Music Video - Filming Locations

I will be filming the narrative opening and ending in my Grandmother's living room. I have chosen this location as it doesn't look too modern, but it doesn't look too old-fashioned either; it is neutral -- this is good because I want the room to visually refer to the lyrics, 'I'm just a simple man', in the song, and also to represent the emotional after-effects that the war had on the man in the narrative of the video.

For the band performance, I will be filming in the theatre at my school; I have been given permission to do so. The theatre stage lighting, and a stage. However, I want the band performance to be in a dark, and somehwhat shrouded place, and the theatre has a light-brown floor, lilac curtains, and a black and white stage. This means that I will have to be as careful as I can when filming, but also that I will have to create the "shrouded" effect, digitally, in post-production.

To film the majority of the narrative for my music video, I will be going to a location similar to that of the beach in the video for 'Chizuru', by The GazettE. The beach that I am planning to film at is the Mablethorpe beach.

The GazettE - 'Cassis' Analysis

This music video begins with the rhythm and acoustic guitarist, Aoi, playing his acoustic guitar, with an old-looking stone wall behind him. After the acoustic intro, we see the band standing together on a field. They then turn from each other and walk off in different directions -- this could be a visual metaphor for a man’s heart “breaking” due to his separation from the woman whom he loves. After separating, each band member goes to a different place in and around what we assume to be a mansion, but not together. Thus, they are still separated. The old-looking mansion in the video could represent the man’s love for the woman; he’s loved her for a long time. However, later in the video, the band are performing together in a different room -- with this room being the performance room, the implication could be that they are together in spirit. Finally, the video ends with all of the band members standing together on the field, again; the heart was pieced back together. However, the band then begins to walk toward the camera, and, consequentially, away from the mansion. Them walking away from the mansion could imply that the heart has “moved on”, and is no longer longing to be “reunited” with the heart of the woman, or something of the like.

Some of the lyrics in ‘Cassis’ are, ‘I will walk together’; this further implies that each band member represents a piece of the man’s heart, as the lyrics do not mean “I will walk together with you”, but they mean “I will walk with my heart fully pieced together”. The lexical choice of ‘together’ is implying “whole”, not “with companions”.

In conclusion, the music video is very well “thought out”, and is a complex extended metaphor to the point at which each of the band members represent something.

Planning - Actors

These are the actors I chose for my music video. My reasons for choosing these actors is because they all, at least somewhat, play musical instruments that are typically used in 'Rock' bands and music. As well as this, the lead vocalist has long hair, and the lead guitarist has longer-than-average hair, and long hair is very common for members of 'Rock' bands to have.

The actor I chose for the part of the soldier (for the narrative) has performed in theatre and has had experience with acting.

Music Video Idea - Transitional Effect

One of the ideas that I have for my music video is to zoom into one of the eye pupils of the character in the narrative, and use that as a transition to the next shot, which would be one of the band’s performance. I’m planning to have the band performing in a dark room, so, the eye pupil should match the darkness of the room.

The effect that I am planning to do is similar to the zoom through the hole in the wall, near the beginning of Staind’s music video for their song, ‘Outside’

and the zoom into the man’s eye, near the beginning of the music video for Creed’s song, ‘My Sacrifice’.

Camera-Choice

To film my music video, I will be using the Canon EOS 7D. This is an 18.0-effective megapixel APS-C crop CMOS digital single-lens reflex camera. The 7D is capable of recording video at 1080p quality and of recording video at 24, 30, and 60-frames-per-second.

I own this camera, and have been using it for some time, now. I have a lot of experience with using it, and feel very confident about filming my music video with it.

The GazettE - 'Reila' Highlight

I really like the use of focus in the music video for the song, ‘Reila’, by The GazettE. Throughout the guitar solo, specifically, the shot constantly changes from in-focus to out-of-focus. However, this is not entirely (possibly not at all) done by using the camera lens’ focus tool. It looks as though the blurriness was achieved with the use of a post-production editing package. Adobe After Effects’ ‘Blur’ tools could have been used.

This effect is a simple effect, and easy to achieve, but it looks very nice and adds “texture” to shots.

(Skip to '3:10' for the guitar solo; finishes at '4:20')

Music Video Ideas

When listening to my track, I think of war, and war veterans speaking of their experiences on the “front lines”. The intro to my track sounds a lot like a helicopter, as well; reinforcing the imagery of war. The lyrics sound like the sort of things that a war veteran would say when describing his/her personal feelings during their time at war.

Taking the war-orientated lyrics into consideration, I have decided to make a music video with a war-themed narrative.

Thirty Seconds To Mars' music video for their song, 'This Is War', is very similar to the idea that I have for my music video. Also, the music video for 'Hero of War', by Rise Against, is very similar to my idea.

The use of slow-motion, in 'This Is War', is something that I would very much like to replicate in my music video as it allows for certain, significant emotions and expressions to be conveyed effectively. This, combined with the cinematic way in which 'Hero of War' is shot, is how I want my music video to be.

