Statement of Intentions.

The aim of my project was to create a music video. I wanted to make one with a strong narrative and well-developed characters.

I had to chose a song with a narrative and ideally one that I could play myself so as to avoid using one track of sound that I hadn’t edited at all. I had the idea of:

‘Minnie the Moocher’ – Cab Calloway – Strong narrative, good characters and good atmosphere, but I couldn’t play it myself.

‘Postcards From Italy’ – Beirut – Easily played and recorded by me and good atmosphere but vague narrative and characters.

‘Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts’ – Bob Dylan – Very strong narrative and highly developed characters. Also it was feasible to play and record myself.

Understandably I have stuck with the latter option. I then studied various Director/Filmmakers to explore different styles of film and the conventions of music videos. I liked Charlie Chaplin and decided the i will put a black and white, old-style quality to my video. I liked how, with the absence of sound, expressions of characters and visual atmosphere can be heightened to great effect. This made me want to put emphasis on the expressions and appearance of the characters, as well as the mise-en-scene and atmosphere of set in my video.
Watching some music videos by Johnathan Vardi (jonathanvardi.com) I liked the scratchy quality he uses in most of them, especially in his video of ‘Somedays’ by Regina Spektor. I think to have black and white and scratchy effects on the screen will give a real atmosphere of old film. Since the mise-en-scene will be themed around 1920's america the old effect will reinforce this idea. I have decided to add to this even more with an idea from Johnny Cash’s video ‘Personal Jesus’ which uses blurred or ‘soft’ edges. This made the old-style effect even better. These soft edges should narrow the audience's field of vision and will hopefully focus their attention on the central action of the shot. The scratchy effect, black and white quality and soft edges combined will hopefully unite to create a vision that is quite hard to make out, mirroring the ambiguity of the song.

Another big influence is the short film ‘The Forgotten Circus’ by Shelly Love. The big influence of this was the mise-en-scene. I love the carnivalesque atmosphere, costumes, set and theme and as my video is to be set in 1910’s/20’s cabaret/music hall. I think I will incorporate this into it. I have a scene in my video now that takes place backstage in a dressing room and it will be heavily influenced by the costumes and characters in shelly love’s ‘The Forgotten Circus’. What i liked about the costumes when i watched this film was their flamboyance. I felt they give a great atmosphere of drama and theatre. I will use many aspects of the make-up too which is all highly exaggerated. I think these make-up effects (e.g. totally white faces) give the performing vibe too.

I have decided to combine these old-style effects and this atmosphere with a conventional music video edit style (cuts in sync with the beat of the music, lines relating to lyrics). I want this to make it different and hopefully unique.

Doing my Production exercise was very useful because it allowed me to try out the lighting and other practicalities. It helped me to sync the sound with the beat of the music which will be a necessity when it comes to the real thing. I also got a taste of directing which I think I will warm to.
I will storyboard every shot in the video rather than just the keyframes because this will make filming a lot easier.

I will record my own version of the song and put into Soundtrack Pro, this way I will use multiple tracks.

I also had another idea from the video ‘Beat It’ by Michael Jackson. In the video, the music doesn’t start for about 20 seconds. During this time there is a little bit of live action of two men walking out of a bar. I liked the idea of not starting the music video immediately but having a short passage of live action that leads into it. I also had the idea of doing the same at the end of the video. I think I will have footage of some people putting on a film on a projector – the music video, and after it has ended, them laughing about it and talking. I think this will be good as it will give my music video a context.