We are making our music video for the song ‘Who was in my room last night?’ by ‘The Butthole Surfers’. Our aims are to make it as professional as possible, showing our creativity whilst still using elements of the bands personality and life style.
The song has 3 verses which almost tell a story and we have
planed the video round the lyrics. It starts of in a hospital where i guy wakes up to find him self being watched by a nun. at this point no one should know who the nun is, why she is there and why she is looking at the character ‘Guy’. There will be no reason why there is a nun we are just tying to make it as random as possible to show the bands influence from drugs like LSD and Magic Mushrooms. this is all during the very slow and confusing intro of voices saying im flying. When the music kicks in the guy will run out of the hospital and begin his crazy adventure.
During the first verse the lyrics explain how he ended with some one in his room last night but dint know who. To establish the fact the guy is having flash backs w have chose to place him on a train drifting to sleep where he dreams what happened, wakes up to relief it was just a dream then is shocked when he has another flash back.
The chorus is purely instrumental so at this point we will show the band playing to establish their rock and roll life sty
le. Using a series of shots in a dark room with stage lighting will help us achieve a professional approach to our music video. tis will happen through all of the choruses.
The lyrics in the second verse also relate to what had happened to the guy the night before. We are going to shoot along Burnham-on-Crouch river at South Fambride. Here we will have the guy walking along being very confused and puzzled, as if he was running away from something he doesn't know about. When the tide is out we are going to have the guy wondering around in the muddy banks and find a cross amongst the stones which reminds him of the nun and when he looks up she is their pointing a gun at him.
The second chorus will be similar to the first accept the guitarist will be playing along side the river.
This leads onto the last verse where the lyrics relate to a church. We have found an appropriate church to film in whee the guy and the nun will encounter a face to face conversation. We aim at this point is to create as much t
ension as possible when it is revealed the nun is giving the guy a credit card that he had lost. When this verse finishes he song begins to end with a lot of reverb and feedback coming from guitars. to show the manic enthusiasm
of the band we are going to smash our instruments like Kurt Cobain and many grunge/rock stars would at the end of a gig.
The Nun portrays a mysterious character which creates endless enigmas throughout our whole music video. The key factor to this character is that he does not portray any emotion, sense of feeling and barely any expressions. I have chose to keep this character bland to elaborate the confusion on the other character known as ‘Guy’. There is also no link to why the nun is following and stalking ‘Guy’ up until the final shot where we see the nun pass a sock over to Guy as he is missing one but yet to realise. This character is a symbol of confusion and hallucination, as the audience are unaware that the nun even exists. For all they know it could be a figment of Guy’s imagination. The Nun is a main character as using him relates to the songs sub psychedelic genre and the boysterous personality of the band members. The Nun is played by me in the video. We wanted to use a male actor for the Nun to add to the disillusional effect that we are trying to create in our music video.
Guy
The name Guy was selected for the other character in the video because as i was producing the story board and describing him in previous blogposts i kept relating to him as ‘the guy’, short for the male actor in our music video. This character will represent a self concouis male who is yet to experience a major career plan in his life, who is still seeking other people’s advice and attention in order to get by day on a day to day basis. The positions we put him through in our music video are to resemble what emotions and the confusion people in this situation would feel when they are thrown into the big wide world alone with out any help, and an observation on who they will turn to. As Guy wakes up to find a nun standing over him he turns to the church for advice but has a little adventure on his way. Our initial ideas for this character was to use the dominant ideology but further studies showed that it will be best to choose an actor that is white, fairly long haired and scruffy, will fit in to the musical side of life being a bit of a rocker opposed to a fan of sport who’s main focus in life is to win everything.
Band Members
Our original plans was for at each location we went to, the band would be performing, but further research into codes and conventions of a rock music video showed that it will be best to stay in one location. it would also have been a problem transporting all the equipment in one small car. As we are going to film the band playing in a drama studio we decided on purchasing more Nun costumes for the band to play in. this will carry the mysterious and eventful effects into more of our music video. It will also create another enigma to why are those Nun’s hard core rockers? A question that pretty much every one would like to know the answer to. The band members do not have a distinctive personality in which the majority of people will be able to relate with. On the other hand they will be representing the enthusiastic style of the original song writers ‘The Butthole Surfers’.