The GazettE - 'The Invisible Wall' Inter-Textual Reference

In The GazettE’s music video for ‘The Invisible Wall’ (left screen-shot), they include an inter-textual reference to ‘Kill Bill’ (right screen-shot). This is executed through their use of a traditional Japanese sliding door, blue “colour correction”, and a silhouette created by the lighting and the door. The GazettE’s music video is heavily influenced by traditional Japanese culture - they are also a Japanese band - whilst ‘Kill Bill’ is also influenced by this and even focuses on Japanese fighting styles and techniques. So, the inter-textual reference is relevant and makes sense.

Skillet - 'Awake' Cover Analysis

This album cover is both relevant, and effective. The album is called, ‘Awake’, and so, the image on the cover is that of a person, whom we assume to be male, whose head is wrapped up as though he has just had surgery performed on his head, or as though he has been wrapped up as an Egyptian Mummy would be -- this interpretation in itself is relevant as one of the songs on this album is called, ‘Monster’, and an Egyptian Mummy is often portrayed as being a monster in horror genres of media. The man’s entire head is wrapped up, except his left eye, which has purposefully been left unwrapped so that one can see his eye as it is wide open, thus referring to the album title, ‘Awake’.

Overall, it is perhaps implied that the man was thought to be dead, and has made somewhat of a miraculous recovery.

SCANDAL - 'Shunkan Sentimental' Visual Effects Analysis

In my music video, I want to include some interesting visual effects. One of the main ideas that I had was to add sparks coming off of the strings of the guitar(s) as it is being played. I then noticed that the effect that I wanted to use had been used rather nicely in SCANDAL’s music video for their song, ‘Shunkan Sentimental’. Similarly to this effect, there is a pulsating energy wave effect which protrudes from the drums as the drummer hits a significant beat.

As well as this, the way in which the lighting is used in this video, and the exaggeration of said ‘lighting’, is very “eye-pleasing” and looks very professional. I will definitely consider using lighting effects such as the ones used in this video, in my music video.

Another interesting effect that I have been considering using in my video is the light trail following the hand(s) of the guitarist(s). This effect was also used in ‘Shunkan Sentimental’, and is used in a way that somewhat resembles a katana slash implication effect, often used in anime, cartoons, and films.


Also, once again we see the dirty-looking room with tall windows as the setting. This could be to visually portray the distortion of the guitars, as a lot of guitarists refer to nice distortion sounds as “dirty”.

In conclusion, I will certainly be referring to this music video for visual effects inspiration, although I will not be replicating all of the visual effects used in this video.

Use of Narrative

Generally, in most of the ‘Alternative Rock’ music videos that I have watched, the majority of the screen-time is taken up by the band performance. In quite a few videos, there isn’t any narrative at all, thus leaving the music and the physical playing of instruments to tell the implied story. The lack of visual narrative is intentional, and done deliberately to direct the viewer(s) attention to the band’s playing of their instruments. In the music video for ‘Blue Flame’, by Alice Nine, the editing focuses on the band, and their instruments.

This is done to allow the instruments, and the music to influence the creations of mental images in the viewer(s) -- songs of this genre, generally, have a lot of emotion in them, thus making it easy to do this. A good example of a music video that completely lets the band’s performance tell the story would be MoNoLith’s video for their song, ‘Byakuya’.

In this video, there are a lot of close-up and extreme close-up shots of the vocalists’ faces, and the instrument-players playing their respective instruments. The close-ups are used to show the emotional expressions on the band members’ faces -- it is from these shots that the viewer(s) interpret the meaning of the song. The GazettE’s, ‘The Invisible Wall’ music video is another example of this lack of narrative.

Although, in this video, visual images have been used to help convey the meaning of the song. They are subtle, and sometimes combined with the band’s performance, but, they are there. This is therefore another technique of conveying a meaning via means other than narrative-use; subtly combining the band’s performance with visual images that help the viewer(s) to understand the implied story, or to help them interpret the song and video in their own way.

With this being said, the narrative is not useless, nor is it insignificant or weak. For example, in The GazettE’s other video, for their song, ‘Guren’; the narrative is very powerful. It is common in music videos of this genre for the narrative to be powerful, because the band’s performance usually has the majority of the screen-time.

One is relatively easily able to interpret that in the video for ‘Guren’, The GazettE’s lead singer, Ruki, is singing from a woman’s perspective, and is singing about the miscarriage of a baby. The narrative of the music video is both powerful and effective as it successfully conveys the overall implication of the song. The young girl inside the red-painted room represents the baby in the womb; whilst the gradual whitening of the room represents the baby dying, and ultimately, the baby’s death by the end of the video, at which point the room has been painted white and the girl is wearing a white dress rather than a red dress. On top of all this, the band’s performance takes place inside the same room as the narrative.

Overall, ‘Alternative Rock’ music videos, and its variant genres, focus more on the band’s performance and their playing of instruments than the actual narrative, however, the performance in itself serves as somewhat of a narrative, whilst the actual narrative is generally very effective and powerful. The point of this is that songs of these genres don’t need extensive, or very much, narrative at all and that the music speaks for itself.