Shot List

Here is a (possibly vague, yet sturdily simplistic) list of the camera shots that I want to take. I will be taking a handwritten copy of this lists with me to the filming location and whenever filming for my music video happens, as I want to achieve everything on this list.

I should state now that in this list, I've labelled several bullet points with "fully clothed" and "topless". Although this sounds rather promiscuous, this isn't what I want to achieve. My actor being topless in the video allows me to achieve the representation of the cross from The Divine Comedy. sounds cheeky, but it's not intended. I should also state that when I label "fully clothed", the costume I  am having my actor wear is a purple/dark burgundy suit.

All of these shots will be edited into slow-motion through the editing process. Even though some shots are just of the actor standing still, I believe that there is still a significant difference that is noticeable when watching a clip in standard and in slow-motion, even if the movement in the clip is stationary.

Key: // = the use of both shots (e.g. mid shot//long shot), / = or (e.g. mid shot/long shot)

I want to directly imitate this image

• Shot of fog - I'm going to have to get up nice and early before the chirping of the birds to catch this one.
• Shot of forest(s)
• Shot of field(s)
• Shot of sky (differentiation between early morning sky and late evening sky)
• Holding a purple balloon (fully clothed)
• Holding a purple balloon (topless with cross)
• Slow-motion running (side view - mid//long shot, up-front view - long shot)
• Standing still in front of camera (fully clothed - long shot//mid shot//close up)
• Standing still in front of camera (topless - long shot//mid shot//close up)
• God and Satan playing dice (influenced from God & Satan EP by Biffy Clyro) (mid shot - table and chairs must all be within the frame, but I don't want to camera too far away from the setting) 
• Extreme close up shot of the dice being rolled
• God stands up and throws a spear into Satan, with him proceeding to fall off his chair (same camera work used as the initial introduction of the setting of this scene - mid shot//long shot)
• POV shots from both perspectives at the table
• Extreme close up shot of the bottom of the chair leg tilting back as Satan falls off the chair
• High-angle shot (placed upon the table looking down) of Satan hitting the floor from the fall (these shots I have just described are a direct reference to Lucifer's descent out of heaven as God casts him out)
• Satan proposes to God (primarily I want a mid shot - this is a reference to 'Nara' by alt-J and also the theme of forgiveness throughout The Divine Comedy and Christianity)
• Satan and God hug (same elements as listed above)

Division Of Labour

Division of labour? What's that?

As this is a solo project, I will be taking control and manipulating all of the elects that comprise my music video. I'm even having a cheeky acting role in my video alongside my chosen actor, Jake Loft. It's only a little one (I'm literally just sitting down on a chair. What more do you want?) but other areas such as camerawork, editing and the production of the video are all under my wing.

• Who will film the music video?
• I will film everything that goes into my music video. Even though (as I've said) I'm playing a small part in the video, the camerawork that I've decided on for this particular seen involves no hand-operated movement of the camera. The camera will be completely still, so I am not needed to operate the camera at that time, giving me the opportunity to be in the music video alongside my actor.
• Who will edit the music video?
• I will edit the music video. I've previously stated that my desired editing effects are absolutely minuscule, with the only editing I wish to be one on my music video is just the clips being put together in a systematic, chronological and narrative manner. Oh, and the slow motion. Yeah the slow motion is pretty important.
• Who will gather props and take charge of mise en scene?
• I'm gathering all the needed mise en scene attribute for my music video. *brainwave* "Just get purple things. Purple things". *brainwave*. I've got roughly 80% of the props and specific objects that I want to use, but another trip to Bury is in order I think. "Just get purple stuff".
• Who chose the song?
• Obviously I did.
• Who decided on the location of the filming?
• I chose the location for my music video. I live in Barningham and I'm surrounded by fields upon fields upon fields. And fields. I chose this because it fitted with the way I wanted to capture my music video. It's a bonus that it's extremely close. How are we going to get there? With my astronomically powerful German whip Hyundai i20 i.2 petrol. Yeah.
• Who is going to direct the video?
• I will be directing the music video and making sure that everything is on schedule to achieving the representation that I want.