When I began planning the music video I wanted to keep to my original plan of having every shot almost 2 seconds long and keeping the shots in time with the beat to make a fast paced music video that blended well with the song. To do this i carefully studied the song in order to find out when the verses, choruses and lines of the song changed with the timings. I got the lyrics for the song from the internet. I then listened to the song repeatedly until i had figured out the time each line of the song started and ended on. This also applied for guitar solo’s and other noises. This helped me think of ideas to what we could include as I needed to relate the lyrics of the song to what we would see in the video.
Knowing this information I then needed to plan my idea and make a story board for every single shot in the music video. I found it hard to go straight into what was going to happen and draw it so I chose to make a few ruff drafts on paper, just writing it out for what time the shot would show. This proved to be more affective as it could be easily changed and I did not need rub drawings out. This was very time consuming, but had to be done. At this stage I also got feed back from friends and people in my media class for what can be improved and any further suggestions to the story line. Doing this also let me elaborate when I was doing the story board.
As there was so many shots to include for a 4 minute music video the story board was very time consuming. I also found that I got a bit carried away with the story line and starting planning things that we could not do due t not having a budget or not having the power that a production company has, like closing train stations, or forcing people out of a car park.
What should have been done was the story board uploaded before we went filming because some of the pages got screwed up and creased. Especially the river scene. It was so windy the paper kept blowing away, getting trod on and quickly stuffed into bags.
Butthole Surfers are an alternative rock band who a formed in 1981. Originating from San Antonio, Texas, the Butthole Surfers quickly became famous for their 1908's hardcore punk approach to music. They also became known for there wild and reckless live performances which quickly became apparent in their music videos. The Butthole Surfers have also delved in other genre's of music such as psychedelia, noise, punk rock and, later, electronica. The Butthole surfers didn't kick off as such until 1996 with the release of 'Electriclarryland', with the hit single 'Pepper'. Another great success was the release of 'Who was in my room last night?'
From the focus group we can see that it has given us a main idea for our target audience. This target audience is around the age of 16 to 30. From the feedback we got from the focus group we can see that we will need to find more in depth question which we can do by getting people to complete this questionnaire bellow. The questionnaire will be given to 5 media students and 5 students that have not taken media. A copy of the questionnaire is shown below. Name .............................................. Age .................................................. Year Group .................................... Sex .........................................
5. If so do you like their music? If not do you like psychodelic rock?
Yes No
6. Have you heard of their song ‘Who was in my room last night’? (if question 4 answered no, there is no need to answer this question)
Yes No
7. If this song were to come on the music channels, would you turn over?
Yes No
The results that I expect to be shown will be that most people will not have heard of the Butthole Surfers. Also we expect that male participants will like the song more than females. I expect that the information we receive will be that boys of all ages do not like this kind of music, and girls of the younger years do. There may also be the possibility that a few girls of the older years may also like this music.
In order to create an interesting blog we have created a video where we discuss our initial ideas of our music video. We also explain how our initial ideas have developed into final plans and why we have chose not to use certain ideas.
To have an interesting blog we are using advanced technology as much as possible. I have constructed a powerpoint display to show pictures and basic descriptions that will help us elaborate when we are talking over it.
We was inspired to choose this song as both of us have a keen interest in psychedelic rock and grunge music. Artists such as Arthur Brown and Butthole Surfers have been inspiration towards the media product we will create. Doing research into all of the music video’s by psychedelic artists have given us a clear background in which we can get inspired to create the best possible music video.
One of the main influences of our music video is other music video’s by the Butthole Surfers themselves… Other music videos from the band connect to the idea of our video, a few aspects which we have tried to connect are things such as; the idea that there is a main character trying to achieve something throughout the video. In our video we have the idea of the main character trying to find out who was in he’s room by going to the church at the end of the video, this connects to other videos such as ‘numb’ by Linkin Park, in the video below we can see that it has the same aspects that we will try to create in our video, e.g. the cut between the band playing in the church and then the filming of a character trying to achieve something. Another aspect which connects to certain music videos is the psychedelic genre being shown throughout the music video. The music video for the song we are doing by the Butthole Surfer’s shows a man going crazy, a flare of different colours and quick paced editing. In our video we try to keep the same sort of aspects in the original music video so that we can show the audience what genre we are making.
