I chose I Can Talk by Two Door Cinema Club because it is a very similar song to Doubt in pace and style. The Northern Ireland trio are a indie guitar band that were also signed to the label Kitsune, which Delphic were once signed to, this label are very modern and very niche. The video is directed by MEGAFORCE who has worked with artists in similar vain to both Two Door Cinema Club and Delphic such as Late of the Pier and MGMT. All these bands mentioned are very similar in genre and style, the video for I Can Talk, starts with a very vintage feel to it with the opening credits overlaying simple shots, the editing is to the beat, just like the lights section in the original doubt video, and similar to our plans for our music video. This video follows a more conventional route of showing the band in the video whereas Delphic are not featured in their videos. However this video takes this conventional style to a different level, shooting the band in a different setting of a house, the camera work starts static as you can see in the screen grab, but moves to pans and tilt shots, culminating in the Medium Shot of the Lead singer. The verse follows the normal conventions of following the Vocalist singing the lyrics, however works against the conventions by adding in the ideas of the vocalist changing clothes as shown in this grab, this along with the very tight, crowded filming of the choruses are used to show the viewer the quite absurd ideas of the video, it has no purpose in the narrative and it all seems like a big party, this is useful for me to analyse as this is very similar to our music video idea. In this style of music you can get away with a lot of random shots and ideas as long as it works well with the music, it is down to the editing and the camera work. The editing in this video is very strong, it is very quick and to the beat, while the camera work is very shaky and very steady, this all gives the viewer the sense of confusion and excitement that the situation needs us to be in, if all the shots were done statically then as a viewer I would be bored, however clever camera work has stopped that.
This video is the promotional video for the new single Doubt by Mancunian electro guitar band Delphic. This is the song we wish to use for our music video so it seemed wise to analyse this video first. The genre of the music is electro indie guitar music, I feel that the music itself is quite different to a lot of music out there and this is reflected in the music video, which is directed by Andrew Huang. The most obvious characteristic that sticks out is the use of lighting to really heighten the subjects and the music. It is the first image we see, of red led lights. This idea of strong, almost neon lighting is used throughout the whole video, it really works well with the genre, the next step we see it in, is after 10 seconds, with the introduction of a new instrument, there comes an introduction of new lights, this neon lighting highlights the genre of the music once again; capturing the essence of the music immediately. This relationship between the music and the visuals only increases throughout the video. The strange conceptual feel of the video is represented through different human subjects having all sort of animations built around them, squares on the blonde shaggy haired man start to appear on his face around 32 seconds in, and then build until the end of the video. This idea is quite off the wall and seemingly insignificant to the lyrics but they fit with the music. Furthermore in the chorus the director really effectively uses lighting to heighten the senses, to create this feeling of rise in the chorus’s tempo. In the second verse, the building of what i can only describe as animations on the body, develop more, the pace of the movement sits well with the pace of the music, while the movement of the people is slow, the animations are quite fast, it is only by 1 minute 55, where the pre chorus begins that the music slows a bit and the movements are really emphasised, this works tremendously well, and is a similar idea to what we might use for sections of our video. This slow pace movement idea is very similar to their past two videos, for singles Counterpoint and This Momentary, where the filming and editing is quite slow paced. However the editing in this video is not always slow-paced, it is effectively timed to the music in many of the sections of the video, including the introduction and the break between vocals; most significantly however in the instrumental and bridge sections. These sections start at 2 minutes 36 seconds, it starts with the slow pace, before rapidly moving into the led lighting effects that were used previously, once again these effectively work in time with the music, the pace of the editing is still slow. The movement of the the subjects is still slow. However it is the break at 3 minutes 4 seconds that we really see the timing pay off, the editing is quick in time with the beat, while the movement of the subjects is even faster working with the instruments in the song, this is possibly the most effective and outstanding bit of the video. It certainly is my favourite. What follows is the instrumental solo, which still has the pace of the music high but the visuals are slowed again, however this contradiction works well with the music. As a viewer you feel a sense of climax at this point therefore it leads you into that sense of bewilderment and wonderment that is well represented in this section. When the final chorus comes in, the editing is much faster, switching between the different subjects faster, there is now much darker lighting, but the effective use of moving image lighting that we see on the subjects face, give the idea of rave/party feel which works extremely well with the music. lashing to the introduction of the song that straight away gives us that connection. This montage is interlinked with images of LED lighting again, and finally the last few seconds of footage feature fast paced editing of the subjects back to normal in the original white/grey lighting from the start of the video, this gives it the rounding edge, bringing it to the end. The idea of different subjects in this video give you that notion of looking, but we are being welcomed to look at these people, so it is not strictly voyeurism. A majority of the time the subjects are directly looking at the camera, as if they were speaking to us, the lack of clothing and quite morose look on their faces give a sense of vulnerability to them, which comes through in the lyrics. However what I find interesting is there is no feature of the band members at all, no instruments or anything, which is a feature of all their music videos, however this is a good thing, a difference, which will also work in our video. I think this video is quite extraordinary, it has positive aspects to it, like the clever editing to the pace of the music and the lighting effects, however I feel the concept of the video is quite strange, the non-existent look on the subjects faces give an eerie sense of unknowing, this is well representative of the lyrics of the song, and of the band, but it doesn’t stop me having the sense of confusion. However I think it is effective in portraying their music style and their song.