A History Of Music Videos

What is a music video?

A music video is a short film/video which accompanies a complete piece of music, most commonly a song. Modern music videos are primarily used asa a marketing device, intended to promote the sale of music recordings.

(A very early example of a music video is "St Louis Blues" by Bessie Smith in 1929. Blues singer Bessie Smith appeared in a two-reel short film called "St. Louis Blues (1929) featuring a dramatised performance of the hit song. It was shown in theatres until 1932).

Music videos are often called promotional videos or simply promos, due to the fact that they are mostly promotional devices for the artist(s) who's track is being used in the music video. Sometimes, music videos are termed short-form music videos to distinguish them from full length films pertaining in music. In the 1980s, the term "rock video" was often used to describe this form entertainment, although the term has now fallen into disuse, or has lots it's initial connotation.

(In 1940, Walt Disney released "Fantasia", an animated film based around famous pieces of classical music).

The earliest music videos/music promos were filmed in the mid-1950s. However, before then, as early as the 1920s, films by animators such as Oskar Fischinger were accompanied by musical scores labelled "visual music". The early animated videos of Walt Disney (Silly Symphonies) were built and based around music. The Warner Brothers cartoons, even today billed as Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies were initially based around specific songs from upcoming Warner Brothers musical films. Live action musical shorts, featuring popular performers such as Cab Calloway were also distributed to theatres. The Panoram Jukebox with 8 three-minute "Soundies" were popular in taverns and night spots, but started to fade and not be distributed during World War II.

Developments during the 1950s - 60s

In 1956, Tony Bennett was filmed walking along The Serpentine in Hyde Park, London whilst his recording of "Stranger In Paradise played. This film was distributed to UK and US television stations, which played it. This led Bennett to claim that he had made the first music video.

According to the Internet Accuracy Project, DJ J.P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson was the first to pin the term "rock video" in 1959.

Around 1960, the Scopitone (a visual jukebox) was invented in France. Short films were produced by many French artists such as Francois Hardy and Jacques Dutronc to accompany their music. It's use eventually spread to other countries and similar machines such as the Cinebox (Italy) and the Color-Sonic (USA) were made from influence.

The defining work in the development of modern music videos was The Beatle's first major motion picture, A Hard Day's Night in 1964 which was directed by Richard Lester. The musical segments in this film arguably set out the basic visual vocabulary of even today's music videos, which has influenced a wide range of contemporary artists. The Beatles took the genre further with their groundbreaking film "Strawberry Fields Forever" and "Penny Lane" in early 1967, which used techniques such as: reversed film, dramatic lighting, unusual camera gales and rhythmic editing. Created at the height of the psychedelic music period, these landmark films by The Beatles are among the very first purpose-made concept music videos that attempt to illustrate the song in an artful manner, rather than creating a music video for idealised performance.

The Modern Era and the 1970s

The key innovation in the development of modern music videos was video recording and editing processes, along with related effects such as chroma-key. The advent of high quality colour videotape recorders and portable video cameras coincided with the DIY ethos and the New Wave era. This enabled many pop acts to produce promotional videos extremely quickly and cheaply which compared to the highly-expensive costs of using using film previously.

In the UK, the importance of Top Of The Pops to promote a single created lots of innovation and competition between bands and record labels as the show's producers placed strict limits on the number of vies that it would use and distribute on the show. Therefore, a good video would increase a song's sales as viewers would hope to see the video again the following week on the show.

(Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" also started a complete new era for using music videos as promotional devices).

1980s

By the mid-1980s, real easing a music video to accompany a new single had become standard and almost a necessity. Acts like The Jacksons sought to gain a commercial edge by creating lavish music videos with millions of dollars of budget. This was most notably "Can You Feel It".

(MTV is launched in 1981 with the first aired video being "Video Killed The Radio Star" by Buggles).

