Location

I was bored last night so decided to look at possible locations in the local area and found an arts depot warehouse in Edmonton. I emailed them and they have given us permission to one day after school go and check it out. This may signal the return of reccy videos and a solution to our location finding. Lets hope it looks good!

A Fault Line, A Fault Of Mine

One song proposal is a catchy number from Florida noise merchants, Underoath. I am fond of the dual vocals that they have going on which range from the screaming of lead vocalist, Spencer Chamberlain to the clean singing of drummer, Aaron Gillespie.

I believe that this would provide a nice alternative from our first choice as it is slightly less heavy and has an actual verse-chorus structure. It also has several, obvious changes of pace and is a perfect length song at 3.22. Downsides to this choice would be that only me and Nick are familiar with the song so may not suit everybody.

Here are the lyrics that the video could possibly be based around:

I'm not scared, but this is happening,
I'm not afraid but this is real, this is real.
It all comes at once, from every single direction.
This time I'm not, I'm not sleeping at all.
Could this be real? I've failed you, I've failed you.

I was lying when i said, i was looking north.
I was too scared to show, what i am.
Bare with me bare with me, this is all i have left.
This might be more, than a simple conversation, conversation.

It's been dancing around in my head.
For quite some time.
Just the thought of cleaning up myself.

I was lying when i said i was looking north.
I was too scared to show, what i am.
Bare with me, bare with me, this is all i have left.
This might be more, than a simple conversation.

I'm not sleeping.
I'm not sleeping at all
I stare at the wall, watching my time float away.
It's all been a blur, and nothing will change.
I stare at the wall, watching my time float away.
it's all been a blur, and nothing will change.
I was lying. (I was lying, i was lying) (I was lying)
This is defeat.

Lip Syncing Evaluation

As part research and part filling spare time in an enjoyable manner me and Nicholas attempted to lip sync to The Blackout's 'Its High Tide Baby'. The general consensus seemed to be that we did a good job as well. The common opinion seemed to be that although Nick looks much more the part and is more expressive in the role, that my actual lip syncing was more convincing. This may be due to the fact that I actually sung the song and let myself go while Nick mimed along and was not as familiar with the song. This means that if I can give Nick some vocal coaching and if he becomes really familiar with the song we choose for our project then we will have the perfect frontman for our needs.

BLK feedback

Some excellent posts so far Simon, a great start to your background work for this project. There’s quite a lot of important work missing though and you need to catch up fast, as it will be so busy when we get back to school.

We also need to get you using/applying advanced theory more explicitly when you analyse music videos, think Vernallis for now, although you will also need to get to grips with Goodwin in the new term.

For now, your short term targets are:
1. Link your workshop video to your blog
2. Post your workshop and lip synch evaluations
3. Post the work you have done for Miss T on Vernallis. See her post on the main Music Video Blog for the specific details of what is needed here
4. Post your track research/ideas – we need to see what tracks you have in mind for your own video. You have added some tracks but not the lyrics, or the reasoning behind these choices and the tracks you have added are currently unavailable
5. Put some inspirational/useful weblinks up
6. Sort out your blog navigation – you need to link to the main music video blog for example
7. We need a photo and some info about you please!

All instructions are on the main blog if you are not sure what you should have done. There will be a lot happening when term starts so the sooner this outstanding work is completed, the better.

Try to avoid linking videos without some analysis/commentary. I want to give you plenty of marks for your work, but this is sometimes lacking which makes it difficult to reward you.

But a great effort so far, keep up the good work and see you soon!

Contrast in Genres

In contrast to the heavier sounds of Architects, the video for Rick Astley's 'Never Gonna Give You Up' is a much more mellow affair. Here I will highlight the general differences between Metal and Pop videos.

• The pace of the song is slower so naturally so is the editing.
• There are no instruments so instead we focus on the singer in different locations and a random woman.
• The shot lengths are much longer which distances us from the action.
• It is more like he is performing for us rather than us partaking in the action.
• No instruments are shown due to the vocal driven nature of the track, so instead most of the time the camera shows Rick and his infamous dance moves.

In conclusion we are far more likely to tak influence from Architects and will not be including any of the dancing involved in 'Never Gonna Give You Up'.

Confined Spaces

I am personally a fan of music videos that cram the bands into small spaces which gives over the sense of claustrophobia and feels more personal with the audience. It also provides great opportunities for close ans interesting shots. A perfect example of this is the video for 'Writing on the Walls' by Underoath which also contains an intriguing narrative. All in all a splendid spread.

Analysing Performance

Here is the video for the single 'Always' by Architects. As this video is largely performance based I thought that we could gain some inspiration towards what our video will look like. I will pinpoint specific moments and also general techniques used.

• The majority of the shots are tight in on the instruments and range from CU to ECU.
• Another obvious point is that the band is putting in a lot of energy and effort to make it look convincing. The measures of this can be shown by the fact that the vocalist went through six red shirts on the shot due to excessive perspiration.
• There is much more focus on the instruments than the band members, apart from the vocalist as he is obviously using his mouth.
• When a specific instrument is prominent in the song it is often shown visually, this can be seen at 0:46 when the guitar is shown.
• Although the general editing pace of the video is fast, there are shots that break the speed such as the aformentioned one which shows a slow motion strum to match the drop in the track.
• During the breakdown the commences at 0:52 we see the band headbang in unison. This is a technique that we are likely to utilise at some point and is common to the genre.
• There are no absolutely still preformance shots in the video except for the long shot of the band. This has, however, been edited in post-production to give the impression that the room is shaking.
• The drums are the only instrument which has more than one angle taken of it. This may be due to the size of it and that there are many different elements including the main drums along with the pedals.
• An interesting moment in the video is the still frame of black that appears during a slight pause in the track. This occurs at 1:54.
• We could also attempt some microphone stunts in our video as in slow motion they look fairly epic. Examples of this are at 3:17 and the climax of the video at 4:03.

I believe that we can learn a lot from this video and that the types of shot we use will be very similar to the ones used here. We can also learn that if we put a lot of energy into the performance we can make it look genuine.