Other inspirations for our video have come from ideas from the lyrics of the actual song. For example, the lyrics “All night long my body burned, the sheets were wet and cold” we will have the main character waking up in the hospital, sweating, trying to wonder why he has been woken up. Throughout the song we have been inspired by the lyrics to create a video which will be connected to the words and meanings of the song. Another example from the song is “Who was in my room that night, who the hell was in my bed?”. In this part of the video we would maybe have a flashback to the clip of the main character being woken up in the bed.
Other influences are rock based videos which have instrumental scenes in. In our video we will have a lot of instrumentals cuts as this will take up a lot of spare video time, especially as the song itself lasts for around 4 minutes.
Joe Baker was raised by a wealthy nuclear family and has always had the luxury of being able to afford reasonably priced products like CD’s and DVD’s as to a new phone every so often. He finds Living in London as a 15 year old he has access to a crucial area for the British music scene and often goes to concerts around London. Joe is currently studying GCSE’s at school and is still undecided what he wished to due in the future but has a slight interested in the stock markets and banking.
Joe’s life style is influenced by music opposed to sport mainly because he has learnt a variety of instruments such as guitar, bass guitar and the keyboard. He has not completed any grades in music but taught himself
via videos on YouTube and internet learning websites. As Joe does not enjoy playing pop and rap songs on guitar he has found a strong interest in classic rock. Like most classic rock fans Joe likes to attend concerts. buying tickets for classic rock gods like Pink Floyd can be extremely hard and expensive so he is still interested in bands which produce a modern sound whilst still heavily influenced by past classics like the Rolling Stones and Guns n Roses.
As Joe lives in London he can easily go to gigs of new and upcoming bands which still produce a vintage sound. He enjoys going to these events but would rather see a more popular band which still produce a vintage band like The Coral or The Butthole Suffers. being a teenager with a lot of time on his hands he uses social networking sites like MySpace and FaceBook to talk to his friends and find new bands that he likes. Joe is always complaining that there not enough
music videos of unpopular bands and generally think it would help them in progression.
Joe also has a passion for watching films with his Dad in his office on his 80” projector screen. It gives a cinema effect to films and generally makes them more enjoyable to watch. His favourite film is Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels because it as directed by his favourite director ‘Guy Ritchie’ and it has a distinctive soundtrack which appals to his music taste. Although this s his favourite film his favourite genre is comedy with Seth Rogen being his favourite actor.
Joe understands that piracy is illegal and will always buy a DVD rather than download it but just like the typical teenager he is yet to realise that downloading music is just as bad and damaging to the music industry, therefore downloads a lot of his music. although he can afford it and lives locally to a lot of music shops he still can’t be bothered to go and choose music, he would rather look on itunes and download it for free using software like ‘Bit Torrent’. Joe is encouraged to use spotify by his parents as they understand the damage caused to the industry when people download music to free illegal. If Joe is shopping with his friends and goes into a shop like HMV then he will normally always purchase a CD if he sees one that he likes.
Being a student Joe likes watching a lot of TV programs like The Simpsons and The Inbetweeners because he sees them as humorous and can have a laugh and relate real life situations to hose that happen in the program with his friends at school. Joe would like to watch music channels more often but refuses to watch new popular music videos to artists such as Lady Gaga and 50 Cent because he hates the way they try and make people like them for the way they present their selfs rather than making people liking them for their musical talent. Occasionally he will catch programs on ‘Scuzz’ or ‘Kerrang’ which specialise in Classic Rock and Grunge.
As our group is creating a music video it is crucial to understand who our intended audience are what type of people we are aiming our video at when we are creating it. Music is mostly listened to by teenagers as they appear to have more time on their hands than adults who are working or young adults who are studying at university. Music videos on the other are almost completely listened to by teenagers or people who buy limited edition CD packages which include videos on them. As the genre of our music is rock/grunge/psychedelia our will be created for those people in particular because people who like mainstream music such as pop or rap usually see rock music as bad or relate it to people they would call ‘grungers’. Our video could also be played to fans of the Butthole surfer at festivals or concerts where it will be appreciated and recognised.
Amelia Jones is currently an 18 year old student studying for A-levels. She is a dedicated follower of all types of rock music ranging from the powerful sound of Elvis Presley to the hardcore metal of Pantera. Amelia was raised by her mother in Warley. Not having a sturdy relationship with her father has caused a strong bond between her and her mother who both share the passion for music and they regularly attend music festivals in the summer and a lot of concerts to either listen to music or experience a particular band play live.
