research

Research


Before beginning filming our music video we needed to research music videos extensively and find out what makes them successful or not. We have to assess what the function of the music video is in selling the song, whether its there to keep the audience interested or they’re to boost the impact of the song. Either option seems to be true. Foo Fighters’ ‘Learn To Fly’ video is a farcical comedy, adding little edge or weight to the song. Whereas the video for Linkin Parks ‘What I’ve Done’ takes on a political theme, bombarding the viewer with negative images from all corners of the Earth, seemingly taking an anti government stance.
Music videos often use band footage intertwined with a story. This allows the video to keep the interest of the audience without the song behind it becoming non diagetic irrelevant background noise that doesn’t relate to the song. This is achieved by cutting in between the band singing and the story progressing. Often music videos only utilise one of these forms, either having a full story or just band footage on its own. It is commonplace that bands or artists with more poetic, piano based music have stories in their videos as the song lyrics serve a deeper meaning than to sound good to the ear. With more mainstream guitar based music the videos focus on the musicians and the instruments they are playing, trying to capture their image and the difficulty of the song being played, to reinforce the bands image.
Below is an example of Foo Fighters Learn To Fly video. You can clearly see lead singer Dave Grohl in a number of costumes, cross-dressing. This shows the light nature of the song and that the band are seeking an easy going image for themselves. The video also features cameos from various comedic actors e.g. Jack Black. This shows the band trying to associate themselves with certain types of celebrities by using them in their videos and the element of humour involved shows that the links are in that nature.



Below are a series of shows from One Republics videos. They are much more somber in their colour schemes and general cinematography, giving bleak outlooks to their weighty lyrics. It adds to the effect of the song whilst cementing the bands image as a serious act. The colour schemes are mainly blues and browns with shades of grey. The video shown below has a particularly negative outlook. It's singer is distressed and almost crying to the camera in desperation as the series of events unfold.

One video that shares similar imagery and characterisation to what i plan to do is Queens of the Stone Age's sick sick sick. Although it combines both band footage and a story it has many themes that i intend to utilise. For example the female character in my video will look almost exactly like the woman in this video, and as the video goes on her cracks and imperfections are shown. The lighting in QOTSA's video is similar to what i hope to achieve as it is darker and more sinister than natural light. It's colours are dirtier and grittier, reflecting the sound and lyrics of the song. The colourscheme is dominated by greys and blues to heighten the scary aspect of the visuals. The grungy nature of the songs means that the video is intended to shock slightly and so they have taken a beautiful woman and the idea of food and made it look sickly, overpowering and have sexual connetations. The gluttony etc throughout the video gets more and more and she starts to destroy herself. The idea of self destrution is one i want my female character to fall into, which i'll discuss further in my planning section. As the tempo increases towards the end of QOTSA's song the imagery becomes more frequent and a lot scarier in its nature, the range of shots is vast and chaotic as the sounds of the guitars and drums crash and contrast.