Tristan Todorov is one of many theorists who have considered the idea of narrative, he considered that the primary function of the narrative was to solve a problem. Each event in the story has a causal relationship with each other, one goes to the next, in other words it involves cause and effect. This notion of cause and effect implies a change in the state of affairs.
The idea of narrative can be explained through this diagram above, which is explained below.
Everything starts with a state of equilibrium, the state of equlibrium is disrupted by either a force of some kind or through the actions of an individual and then finally the narrative progresses to a restoration at a state of equilibrium or order.
Putting these theories into our storyline could be important, so to study these is also important. However I believe that what Todorov is speaking of is more related to books and films and with a music video often the narrative can be either fragmented or non-existent. The main aim of a music video is to sell the music to the viewer, so whether this is through a performance or through a collection of random visuals is down to the artist/promoter and obviously linked in with the genre of music, the conventions of a music video are down to its style. For example you would not expect to see a band in a hip hop video, just like you wouldnt expect to see scantily clad dancers in a rock video. Therefore i think it is important to study narrative theories for our music video and develop them for our situation.
Just like feature films there are forms and conventions for music videos. I have researched into these so that, as a group, we can use these to our advantage when creating our own music video. As well as this it will aid in my analysis of existing music videos. We did discuss these points as a group to help each other out as well.
As with films, particular genres of music have their own music video style and iconography, certain things such as setting, clothing and lighting are recognised symbols we expect to see. It is clear that music videos are used promotional material therefore it is often a demand for their to be close ups of these artists to make it clear who they are and promote them. Some artists develop their own star iconography, there is also likely to be a suggestion of voyeurism created in the video.
Lyrics
As obvious as it might sound it is important to create a relationship between the lyrics and the visuals, with the visuals either illustrating, amplifying or contradicting the lyrics.
They help to establish a general feeling or mood or a sense of subject matter
Key lines may play a part in the visuals but rarely will you get a literal response
Music
the video will always make use of the tempo of the track to drive the editing
also may emphasise particular sounds from the track by foregrounding certain instruments
Genre
Some pieces of music are difficult to categorise and therefore the video needs to emphasise its distinctive features, being reflected in the mise-en-scene
certain themes will be appropriate in certain genres which will also be reiterated in camera and editing styles
Camera Work
How the camera is used, how it is sequenced will impact upon its meaning
camera angles, movement and distance done well will give it the dynamic feel
Editing
It is important that you film to edit-the most common editing styles being fast cut montage, which encourages repeated viewings
slow-pace editing will have gentle transitions which help to establish the mood.
digitial effects such as layering and transparency can often be used to good effect
I am an A level student and I am writing to request your permission to use one track from the forthcoming album by Delphic entitled Acolyte.
The track I wish to use is Doubt, track 2 on the album.
With your permission, this track would be used in my current A-level Media Studies project which involves creating a music video for a popular music track, as well as producing an album and a magazine advert for the artist.
If I received your permission, this track would ONLY be used in an educational
context and be viewed by my media class, my teacher and the OCR exam board
moderator. It would NOT be released to a large audience or uploaded to any public video websites. We do realise that the requested track is currently unreleased and will be merely used for research purposes until the release date.
The artist and your company would of course be fully recognised throughout pre-
production and the final video itself. A copyright notice, with wording supplied by you can be included in the records of the project. If this is required, please send full details.
Above shows the lyrics and our notes for the way we interpreted these lyrics. This showing of lyrics gives me the opportunity to explore some more of our ideas. Particularly the intro, during our meetings we had discussed this intro many times. Originally we were going to use these electronic voices and make the people in the video lipsync these words. However to create a theme of disambiguation in the video, we thought we could work with the editing to create a sense of loneliness for the main character, he will be placed central in the shot, while others are around him dancing, he seems to stick out, looking odd against the crowd. This crowd of people will be cut in and out of shot, edited in time with the music however, hopefully creating a really slick effect. The rest of the lyrics will be simply lip synced. In the verses we will create the effect of conversation between him and another. The lyrics he lipsyncs will look like he is talking. setting up the "meeting stage" between the two. The chorus will be lip synced towards the camera at this stage, putting the emphasis on his doubt and regret.