In the wary to mid-80s, artists started to use more sophisticated effects in their videos, and started adding narratives and plots to them. Michael Jackson was the first artist to create the concept of a short film to accompany a song. A short film is a music video that has a beginning, middle and end and contains a strong narrative. He did this in a small way with his song "Billie Jean" but it wasn't until his 1984 release of the Thriller short film that he took the music video format to another level. Thriller's controversy and censored material made it having to be distributed at midnight, for late night viewing. This anticipation and the resulting publicity due to it's material made it extremely successful.

Music videos today

In the "information technology" era, music videos now approach the popularity of the songs themselves, being sold in collections on video tape and DVD. Hardcore enthusiast of music videos sometimes watch them on mute to purely enjoy them for their aesthetic value. Instead of watching the music video for it's music, which is the basis of the art form, music videos nowadays are more appreciated for their visual qualities, while a large proportion of viewers are uninterested in the audio aspect of the performance. This is a normal sociological reaction, some say, to the increasing trend of the music business to focus on visual appeals of the artist (also things like male gaze) instead of the quality of the music. Critics say that music managers and labels have sought to capitalise sex appeal of females in music videos rate he than making logical, calculated business decisions.

Final Music Video (Mise En Scene)

The Gospel Of John Hurt is represented by the colour purple

As previously explained, I want to make the colour purple a prominent and crucial aspect in the video, which I want to weave throughout. It won't be present in every scene, but (bottom line), people will know that the colour purple is important.

One of the most vital and crucial things in my music video (within the representations), is a cross on my actor's chest. (I should probably explain now that I do have a male actor in my music video, played by Jake Loft). An evident theme throughout The Divine Comedy is a red cross upon Dante's chest. I want to emulate this, but instead of the cross being red, I want to make it purple and make it fit in with the colour that represents The Gospel Of John Hurt and which conforms to that colour which is used throughout the entire video.

Dante's Inferno, from the animated-film adaptation

In addition, because the album cover for This Is All Yours is paint upon a white canvas (it's probably got a deeper meaning than that, it's alt-J after all...), I wanted to emulate some form of paint within the music video, as I (as previously explained) want to additionally adopt themes from the album along with The Divine Comedy. With this idea, I wish to literally take the the purple paint which is symbolic to The Gospel Of John Hurt and put it upon my actor's chest, just like the red cross which is upon the chest of Dante. Instead of making the cross very detailed and structured and extremely professional-looking, I want to simply paint on the purple cross upon my actor's chest, and simply leave it how it is from the first application of the paint. This is because this method of presenting the cross conforms to my ideology of the music video: simple, artistic and minimalistic as well as ultimately making it look like it's from the album cover itself.

Dante's Inferno, from the video game adaptation

Furthermore, I've drawn influence from Biffy Clyro's album cover for the God & Satan EP. In this, we can point out who is God and who is Satan. This theme (with the album cover) fits in perfectly with my chosen portrayal of The Divine Comedy as the poem is about the soul's joinery towards God with Dante ascending through Hell (where he is met by Satan, Purgatory and eventually Paradise. I want to also elaborate on this album cover. As well as using the chairs and table (minus the man and horse in the background though), I want to have a chess board in the middle of God and Satan. This is due to my inspiration from the Albert Einstein quote: "God doesn't play dice". He may not play dice, but he plays chess.

Album cover for the 'God & Satan' EP by Biffy Clyro

I also want to emulate the costumes, with their colour. This being the black and white shown in the album cover. Alongside my actor, I will be taking up the role of one of the portrayals of either God or Satan. At this time, I'm not sure which one yet. If possible, I wish the make the chess piece upon the chess board purple, which adds to the while purpley-Gospel Of John Hurt representation.

Final Music Video (Location)

I have chosen to film my music video in the fields and forest in the surrounding areas of Barningham, my village, and it's neighbouring village, Market Weston. I want the location and setting of my music video to be very open, natural and extensive, so I thought these locations would work great. With the theme of my music video being representational and metaphorical, I wanted an open area that I could use to execute these representations without any distractions from the initial representations and portrayals that I want to make. In addition, the environment I have chosen adds to the minimalistic aspect that I'm trying to achieve in the video. With simple, and long-stretching fields with nothing else along with them, it emphasises what's primarily on camera. Also, I'm going for a simple, realistic, natural and 'legit' feel for the video and it's contents, with the decision I've made not to tamper with the footage in the editing process and only put the clips together. The surroundings, I believe, add to the artistic, natural and minimalistic perspective that I want to achieve in my music video. Furthermore, I wish to acquire some shots of the surroundings (initially when I was deciding on a music video), and the best surrounding for camera that I wanted to use was natural. This being the location of fields, tall grass and forests that I've chosen.