Her plans for the future is go to university to study midwifery in order to pursue a lifelong ambition to work in a hospital in order to help other people. Amelia’s mother has not been able to provide a luxury life style as she is on a low income working at Tesco but since the digital revolution and the rise in music piracy Amelia has been able to find all new types of bands. It has amplified her knowledge in rock music and allowing her to reach ‘dead music’ which is not sold in shops any more due to record labels going bankrupt.
Websites like YouTube have enabled people in Amelia’s position to expand their repiture of music. Although it is illegal to share files and consume music which has not been paid for the majority of people seem to take advantage of this situation and abuse the fact it is damaging the music industry. On the other hand it is another way to consume and expand her knowledge of music. By using software that converts YouTube videos to MP3 format Amelia is able to listen to her music whilst ‘on the go’ and show her friends new music that she has found which not only has a good effect on her but also the band as it is creating a larger audience which may result in more ticket sales.
Amelia’s favourite Band is The Beatles. Although she listens to modern rock and grunge she feels The Beatles have influenced all types of rock music, therefore classes them as her favourite. Although she lives on a tight budget she cannot purchase any of the Beatles music from itunes or listen to them on spotify due to legal terms and copy right. She resulted in downloading the discograp from LimeWire because of this situation.
Amelia will use our product because she is the typical rock fan who is always looking for new music to listen to. Because she likes such a vast majority of rock she watched channels like Kerrang and Scuzz in order to explore new bands and will not turn the TV of or change channel as soon as a song she does not like comes on.
Music institutions are mainly record labels. Different music institutions would distribute different genres of music depending on who they are, for example, Hollywood Records would normally distribute music genres such as pop and dance music. This means that a record company such as Roadrunner Records would distribute our music video because it fits into the typical genre of rock and grunge of which our song choice categorises into. Labelled artists by Roadrunner Records such as Korn, Nickelback and Dreamtheater fit into the same sort of category as Butthole surfers so it would be an appropriate record label for us to be signed too.
It is important that the record label uses synergy to its full potential as the more advertising the music video gets the better it will be. An advantage of using Roadrunner records is that it uses synergy well, for example, on the website it shows the tour dates of the labelled bands and also in the example below, you can see that it also shows a link where you can buy one of the artists new album. This use of promotion is good for our music video as it helps advertise the music video that we are creating. The genre of our song choice fits into the categories of grunge, rock and psychedelic rock so the institution must be able to cater to the needs of the band.
Music videos can be distributed in many ways. One way of showing the video is on music channels. Music channels such as SCUZZ or Kerrang would play heavy rock videos and grunge, these are the types of music channels our video will be shown on as it represents the genre that our song choice is. All of the music video channels are normally shown on satellite and cable packages. Also other types of music channels such as MTV HITS, TMF, The Box, 4Music, Smash Hits!, Chart Show TV and The Vault would play more pop and dance music, our video will not be shown on music channels like this because the audience is different and would not be attracted to the typical psychedelic rock genre.
Music videos can also be distributed in other ways such as online video sharing sites such as YouTube or late night terrestrial television (Channel 4). Also the increase in online music streaming and downloading has meant that iTunes has been a high riser in distributing and advertising music videos.
In the listing below you can see that different television packages such as Sky and Freeview each have different sizes of audience. This gives us the opportunity to establish which music channels are on each package and how many people have the package in their household. Things such as Freeview and Freesat from sky each only have a limited number of music channels. E.g. Freeview only has only two music channels; 4music and viva it wouldn’t be a good idea for our music video to be shown on this package as neither music channel fits the genre that our music video should be shown on. From the chart you can see that the internet and Sky would be the main way of getting the video to the audience in the best and the most efficient manner.
A major advertising campaign for a new music station that was released was the establishment of 4music. Although 4music wouldn’t advertise our song it still shows the amount of new advertising channels that are being frequently introduced making it more likely that our video will be shown to a wider audience.
To be able to make our video we need to get a letter of conformation saying that we have permission from the record company to produce a video to a song that they own. The song we decided to produce music video for is ‘Who was in my room last night’ by ‘The Butthole surfers’. Due to legal reasons we will not upload the video when its produced to any file sharing sites or YouTube where people will be able to view it.
Dear Sir/Madam
We are two British students currently studying for an A-Level qualification in Media Studies. As part of the coursework we need to create a Music Video for a popular song.
