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.