And it looks really nice.



This is a satellite image of the areas I'm deciding to film my music video in.

As you can see, it's pretty much all fields. A lot of choice...

Principle photography wil;l begin this weekend, where I will take full pictures of the location I want to use. This will also include camera shot and angles.

Explanation Of My Music Video

"The simplest music videos are the most powerful" - Gus Unger-Hamilton, keyboardist for alt-J

I have chosen to make my music video (The Gospel Of John Hurt - alt-J) representational and metaphorical. I want to represent The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri, specifically the first chapter: Dante's Inferno. The Divine Comedy is an epic poem describing Dante's travel through Hell (Inferno), Purgatory (Purgatorio) and Heaven/Paradise (Paradiso). On a deeper level, however, it represents the soul's journey towards God.

I am going to use The Divine Comedy and it's idiosyncrasies that accompany it alongside the song The Gospel Of John Hurt in my music video. I wish to represent (metaphorically) specifically the first chapter of The Divine Comedy which is Inferno. In this, Dante travels through the nine circles of Hell: Limbo, Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Anger, Heresy, Violence, Fraud and Treachery. Within these circles, Dante witnesses people who have been condemned of these sins who are forever stuck in these circles.

I will post a further analysis and explanation of Dante's Inferno in another blog.

In addition, I wish to make my music video a montage of clips and short scenes which will be comprised together in a montage/collage of different representations and portrayals of the circles of Hell in Inferno. I've taken extreme influence from video's such as Can't Stop by Red Hot Chili Peppers and Every Other Freckle by alt-J. These videos all gather together different clips and images which conform to an ultimate representation of something. For example, Every Other Freckle represents the story of Adam & Eve and The Original Sin and Can't Stop is influenced by the 'One Minute Sculptures' of Erwin Wurm and the band members portray these sculptures using their bodies. Both these videos also use very simple and minimalistic camerawork and cinematography which gives them both an artistic and creative image.

I want to take elements within both of these music videos and incorporate them within my music video, and using my own representation.

Furthermore, I wish to incorporate elements of This Is All Yours (the album from which The Gospel Of John Hurt is from) and put them in the music video also. For example, the album cover is a white canvas with colours having been painted on it. Each of these colours represents a song, but doesn't represent their song's actual meaning. (The full meaning of the album cover is actually unknown to me at this point, sorry about that). For example, 'Bloodflood Pt. II' is represented by the colour green on the album cover, as seen below.

Bloodflood Pt. II is represented by the colour green

The Gospel Of John Hurt is represented by the colour purple

The Gospel Of John Hurt is associated with colour purple. I want to take this associated and weave it throughout my music video. In other words, I want to make the colour purple very prominent and a crucial element of the music video. Whether this is done through colour manipulation in the editing process or the mise en scene within my video is physically purple, I'm not sure yet. I'm most probably going to go with the mise en scene option, as I want to make my video extremely real, in the sense that I don't want to tamper or edit it that much (if not, at all) with the exception of comprising and putting the clips together. I don't want to eradicate the pure, legit, artistic and minimalistic feel of the music video which I'm aiming for.

My Finalised Music Video Idea

The song I have chosen to use for my music video is The Gospel Of John Hurt by alt-J from their second studio album This Is All Yours, released earlier this year. 

This Is All Yours

Reason?

alt-J are one of my all-time favourite bands. Even though they have only realised two studio albums (along with some side works) and have only been an active band for just a few years, they have personally impacted me very strongly and have remained ever since my first listen as one of the most unique, catchy and genius bands ever. (Ever may be a tad strong, but certainly for a very very long time. Personal opinion, of course).