After talking through our idea and avid discussions, we put forward the idea to our tutor. The presentation went well and was well taken by our tutor, the main response was that it had lots of potential as an idea. This really pleased us and we were thrilled to be able carry on developing it. The one thing that she made apparent to us was to really consider our setting, due to the fact that if it was the wrong place it would look shabby and not up to the standard we could really achieve. Now that has been made clear we have further discussed our options for setting, we felt that an average house would look to unprofessional and cause it to seem like the "convenient" and "cop-out" option. We got some options for houses that we thought we might use. [insert photo here and talk]
We spoke about our next steps, we have decided to properly think out how we will film the rest of our video, with all the various ideas we have thought about and put them down into one storyboard. Which will then most probably be made into an animatic.
This video shows the track that we have chosen to use for our music video. It is a live version of the song and this helped us create our idea. The song itself was the main influence but i found the lights and band name to be quite influential on the image i have for lighting and the way we film it. Obviously this is all to come but it is benefitial for us to think about it early on so we can really develop the idea. The next stage after getting our intial idea was to really develop the video. In the few meetings that followed choosing our song we came up with ideas for setting and situations. We aim to focus upon one main character (male) who is at a party, set in either a urban house/flat or somewhere more bar/club like. the reasons for this are too set up the meeting of a person. It is ambiguous however who this other person is. The situation is set up in this party like situation to help us hide the identity of the person who our character desires, there is suggestion to them sleeping together, made through walking upstairs and dropping of clothes. This act leads the protaganist to doubt his actions and regret what happened, this is the basis for our video, however the narrative will not be straightforward and will be mixed and rearranged to emphasise the erratic mind of the character. We will use the electronic style of the song to influence the style of camera work and the "aa ee oh oh aa ee" sections of the song will be amplified through such stylistic features such as our editing. Also we will be using the bridge to our advantage, the convenient pause then section following (2:56) could possibly be used as an effective way of presenting a montage of the images, then culminating in our final scene of unveiling the mystery "lover". I think this will work really well and give it the finished feel, closing the narrative.
The choice of song was made after we made our first responses to the music. Due to its electro techno feel all of us had similar ideas about setting and lighting but the crux of the idea was based upon the chorus lyrics and title of the track. "Doubt, in it all for me I've hit the wall, all thats left for you is Doubt" is the main lyric that really stuck out for me. My initial response was to play on the idea of doubt, how you can regret your actions. This is the basis for our music video. We decided that to focus too much on narrative would not create a good music video however and that differentiation would need to occur as much as possible, making it more interesting and exciting to view. The next stage for us is to develop the idea, using the music to influence us as well as the existing music videos of the band.
On choosing our group, we decided with a unanimous decision that we would like to do a music video. However the choice for music to use was a longer process. Automatically personal choice came into it but to make it fair we named all the artists we would like to look at and discussed the possibilities. A long list consisting of 26 artists was constructed with song choices. After a long hefty discussion on cutting the list down each person went away with chosen artists to think of ideas and develop the music video theme.
The next meeting we held brought about a few initial ideas that got thrown about and scrutinized until we could think of a sturdy idea. Initial songs included 505 by Arctic Monkeys, Take Me To The Hospital by The Prodigy and Tool- Vicarious. We discussed the ideas that we would do with these songs but no one felt strongly enough about these to develop them into a successful video. To help gather more inspiration we researched current music videos (some of which i will analyse later) ranging from Bloc Party and Friendly Fires to You Me at Six and Nirvana to get a good range of music genres. Eventually after much deliberation over the song we found one. We find this amongst a discussion about the previous weeks episode of Jools Holland, which featured this new and upcoming band called Delphic, the song is called Doubt.
verlaying simple shots, the editing is to the beat, just like the lights section in the original doubt video, and similar to our plans for our music video. This video follows a more conventional route of showing the band in the video whereas Delphic are not featured in their videos. However this video takes this conventional style to a different level, shooting the band in a different setting of a house, the camera work starts static as you can see in the screen grab, but moves to pans and tilt shots, culminating in the Medium Shot of the Lead singer. The verse follows the normal conventions of following the Vocalist singing the lyrics, however works against the conventions by adding in the ideas of the vocalist changing clothes as shown in this grab,
this along with the very tight, crowded filming of the choruses are used to show the viewer the quite absurd ideas of the video, it has no purpose in the narrative and it all seems like a big party, this is useful for me to analyse as this is very similar to our music video idea. In this style of music you can get away with a lot of random shots and ideas as long as it works well with the music, it is down to the editing and the camera work. The editing in this video is very strong, it is very quick and to the beat, while the camera work is very shaky and very steady, this all gives the viewer the sense of confusion and excitement that the situation needs us to be in, if all the shots were done statically then as a viewer I would be bored, however clever camera work has stopped that.
