The singers of Exlovers have distinctive styles. After researching photos of them, i realised they only ever wear the same accessories – a hat and black rimmed glasses.
This makes it easy for me to dress actors up to look similar to them, as long as they have a similar shaped face and hair. Luckily, close friends of mine are fit for the job - Ryan Carroll and Cat O’Brien. As we all go to the same school and they both live locally it means there easily accessible, perfect for the job.
Before i confirm my final idea, i want to keep to the bands original look and their ideologies. The band consists of two singers, who of which are male and female, this is something i want to include in the video as it represents the band challenging the typical codes and conventions of indie bands, separating Exlovers compared to the current bands at the moment.
My initial idea is to have a simple love story between a young couple. I would use a lot of close ups to connect the audience with the two characters and their complete lust for one another. This idea is stereotypical and keeps to the generic conventions of a love story; i would use mise-en-scene to help represent this. For example, the male would be in a messy looking house or flat, covered in posters of iconic bands of the same genre, contrasting with the female, who would be out in town riding a ladies bicycle, with long, flowing hair, distinguishing their stereotypical features of femininity and masculinity. Furthermore, it also distinguishes their positions in the relationship as she is travelling to see him, i would use this to subvert the generic codes and conventions as usually it is the male’s role to be a gentleman and meet the girl, but it would work for this genre of rebellion and difference.
After finding these photos of my friends Jasmine and Chris in his new flat in Brighton it gave me the idea of this sort of a romantic based music video based on the excitement of young love and capturing the emotion created for the boy and the girl whilst sticking to the generic features of genre by their clothing and style. For example, in the photos above it portrays a musically influenced room by the recording equipment, the vintage looking guitar and sofa, along with the various posters of classic rock bands such as The Who and The Rolling Stones. The union jack beanbag also helps distinguish the English culture of indie Rock n’ Roll. Likewise with the photo underneath, of the supermodel/ presenter, Alexa Chung with the union jack duvet covers and David Bowie vinyl cover.
From this came my second idea, of which consists on the same topic – love. However, I would represent it in an unusual, artistic way. I like the idea of using close ups of the couples reactions and facial expressions to portray their happiness. This would be used throughout with high key lighting; i would also edit it with a low contrast and saturation, creating a dream like effect. Furthermore, the location would simply be a town location with the couple walking though, however you don’t get to see where they are walking too as there is constant slow paced close ups used of the couple. Until the end would you discover the meaning behind the narrative as the shots would slowly become further away, showing the audience their true love for each other as they are walking bare foot on something painful, for example, hot burning coal. (Of course it would have to be executed professionally and with care for safety reasons.) I haven’t been influenced by this idea by any media resource, this idea simply came to my head whilst listening to the song, typically of me it is slightly wacky, an idea that some people may not understand, subverting the codes and conventions, although if I was to actually go through with this idea and created it with a high quality of skill, it has the potential to be very effective.
The idea of creating something with more of an artistic flare interests me a lot more rather than creating a generic music video and from thinking of the idea above gave me inspiration. Not only this but from watching the music videos for Florence + the machine ‘Rabbit heart’ and ‘Dog days’ it made me realise what I could potentially do. I really love the friendly yet disturbing fairytale like characters used within the narrative, especially in the video for ‘Rabbit heart’ with the Alice and Wonderland theme. The third idea i had was to have a similar sort of dinner party theme with the band Exlovers playing as the entertainment. However the characters would be dressed in bizarre costumes which i would design and create, whilst the band are in their typical scrappy looking everyday wear emphasising their ‘individuality’. The characters appear to be weird and unable to socialise, touching the other characters confused of what they are, portraying their naivety and innocence, to emphasise this they would be dressed in white with angelic looking elements of their costumes. The location would be set in a pretty garden, possible location being my garden as its large and flowery with lots of colours. The shots used would be at a slow pace, with close ups and mid shots to draw attention to the characters facial expressions and body language, however during the bridge of the song, something would happen to cause everyone at the party stop until after the crescendo where the characters would start dancing, enjoying the band, and the company of each other.
My final idea is a mixture between all 3 ideas. I want to be able to use my artistic ability in this music video to heighten the potential of it being successful. I also like the idea of using just the male and female lead singers as it challenges the codes and conventions whilst targets to both male and female listeners. Seeing as the song is called ‘photo booth’, i feel as though it would be interesting to play with the concepts of photos and photography and potentially film parts of the music video using a process called stop motion, similar to the practise summer work i did for art. After watching this video by ‘The Dead Weathers – hang you from the heavens’ it gave me inspiration to do something similar.
However, if i was to take this idea further i would want to make it more interesting. I furthered my idea after watching the music video by ‘Passion Pit – Sleepyhead’ where the revolving box is used like a stop frame to make the vocalist look like he is singing, along with the clapping hand, i could use this process as if in the film from a photo booth.
Once this idea came into my head, i realised it is similar to the video by ‘The Kooks – Eddies gun’, this really gave me inspiration and i love this clip below,
I feel if i develop my idea from something like this, i could end up with something quite successful as it coincides with the name and genre of the song. However, seeing as this idea has been done before, i want to develop this idea further. I really like the idea of using stop frame animation and i like the idea of using symbolic and iconic objects to represent the genre, similar to my first idea. What i could possibly do, is have a wall with different objects moving across it whilst the two singers sing at the front of the shot. Seeing as the song is called ‘Photo booth’ i could possibly have photo frames and photographs moving along it randomly, however the singers will not be in stop frame, i feel this would give a better effect to the video.
I really like this idea and i think this is the one i will carry out for my final video piece. It needs a lot of development which i will do whilst creating my animatic, i will piece together what works and what doesn’t. To help me i will then create a mini template stop frame to not only give me practice but to give me a clearer idea and guidance to when it comes to actually shooting the video.
As we all go to the same school and they both live locally it means there easily accessible, perfect for the job.