The Gospel Of John Hurt is in my opinion one of the set tracks off of This Is All Yours followed closely by Nara and the album's introductory song ("Intro"). I waited for This Is All Yours with great anticipation and excitement and was immensely pleased with it, having a strange fixation with The Gospel Of John Hurt since my first thorough listen of the album. Although listening to the whole album, I always seems to divert back to The Gospel Of John Hurt as the source of a quick-junky-fix of This Is All Yours. The lyrics, the melodies and harmonies and Joe Newman's uniquely addictive vocals made The Gospel Of John Hurt nothing short of an absolute corker and 'banging tune'. It's incredibly melodic and lyrically genius. alt-J have always kept their lyrics very minimalistic, metaphorical, representative and not vague or straight to the point. The Gospel Of John Hurt is no exception. Lyrically strange, minimalist and an ever-growing crescendo towards the haunting chorus: "Coming out of the woodwork, chest bursts like John Hurt" which ring beautifully and get louder and louder make for a piece of music which is both mentally and physically brilliant.

The Meaning

Like 'Matilda' (from alt-J's debut album An Awesome Wave), The Gospel Of John Hurt is inspired by a film - in this case, 'Alien', which stars John Hurt. It's particular inspired by John Hurt's death scene in the film (the famous "chest burst scene") where an alien bursts out of his chest. Today, it stands as one of the most iconic scenes in sci-fi and horror films.

"That stayed has stayed with me. As a writer, you're meant to sift through all of the things you've remembered in your life and pinpoint the things you've been moved by. Why not write about those moments you're moved by the most?" - Joe Newman, guitarist and lead vocalist for alt-J.

Here is an analysis of the lyrics:

No space

L-shaped

Tetris

Tile seeking

Somewhere

Oh, somewhere

To fit in

Alien

Oh, coming out of the woodwork

Chest bursts like John Hurt

Coming out of the woods

AK

Twenty

47

Civilian

Oh, coming out of the woodwork

Chest bursts like John Hurt

Coming out of the woods

Jeremiah, looking down and you know where you're looking on down

Do you know

Where you go

You're headed on the strings for the E-X-T-I-N-C-T

Jeremiah, looking down and you know where you're looking but you go

Do you know

Where you go

You're headed on the strings for the EX-T-I-N-C-T

Oh, coming out of the woodwork

Chest bursts like John Hurt

Coming out of the woods

Andrew Goodwin's Theory

Goodwin's theory (from Dancing In The Distraction Factory) outlined some key features:

1) Music videos demonstrate certain genre characteristics

• stage performance in metal/rock videos
• dance routines for boy/girl bands
• 'throwing signs' in early hip-hop videos
• scantily clad women and 'bling' for rap (etc.) videos

These are depicted as the certain traits associated with a particular music genre. For example, a rock music video can be expected to have the performance of a live band, or any performance of that matter.

2) There is a relationship between visuals and lyrics

• often illustrative but could amplify or contradict the lyrics

Goodwin suggests that lyrics will make constant references to visuals on screen. Visuals will reinforce what the lyrics say and what they connate.

3) There is a relationship between visuals and music

• often illustrative but could amplify or contradict the music

4) The demands of the record label will include the need for lots of close-ups of the artist(s)

The record label has a certain control over the artist they sign. Ultimately, the record label decides how the artist(s) are represented. For example, for women, the label (most probably) will require the artist to be represented as sexy in order to appeal to men and reach a certain target audience (and vice-versa for men).

5) The artist may develop motifs or iconography that recur across their work (i.e. a visual style)

6) There is frequent reference to the notion of 'looking' (screens within screens, filming, cameras) and particular voyeuristic (pleasure through looking) treatment of the female body

Notions of 'looking' plays on the idea of male-gaze and they way women (in particular) are seen and portrayed in music videos. According to Goodwin, women are represented and portrayed as objects.

7) There are often intertextual references - mostly to film, television and popular culture

8) Narratives

As well as characteristics, Goodwin noticed that music videos may also portray a certain story/narrative. The narrative allows the music video to come to life. Narratives can either be fragmented or linear.