We have chosen to use The Butthole Surfers song ‘Who was in my room last night?’, and for copyright reasons we have been required to contact the record company to ask for permission to use the song.
The video would only be used for examination purposes and will not be shown in public in any way, for example YouTube and Facebook. We would be extremely grateful if you would grant us permission to use this song.
If we have contacted the incorrect department, could you please forward this e-mail onto someone who can answer our query.
We hope to hear from you soon and would appreciate your co-operation with this matter.
Kind Regards,
In order to market our video to the correct target audience we need to carry out a focus group and find out what younger peoples music preferences are. We believe our target audience to be that of female as Disney is stereotyped to appeal to female audiences of ages around 11-14 years old. As Britain and USA are of white majority, we believe this to be our main target audience. However, we have analysed demographics by using the Registrar General’s Social Scale and discovered that ethnicity and social class are irrelevant in our distributing market as young teenagers are not generally applicable to society’s social structure. We wish to comply with our target audience so we wish to use three boys and three girls from years 7, 8 and 9 to make sure that the sex that we are marketing our video to is the correct one. This will ensure that our target audience is easy to find and the focus group will accurately represent this.
1. How old are you? 2. What genre of music do you listen to? 3. What do you use to view music videos? 4. When do you watch music channels?
We wish to show our focus group a short clip of 3 different music videos and then question them on their preferences. These videos will be: Taylor Swift – Love Story Fall Out Boy – Dance Dance Rihanna – Umbrella
5. Which is your favourite clip and why? 6. What do you associate these acts with? (Bands/Clothing etc) 7. Do you prefer a music video to have a story or be mostly performance based?
The project has changed a lot over the last for weeks. Looking over the blog so far we can see that our ideas have been adapted over the last few weeks. This has created a timeline blog, which means that our blog shows the development and adaption of our project over time.
Looking at the first storyboards that we created we can see that our initial ideas for the music video was to be more of a chase sequence. It showed a man being chased from one location to the final destination. It has changed with the idea that instead of the character being chased we are going to have him develop the idea that he is confused of where he has to go and is given signs through the music video to end up at the final sequence of the church location. This creates more of an on edge storyline as it creates the effect that the character is looking for an answer which will be at the end of his journey.
Also we can see that the locations have changed a lot. We first decided to start the location shooting in a hospital with the main character waking up. This has then developed with different ideas coming forward. One of the ideas was instead of the main character waking up in hospital we would have him waking up in the middle of an empty field. We choose this idea as the location would be easier to film at and also it creates more isolation and importance to why he ended up there. We are still un sure on how we will start the thriller and we will try to develop our ideas more over the next few weeks.
Week 1
Our first week consisted of mainly looking at our AS blog and comparing it to what we will be doing and also we discussed what went wrong and what went right. After our first blog post we looked at bringing forth ideas towards what song we were going to choose. The first main change that our coursework has under gone is the change in idea of the genre of our music video. When me and brad first decided what song we was going to choose we had mixed opinions. Brad came up with doing song choices such as ‘Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’ by The Beatles and ‘Comfortably Numb’ by Pink Floyd. We decided that these songs were too slow paced and wouldn’t be suitable when creating a successful music video that fits the markers mark scheme. I came up with ideas that maybe faced paced lyrical songs such as ‘Fast Car’ by Example would solve the problem of making the video fit into the markers mark scheme. This is because songs that have more lyrics would make it easier to get footage because of the fact we can connect more visual meanings with the words in the song. From what we have now we can see that our ideas have changed a lot seeing as we have chosen ‘Who was in my room last night?’ by the Butthole Surfers. This is different but still combines the idea of the song having a faced paced beat and the use of different and relevant lyrics.
Also in the first we created a blog which gave information on the codes ad conventions of a music video. This contained background research on what you would normally find in a music video such as mise en scene, sound, editing, narrative structure and cinematography. This post gave both me and Brad the basic knowledge of how we will create the music video to fit into the standard set mood that a normal music video consists of.
After this post we then moved on to look at how our chosen genre (Rock) would influence our music video. This was not a set blog post to do but Brad suggested that he would do it as extra work because it will help understand in more depth what our music video should contain. It also gives a bit of information on the song we have chosen and what codes and conventions their music videos contain of.
