music video inspirations

Inspirations are important to take into considering when producing a music video, as having a variety of ideas means that your music video is more likely to include conventional elements to the genre that you have repeatedly seen in various videos. In addition, your music video is more likely to be more creative and have an interesting narrative is you take inspirations, rather than just coming up with a narrative from the top of your mind. It is also beneficial as you can see what famous artists have included in their music videos to make them so successful and therefore enhance the quality of your own video.

The first video I have taken inspirations from is Kodaline's "All I Want". There are two parts (videos) for the song and in the one I have picked, there is a strong use of editing of colors and filters. The video has been edited so that the saturation has been slightly drained in some scenes which is extremely useful when creating a more melancholy feeling. Goodwin's theory of there being a relationship between the music and the visuals can be applied here as the dull and blander colors match the mood of the music at specific points. This relates to my own music video as my song my group and I have planned to gradually reduce the saturation and brightness of the scenes as the video progresses as the narrative becomes increasingly depressing. We ourselves would like to ensure that the music matches the visuals - as Goodwin proposes is essential - as it creates a more successful video due to the ability for the audience to actually feel the emotions the characters are going through. My group and I have planned out a rough plot for our music video and we wanted to make it quite different to what you would expect. Therefore, in order to truly illustrate the emotional intensity of the video, the visuals must match the lyrics and the musical tones. The best way of doing this is as Kodaline's video for "All I Want" shows: changing the saturation and brightness, etcetera. Furthermore, despite the plot for "All I Want" not being the same as for my own music video, it inspired me to filter some of my scenes to make it look duller so that it looks like an analepsis, as the present-time scenes in my video will be brighter, with a higher saturation, etcetera. 

In Birdy's music video for "Wings", she makes good use of vintage style clothing. As this is an indie genre convention, I thought taking this as an inspiration would make my own video more successful. Despite the fact that my music video will be set in contemporary times, I still want there to be a prevalent vintage feel to it. Therefore, the costumes that I want to pick for the characters will be less modern. However, I do not actually want to completely use this inspiration in the manner that Birdy's costumes in this video are too extravagantly vintage. Instead, this video has inspired me to somewhat go against mainstream fashion trends and use clothes which the audience would aspire to have as it is different from what they normally see. However, I would not completely want to go against mainstream conventions as having a completely different style of clothing to what the audience may be used to seeing would create a distinct separation between the artist and the audience; they have to be able to relate to the genre convention of the clothing. Whereas in Birdy's video, the clothing the characters are wearing are completely unattainable as nobody would wear the clothes on a daily basis. One example of how I am going to use this inspiration in my own music video is by thinking about using dresses for the female artist, instead of jeans, as this both conforms to the indie genre as well as keeping in line with the vintage theme. From prior research, such as looking at Dyer's theory of stars, I used this inspiration from Birdy to try to plan out how to best represent my artist as being both ordinary and extraordinary. Therefore, I evidently do not want to use clothes that the audience would not be able to affordably obtain, however the clothing must make audience want to wear what the artist does, which Birdy's video has inspired me to ensure. 

This music video also aided in getting an inspiration for the how to best represent my artist; Birdy represented quite stereotypically: as she is young, she is quite care as demonstrated by the excessive partying. However, there are actually two representations of her as the video makes strong use of cross-cutting between two different scenes; one of them displays Birdy partying with a lot of other people and the other shows her on her own, singing. The use of illustrating two sides of the artist is something which I wish to employ in my own music video as I think it is an effective way to connect with the audience as they are getting to know the artist more. Having two different representations also relates to the audience as it shows what the artist is like when they are with people but ultimately they may feel alone, which a lot of the target audience will understand and relate to. Furthermore, to further pull on the audience's emotions, the video makes use of close-up shots of the artist when she are sitting alone as well as wide shots to really display their isolation and loneliness. Both these shots are extremely effective and therefore have inspired me to use in my own video. I like the use of the close-up shots as it means you can really see the artist's facial expressions and therefore the audience can sympathize with the audience more. The close up shots allow you to clearly see what the artist is feeling, and in the case of Birdy, she never smiles; this has inspired me for my own video as due to the fact that my music video will have performance and narrative aspects, I can use a lot of close-ups in the performance parts to show the artist's emotions. This is useful as the performance parts will be in between the narrative shots and therefore allow the audience to really get to know the artist more; they will be able to clearly see the two sides of the artist, one when they are alone and the other when they are with other people. On the other hand, the wide shots are good as you can see the location as well as the artist and therefore get more of a feel of the video, as well as making the artist look smaller in comparison to everything else and exemplifies her loneliness. I want to incorporate this in my music video, as I want to establish the setting of the video, as it will be set in the countryside, and show the artist within the setting. This way, the video will seem more authentic and have a more rustic feel to it, which will appeal to the audience. The video has inspired me to ensure I use a variety of shots in every part of my own music video.

