrowing down songs from their 6 albums to what we think we will best suit a music video.
