Half Term Objectives

Over half term, I will be taking the filming equipment home with me, and will hopefully begin to start filming, but will mostly working out different shots and ways I can use the camera. I will (hopefully) begin filming the actual video as soon as possible.

Green Screen

We have now set up the green screen within the new building which should hopefully help enhance our videos by being able to create many more various situations that can appear within my video.

Song Choice

I have finally decided on exactly which song I am going to use. I have chosen F.E.A.R. by Ian Brown, due to the fact I believe I can come up with many more ideas using this song than the others.

Locations For Filming

I have been researching various locations which I will be trying to use in order to create my video. Some of these locations will be Roos and Burstwick, as well as using certain places within the school, such as the Green Screen room and (hopefully) the recording studios and the main hall.

(Here is one of the locations within Roos I hope to be able to film at(hopefully with the weather like that as well!))

Storyboarding

I have begun storyboarding for my video - I so far have done around 1 minute of the video and will hopefully have it uploaded soon.

The Verve Video Analysis - Bitter Sweet Symphony

I have chosen to analyse Bitter Sweet Symphony by the Verve as my Verve video analysis.
Bitter Sweet Symphony is the 1st single on The Verve's third album, Urban Hymns and it reached number 2 on the UK Singles chart. The full version of the song is 5:57 minutes long and is of the alternative/britpop genre similarly to bands like Oasis and Pulp. The song also in a similar way makes use of violins to give it a unique sound. These qualities will make it a good analysis to conduct for research regarding my chosen song. The video is in a pseudo-performance style as the lead singer is shown singing as he walks along a street but the rest of the band is not shown.

 

The video begins with a camera panning to follow the Richard Ashcroft (the lead singer) as he walks onto a busy street. The unique sound of the violins fade in on the 3rd second eventually drowning out the ambient street sounds that could be heard before. This highlights how the character is thinking and how he becomes almost oblivious to the world around him as the song continues.

He stops and turns to face the camera as it pans up to show his face. The camera moves slowly backwards as he pauses and looks towards it as if deep in thought.

Eventually, Ashcroft begins to move forwards, following the camera. The rest of the song continues as he walks along the street throughout which, he is shown to be completely uncaring and almost oblivious to his surroundings. Almost immediately as he crosses a road where he doesn't look, he is almost run over but he shows no reaction.

 

He continues to walk down the street and doesn't move from his path regardless of who or what is in his way. The lyrics were clearly used directly when the video was being created, the third line of the first verse is ''I'll Take You Down The Only Road I've Ever Been Down''.

This is represented by the road he walks down and along with ''It's A Bitter Sweet Symphony, This Life'' clearly set the theme for the whole video in the eyes of the director and the video reflects that in the singer's nature and actions.

 

The Verve - Bitter Sweet Symphony on MUZU.TV.

Music Video - Basic Ideas

After looking through the results of my audience research, as well as extensive research of music videos across the Internet, I have finally been able to start creating my music videos' story.
For the video, I extensively looked at similar artists to the genre that my song is from, and then choosing just one of those artists to base my music video around.

The band that I chose was The Verve.

Looking through almost all of the videos have an identity that is prevalent throughout them. The whole band feature in nearly all of the videos, but only Richard Ashcroft appears in all of them. In a lot of the videos, Ashcroft is made to be pictured as an isolated, lonely figure, such as in 'Bitter Sweet Symphony' and 'The Drugs Don't Work'. Another connotation is that the band's appearance, both them and their surroundings, are made to look very bleak and desolate places, for example 'History' mainly features driving around in desert and wasteland, or 'Rather Be' which features Ashcroft walking around a small wood for the entirety of the video. There are exceptions to these though, such as 'Lucky Man', which is quite the opposite of a Verve video, with a much joyous atmosphere about it. The songs and song lyrics themselves dos have an effect on the video, as a lot of their songs do have a slightly depressing tone towards them, which will affect the video.


The Verve - Lucky Man on MUZU.TV.