Ideas and Proposal

When deciding on a song for my Alternative/Indie music video I wanted to explore more emotional and thought provoking songs that I could do more with and that when i listened to, I could see exactly what I would want to do with the song. I was certain that I wanted to use a female artists song rather than a band or a male. This is because more can be done with costume and mise en scene typically with a girl rather than a boy.

The first song I looked into doing was Marina and the Diamonds - Guilty, the song contains quite dark lyrics which makes it quite sinister but interesting. My initial idea was to focus on the main singer running away from something, some sort of crime that they had committed without the audience actually knowing what the crime was. Then I started thinking about involving well known cultural characters from other famous movies and stories such as Alice in Wonderland, Cinderella and other characters such as them as they are innocent and I would take that and twist it so they are guilty of something, for example Alice could be guilty of running away to wonderland and is stuck there and things like that to make the music video seem more interesting and different from others.

The second song I looked at was Jamelia's cover of Numb originally by Linkin Park, it is much softer and slower than the original but I liked the lyrics and the music in it. I had less ideas for it though than I did for the others so this is my least favourite one. My initial idea was for the main singer to be walking down an urban street singing the song and then having scene of the past flash through the song. Unfortunatly I like the song and can't really find anything original to do with it or enough to challenge myself with. Also the fact that it is also a live recording so it would have to be perhaps set up as a live performance peice rather than narrative so that the sound would fit the video.

The last song is one of my favourites to think about working on and its a cover by Natasha Bedingfield of 'The Scientist' orignially by Coldplay. I love this song because of its simplicity and the way in which the music compliments the lyrics. I love the storyline in the song and it has really inspired me and given me loads of ideas even when I first listened to it which I think is important when choosing a song to make into a music video. I have many ideas and want to try using a re-wind technique as one of the lyrics is 'Take me back to the start' which makes me want to try to re-wind the storyline of the song back to the beginning. I also have ideas for ways in which I want to edit my clips and different contrasts and brightness techniques I want to use for it. I would also like to use an old fashioned film grain on flash backs to make it seem older and let the audience clearly know it is a flashback rather than being part of the current storyline/plot. The only down side the this song is that it is just another song about love which automatically imposes the idea of themes of love and then a brake up which has been done through music video many times before. I thought, instead of a brake up, perhaps the lover has died however this may seem a bit drastic for a soft sounding song.