Week 2
In the second week of our project we decided that we would put our knowledge to the test of music videos and do two textual analyses’ of well-known music videos that we found on YouTube. The first textual analysis that Brad done was a song called ‘By the way’ by the Red Hot Chilli Peppers. Brad looked at the different aspects of the music video and analysed it using he’s knowledge of the song itself. While he was doing he’s blog I decided that I would analysis a song called ‘Down’ by Blink 182. I decided to choose this music video because it contained the same sort of aspect that we wanted to include in our video. Also it connects to the song that Brad chose. Both of these songs contain a chase sequence. Analysing these music videos helped us give a set idea to base our music video around.
The second piece of work we done in the second week was the ‘Intended Institution analysis’. This blog post consisted of us giving ideas towards what music institution would promote our music video and what way they would go about it, e.g. Roadrunner records would advertise our music video for free on YouTube.
Week 3
At the start of the third week we decided to move onto the Brief/Synopsis. This blog contained information on what our music video will contain and what types of locations and shots that would be involved. For example ‘The chorus is purely instrumental so at this point we will show the band playing to establish their rock and roll life style. Using a series of shots in a dark room with stage lighting will help us achieve a professional approach to our music video. This will happen through all of the choruses’.
As you can see so far we have made good progress on the course and have adapted our ideas. If we continue to adapt our ideas then we surely be successful when it comes to filming and editing the final product.
The lyrics used by Blink 182 in this song are powerful. It tries to send across a message to the viewer/listener that life isn't always perfect. The lyrics talk about not being able to achieve something, this could be a woman or a goal, which correlates to the video itself.
The drops of rain they fall all over This awkward silence makes me crazy The glow inside burns light upon her I'll try to kiss you if you let me (this can't be the end)
Tidal waves they rip right through me Tears from eyes worn cold and sad Pick me up now, I need you so bad
Down down down down Down down down down Down down down down Down down down down It gets me so Down down down down Down down down down Down down down down Down down down down It gets me so
Your vows of silence fall all over The look in your eyes makes me crazy I feel the darkness break upon her I'll take you over if you let me (You did this)
Tidal waves they rip right through me Tears from eyes worn cold and sad Pick me up now, I need you so bad.
Down down down down Down down down down Down down down down Down down down down It gets me so Down down down down Down down down down Down down down down Down down down down It gets me so
Genre/Mise en scene
This music video starts off by trying to create the mood being happiness and showing a group of people having a a good time. For example the first establishing shots show the genre by having a group of kids skate, this shows that the genre is typically grunge/rock. The mise en scene tries to establish to the viewer that the first 55 seconds are calm and peaceful. It starts off at someone's yard party, using different techniques of mise en scene such as the summer clothing that people are wearing, the drinking of alcohol and the cooking of a BBQ to establish that nothing is wrong. This then changes when the police arrive to the location and the newly established main character gets away and then escapes. The lighting through out the music video is very dull and non-eccentric which is a good technique to keep the viewer relaxed and on full attention so they can enjoy the music and at the same time try and figure out what story the video is trying to tell. The decoration and props used in the video have been very well thought out to give a clear message to the viewer using typical stereotypes e.g. a typical stereotype is that mexican-americans are normally in trouble with the police.
Camera Work
Straight away we can see the use of establishing shots to give the idea to the viewer that the music video is located in and around a busy American city, typically somewhere with a mixed raced community. The video is then split into a 2 way sequence between the camera shots of the band and the intended story line. When the band is playing you normally get close up shots of the instruments and facial expressions (notably the singing). Apart from that you can see that a lot of the shots consist of hand held camera movements and quick zooms and pans. This creates the effect that a normal music video should have, which will be backed up by rapid editing. The quick camera shots also portray that something is going wrong, it also helps the car chase seem quicker because there is more cuts.
Editing
The editing in this music video is done to an extent that it keeps up with the medium pace of the song but also keeps it quick towards the end when there is a car chase so overall it sets the mood nicely. Also the editing in this music video tries to cut to the band when there is lyrics as much as possible, which is typical in any music video. The average shot length lasts for about 1-2 seconds at most, this is established when the band play as focusing on different aspects of the band means that the editors needed to keep it quick and clean which would keep in tact that most music videos by Blink 182 are sort of the same.
