The Wombats - Let's Dance to Troy Division

Their video for ' Lets Dance to Troy Divsion' influenced us on our idea for the video. It features both performance and then conceptual.
It's primarily just the band playing in a small room with no apparent audience. The conceptual part of the video is when the band appear to start 'floating. Also in the video we found they use bright lights (red, blue, green and white) to enchance the visuals, the lights tend to be flashing and change one after the other. We like this idea as we thought we could achieve a similar affect in our video.



In the video there is a clear reference to the band Queen and the song 'Bohemian Rhapsody' as they use the same formation as they do in their video.

However the band is only made up of three memebers, whereas Queen was four so to add humour to the video they chose a soft toy version of a 'wombat'.  

Steph

Our song!

Once we'd decided on a band we finally chose our song.
We've gone for 'Party in a Forest (where's Laura?)' By  The Wombats.



Here are the lyrics to the song;

Am I in a scene from 'Midsummer Nights Dream'?
I thought raves like these died in the 90s?
The forest is breathing along with us tonight
Upper Class thugs take middle-class drugs
And we all get lowered in size
This is not my scene, I should not be here tonight

Laura, ooh oh oooh oooh oh
Laura, get me home tonight

Trance music bangs a comical dance of cardboard boxes and fish
We're the fairies from hell and we're all on a death wish
This is not my scene, this is killing me
I don't want to be here tonight
And the girl who can save me is well across the Pennines

Laura, ooh oh oooh oooh oh
Laura, get me home tonight

Laura, ooh oh oooh oooh oh
Laura, get me home tonight

Steph, Lorna and George.

The Wombats - Mind Map

This is the mind map we did on our chosen band 'The Wombats'. We broke them down into different catergories; Ideology, Subculture, Sexuality, Gender, Age and Class.

By doing this it helped us understand the audience of the band and how we can target them in our video.

After doing this we started to right down some general ideas of what we would like to include in the video. As a general idea we've decided to go for a performance based piece with some conceptual mixed in.

Our ideas inculded stereotypical locations of indie-rock bands; the woods, a plain practice room, garage, the streets, rooftops.

The conceptual ideas we came up with was the idea of giving the video and 'artifical' aspect by using green screen for different backgrounds. An idea we all like was the idea of 'fake running' where someone could be 'running' in front of the green screen and various maybe even comical backgrounds could appear.

Steph

Textual Analysis Grid By Steph

For my anaylsis grid I looked at the band Hadouken! and the song 'That Boy That Girl'.
The video is mainly performance and a little conceptual; and mix in which we've decided to go with.



The video is based mainly on a box which 'contains' the band on pieces of paper; the backgrounds are animated.

There are a lot of close ups on the instruments and the singers face to show that this is a music video. As there is no narrative apparent in the video, the music is seen to be more important. Mid shots are used to show the rest of each band memeber indivually and then long shots to include the band as one - giving them a unity image.

Mise-en-scene of the video is very simple; all the band memebers are in black and white whereas the backgrounds are bright and colourfully, giving a clear difference and abilty to identify then band. It's all shot in high key lighting making it all bright and happy, which reflects the lyrics of the song and the genre of the band. Despite the fact there is only on location in the video it still gets the audience attention with the bright and interesting visuals.

The editing reflects the pace of the song, upbeats and bouncy. On average each shot lasts around three to five seconds. There are no fades or cross dissolves involved just straight cuts. CGI and green screen is used throughout the video to achieve the visual effects.

I like this video as it focuses more on the music and the idenity of the band. Also I like how the visual effects keep you interested rather then a cheesy narrative that fits with the song.


Steph.

Textual Analysis Grid by Lorna

For homework we had to carry out some research by analysing a music video of a relevant artist and consider how the technical codes (such as camera shots, angles, movement, mise-en-scene, editing...) construct the conventions we expect of music videos according to their genre.

The video I chose to analyse was "Poker Face" by Lady Gaga. When the hwk was set we were still unsure of which artist / genre we would be focusing on for our project so I decided to opt. for a pretty mainstream artist to complete this hwk on.

I decided to type up some key details below as the image / my handwriting may not be perfectly legible...

Key notes: Lady Gaga's music fits under the electro-pop / dance genre, so attributes typically expected in her videos would be; choreographed routine with backing dancers, bold + quite revealing outfits (to promote artists sex appeal), party-style sequence, bright lights in a slightly dark setting...

The video was predominantly performance based, so the majority of shots were close-ups of Gaga singing and performing directly towards the camera. A lot of close ups of the artist were used to create a recognisable image and promote her identity via her music videos. There was also a lot of close ups on imagery relevant to the songs lyrics; such as "you can't read my poker face" = close up on face, shots of group playing poker, close ups on cards / gambling chips.

The atmosphere seemed dark in places but bright illuminating lights were used (in front of camera but behind artist) to lighten the mood - creating a bold contrast of tone within the video.  Smoke was also used during the choreographed dance sequence - which made the atmosphere seem slightly mysterious. The mansion setting was very lavish which seemed to be promoting the artists 'glamorous lifestyle' and would provide viewers with a sense of fantasy (and potentially something to aspire towards).

Due to the pace of the song the editing is pretty fast; with an average shot duration of 2-3seconds. Intentional jump cuts, flashing transitions, and 'split screen' shots were used- this could have been to maintain the audiences attention, or to encourage the idea the video isn't portraying reality but simply a world of escapism. The shots and style of this video do not challenge or contradict expectations for a video of this genre, but instead they seem to encourage the typical ideals.

Posted by Lorna.

Narrative within a music video

I felt pretty inspired by this video "Say you don't want it" by a band called One Night Only.
It follows a typically narrative typology; boy meets girl, falls in love, boy loses girl...



The pace of editing kept in time with the music, and I noticed the predominant use of straight cuts - which proved very effective at conveying a sense of realism - making it easier to focus on the story being portrayed alongside the music. In between the narrative there were also shots of the band performing the song, which helped to reinforce the band's identity - featuring a lot of close ups of their instruments and in particular the lead singer.
I really enjoyed watching this video, especially due to the twist at the end that the couple turned out to be dogs (which seems to be an inter textual reference towards the film 'Lady & the Tramp'). This explains some of the unusual happenings earlier in the video; such as running through the shop, the man throwing them a pretzel, the singer licking the girls face, etc.
I believe that narratives in music videos are good at maintaining the viewers attention and maybe this is something we should consider using in our own video.


Posted by Lorna.