In addition, from watching Labrinth and Sigma's "Higher", I can see a good variety of cinematography that I could potentially apply to my own music video. One specific shot I liked was the use of a panning shot. In "Higher", a panning shot is used from a high angle taken in a helicopter. Evidently, my budget does not stretch as far as being able to afford a helicopter; however, the same principle of the panning shot can be applied. In my own music video, the panning shot will be useful in the car scene where the two characters are driving along and they break down. The use of a panning shot will allow the audience to get a scope of both the characters in the car and the surrounding location. This way, the audience will consequently get more of a rustic feel from the video, a convention of the indie genre. Furthermore, a panning shot is a good way to establish where the music video is set and therefore can give the audience clues as to the plot of the video. Whilst watching "Higher", I was able to quickly come to the conclusion that the video was going to have some sort of allusion to climbing a mountain, perhaps both metaphorically or literally as the panning shot showed a whole scope of the location, which enabled us to see footsteps of someone climbing "Higher" up a slope. I was therefore inspired to use the same idea within my own music video, as the panning shot could give the audiences suggestions as to what is going to happen; this is appealing for them as it is exciting to try to figure out what is going to happen.

Another inspiration I have taken is from Tom Odell's "Grow Old With Me" music video. The inspiration I took was the use of both narrative and performance concepts as I think this will make a more appealing video. Tom Odell features in the video as he plays the piano as well as sings. In my own video, I want to include the artist playing the piano as well as I think playing a musical instrument will help to portray the artist as being extraordinary as well as ordinary, as Dyer's paradox theory suggests. This is more effective as the target audience will aspire to be more like the artist and appeal to the video more as it keeps it as interesting as possible. In "Grow Old With Me" the artist plays the piano as well as sing which attracts the audience more as it means those who unfortunately cannot see Tom Odell play live, will actually feel like they are able to. Having this experience is essential for the audience as they want to be able to connect to the artist as much as possible. Therefore, I want to use this performance aspect in my video and make it look as realistic as possible. My own artist, Amy, will be filmed playing the piano as well as being filmed just singing to the audience; in the editing, we can cross-cut between the performance shots we would like to use. I have also been inspired by the narrative aspect of Tom Odell's music video. Furthermore, as I plan to include a variety of different shots, as Tom Odell does in his video of "Grow Old With Me", it will keep the audience immersed in the visuals as they can truly see the passion he has for playing the instrument. I want to incorporate this very passionate approach in my own video, as I want it to seem as realistic as possible. In addition, having a narrative aspect to the video is beneficial as it gives the lyrics meaning and brings them to life which is something I personally think is exceedingly crucial, especially within the indie genre which is all about deeper meanings and connotations. Furthermore, the narrative and performance aspect will link together as it will create the effect that the artist is singing about a real-life and personal experience; therefore, the music video will be a lot more emotional and meaningful, which is how I want my own video to be like. In Tom Odell's video for "Grow Old With Me", he uses a young boy and girl, rather than a more adult couple. This is surprising as you do not expect the artist to be writing about children; therefore after watching this video, I was inspired to think outside of the box with my own music video and try to turn away from the automatic assumption or connotation the audience may jump to about the lyrics. For my own video, I want the plot to have an unexpected turn, such as the male protagonist dying, as the audience would not expect this after reading the lyrics. This way, the video will be more unique and therefore more interesting.

To conclude, having musical inspirations is extremely helpful as it is something to guide me whilst producing my own music video. I definitely think having an indie genre music video is the best option as it gives a lot of freedom as to what elements to include. Furthermore, having both narrative and performance styles of music video is a strong option to take on as it is far more interesting and appealing for the audience due to deeper meanings and emotions which are expressed throughout. For the audience of the indie genre, this is something which they strongly appeal to. As I have watched a lot of indie genre music videos, I have a lot of ideas of what to include and how to make it stand out from other indie music videos. Planning out my own inspirations is useful as it allows me to compare and contrast with my group's individual inspirations and take bits and pieces of ideas from everyone's. For instance, one person liked the use of the countryside location, whereas another person liked the city location; therefore we were able to employ both settings in our music video by having fast-paced scenes of London edited in at specific points. This effectively creates a more personal and unique music video as my group and myself were able to plan out exactly what we personally liked, which is important as the target audience will be of a similar age to ourselves and therefore will be likely to appeal to similar elements we do.