Narrative/Performance
When the shots cut to the band singing we can see that the lead singer is lip syncing the song, this is used because it is the best technique to do when creating a music video. Unlike other music video's such as pop videos, the rock/band music video has to be different in that unlike dance videos, there is less movement in the artists. This means that shots can pan more and the performance will have to be shown through the camera work and the editing if they want to make a moving effect.
Star Image/Brand
The image giving across in this video, like most Blink 182 videos, is that the band are always enjoying themselves and are playing the music as it comes. Apart from that, this video can be seen as a bit different compared to other Blink 182 videos. For example, in the video below (All the small things) we can see that it tries to be a lot more humourers. Although people argue that there is a difference in the videos because the age gap between the videos is quite large, as 'Down' was made quite close to the end of the bands first run together and was only released in 2003. Where as All the small things was released in 2000.
Voyeurism/Looking
The video tries to appeal to the more matured audience compared to normal as the song itself is a lot more calmer in the sense that it is slower paced. This relates to the voyeurism of the video, as unlike other blink videos this one does not have the band running round with hardly any clothes on or smashing things up. Although it does appeal to the males as it does have a lot of women at a party which men could be attracted to when watching the video.
The lyrics of the song ‘By The Way’ illustrate how the person who is singing the song had tried to be with some one he loved but was stopped by a certain obstacle continuously blocking him. The genre of the music is Rock/pop so the song is mostly fast paced rock which breaks down to a slow pace mellow ‘pop’ sounding chorus. This allows the producer to be creative and resemble the moods by slow and extremely fast editing. The editing on enthusiastic instrument playing resembles the bands personality and life style. The way the chorus is repeated shows how the problem is continuously occurring and is established at the end of the video when a fellow band member enters the taxi the lead singer had just been abducted in. Here are a few lines from the song to show this.
Standing in line to see the show tonight And there's a light on Heavy glow By the way I tried to say I'd be there Waiting for Dani the girl is singing songs to me Beneath the marquee Overload
Skin that flick, she's such a little DJ Get there quick by street but not the freeway Turn that trick to make a little leeway Beat that nic but not the way that we play
Standing in line to see the show tonight And there's a light on Heavy glow By the way I tried to say I'd be there Waiting for
Kiss that dyke, I know you want to hold one Not on strike, but I'm about to bowl one Bite that mic, I know you never stole one Girls that like a story so I told one
Genre/Mise en Scene
Being a rock video the main editing is focused on the band performing. By using specialised editing and animation technology the producer has resembled the bands personality and lively ‘rock stat’ lifestyle. The genre of the song also contains elements of pop music and is shown in the video when the taxi driver beings to dance, almost mimicking other pop videos by focusing on his unique body movement which explains he is trying to ‘fit in’ with pop culture. The fact his dancing is not good enough or seen as professional adds humour and reminds the viewer that the band focus on playing rock music. The taxi driver is wearing a small leopard skin top with very low tight trousers, like an 80’s glam rock rockstar which adds to the humour as it is seen as ‘out of fashion’ and ‘uncool’ which goes against the codes and conventions of a purely based pop video.
Camera work
Camera movement is a key factor of this video as it is unsteady but smooth through out the whole music video to illustrate the singers uncomfortable position in the taxi and his eagerness to get to the show. It foreshadows that something is going to go wrong. Most of the video is shot close up within the taxi to create a suspense feeling of enclosure and awkwardness between the singer and the taxi driver. A lot of silhouettes are used when the band are playing to show that they are not the main focus of the video. As Red Hot Chilli Peppers are a well established band by the release of their album ‘By The Way’ the band its self do not need to be promoted through the video.
Editing
The editing in the video foreshadows the mood of the music on two different levels. As the tempo changes from chorus to verse so does the editing. During the slow chorus the editing seems to reveal its self as relaxed and mellow, demonstrating the singers need to meet the girl in the song, known as ‘Dani’. During the verses the editing becomes ferocious and jolty to show the how the taxi driver is scaring the singer and how he is feeling very petrified about his abusive driving and abduction. When showing the band performs the editing becomes even faster to show the bands talent, the bassist ‘flea’ was voted the best bassist in the world on ‘I’m in a rock and roll band live’. The editing is used to show to the audience that this is what the band are capable of, and also highlights there hectic rockstar life style.
Narrative/performance
The singer is seen lip sinking when the band is performing to show that it is almost like a concert. But when he is in the taxi the video purely focuses on a story line based around the song opposed to pop and rap music videos which usually contain female dancers exploiting there bodies sexually and then cuts to singers following a montage of actions to the lyrics of the song.
Star Image/ Brand
The image portrayed in this music video is that the band are very good musicians and are capable of making very good music opposed to pop and rap videos where the majority of the time the star of the video is showing they are beautiful and attractive, or have a lot of money and respect. By focusing on the band playing they are connecting to there target market of rock fans who are interested in how the instruments are played and the level of talent which is acquired to be able to play it. The video also appeals to its market of pop fans by an unusual sequence of events taking place with suspense car chases and over exaggerated action, such as a taxi jumping down an alley way.
Voyeurism/Looking
When the band is playing they are seen topless. This attracts a whole a female audience and fits in with a new era where nude women are not being used as unique selling points during the 90’s, and infact men were replacing women in videos from bands like ‘Take That’. But Red Hot Chilli Peppers use nudism to express a sense of freedom as they used to play a lot of their gigs nude and were never afraid to reveal there bodies as shown on this album cover as they walk across the same zebra crossing as the Beatles did on their Abbey Road album.
We have chosen to produce a music video of a song written and performed by The Butthole Surfers. The band are classed as alternative rock but their genre varies from album to album and usually changes a small amount due to the era and what is classed as popular. The song we have chosen is ‘Who was in my room last night’ because of its fast past tempo which will allow us to make the editing enthusiastic and exciting which will engage the viewer. The song also contains elements of psychedelica, grunge and noise. The bands were heavily influenced by hallucinogenic drugs including LSD and magic mushrooms. In music videos like this people expect bright colours, waving images and things that do not make sense, usually animations but we do not have the technology to have animation. This is a music video of George Harrison’s efforts during The Beatles of ‘Blue Jay Way’. It resembles an ‘acid trip’ and is supposed to give the effect of being in a ‘trance’. We will have to include some elements of a psychedelic video but due to a lack of equipment we will have to show this by using random locations with random characters which almost do not make sense.
Fast rock music videos involve a lot of the band playing instruments in a psychotic manner. The Butthole Surfers were recognised for setting things on fire whilst performing a show. They were most known for setting there cymbals on fire whilst they still played there songs. Another thing that rock music videos contain is footage of the crowd looking very excited and energetic whilst jumping around to the band playing. As we do not the ability to recruit over at least 50 actors to do this and it actually look good.
Some rock music videos contain elements of humour. The Butthole Surfers do consider them self-humorous as they mimic over people. They have albums names ‘Hairway to Stephen’ mocking Led Zeppelin’s legendary song ‘Stairway to Heaven ‘. There other album was ‘Eletriclarryland’ mimicking Jimi Hendrix’s master piece ‘Electric Lady Land’. Bands who portray a humorous image in their music videos are ‘Blink 182’. Their music videos contain a story in which eventful things happen to them. A key example of this would be the video to their song ‘First Date’ which shows the tragic events they go through to get noticed by attractive girls. Our Video will feature humours parts to portray the funny, light-hearted mood and life style of the bands members.
Codes and conventions are a way of constructing meaning in media texts, in this case, a music video. The codes and conventions can be split into two different categories, technical and symbolic. Technical meaning; different camera angles and shots, the style and pace of the editing and other conventional factors. The symbolic meaning of a music video would be the ideas that are created beyond the obvious. For example, specific facial expressions and mise-en-scene. Codes and conventions in music videos are used to give the audience the idea of what genre the music video is. It is also used to make sure that the lyrics of the song match the music video itself.
There are many styles of music videos. These include:
Performance – Band / artist playing.
Narrative – Includes story.
Mixture – Both performance and narrative based.
Cameo – Band / artist features in the narrative but doesn’t perform. (Foo Fighters)
Animation – Digitally (flash) / Stop-frame.
The codes and conventions can depend on a variety of shots depending on the technique of the genre that is trying to be shown to the audience. For example, a crane shot would always be used in some sense when filming a band playing on stage for a music video. There are many different editing techniques in a music video. The most common type of editing technique would be using a jump shot, this technique would be used to enable quick cuts to make a music video seem speedy and fast paced depending on the speed of the music video.
Recent rock/indie music video's consits normally of a narative plus the band playing:
Pop music video's normally consit of the pop star surronded by other dancers:
One of the greatest and first narrative based music videos was Thriller by Michael Jackson:
