Music Video Reflection

When looking at music videos at first, we looked at the indie genre of music because idealistically we were going to produce the video within that genre and most probably performance based, the videos we started look at first were nothing special; Olympic Airways by Foals is a terribly bland video with no structure at all, its a performance video where the band are in the woods with the instruments and amps performing to the camera, there are also spontaneous un-related shots thrown in the video. Although the shots were rather pointless it fits in with the style of music, nearer the end of the video we see a crowd of people including the band, in a field sitting down with black balloons, as a group we agreed that we liked the idea a lot and thought it was something that we could possibly use in our video.

Another foals video with some good camera work in is Spanish Sahara, the video is consisted of long cut shots based in the arctic by the looks of it as it shows melting of polar ice caps. There are lots of close ups of the lead singer Yanis Philipakis and then some other shots thrown in that have no relevance to the lyrics but go well with the tempo and tone of the song. There is also a hint of juxtaposition in the video which is something i would like to incorporate into my own video, it shows a blazing fire in a snowy environment.

We then looked at Calvin Harris' video to Feel So Close, although its not of the indie genre its still a s genre we would consider doing even though it would be significantly harder to film and produce.
The video features different groups of people tuning into he radio to listen to the same song, this includes Harris in a car listening to the radio and singing to his song. The general structure of the video is quite pointless and random again, but it does show the genre of music in the video and it gives of a general vibe to go out, dance and have fun. If the song we ended up choosing was of the dance genre then this could be an option for us to look into doing, its simple but effective style of video. The lyrics "I feel so close to you right now, its a force field, i wear my heart above my skin like a big deal, and theres no stopping us right now, i feel so close to you right now" This shows us that the video is loosely related to the song and its trying to emphasise the point that is being made, which is quite simply 'Love'.
Another Calvin Harris song featuring Rihanna is We Found Love, the start of the video has a sort of narated introduction where there are clips being shown of Rihanna and her boyfriend going through the good and the bad while a british woman is talking over the top, when the song then gets underway we then see more clips of Rihanna having fun and spending time with her boyfriend, towards the later part of the video, it shows clips of them arguing. The video is also mildly drug referenced showing clips of pills and tablets in the shot, this type of video is again spontaneous and random but its suits the genre because of that reason, the lyrics are again loosely related to the video but the video is based more on the genre than the lyrics.

When we started looking back into the indie genre, we looked at the video to Time is Running Out by muse, its a performance based video with some choreography thrown in. It features the band on top of a large round table with people sat around it whilst they perform the song, the people sat around the table then get up and start to dance to the music. I wasn't too sure on the video although the rest of my group liked it a lot because of the types of shots used, there are lots of close ups of the lead singer Matt Bellamy and a lot of long shots showing the room and the scene. The lighting is something i actually liked about the video, its low lighting form a large circular ring that goes around the table giving a nice effect to the video, there is also low level red lighting in the background which contrasts with the cyan from the other lights.

Another music video was Brianstorm by Arctic Monkeys, the opening shot of this video is something we really liked and would like to use, it shows the band setting up to play silhouetted with a sepia effect from the lighting, only the silhouettes of the band members and there instruments can be seen. It gives a tense feel about the video and would be a great opening shot to use.
This video also has quick short clips and fast paced cut transitions which isnt something we would use but its a great effect as it makes it difficult to concentrate on the image put in front of you.
Another Arctic Monkey video we looked at was Fluorescent Adolescent, the video to start with seems rather pointless and stupid but as it gets underway it starts to unravel. There are two groups of men, one group dressed in clown costumes and the the other in smart attire, the two groups start with a car chase then get out of the cars to start fighting each other, the general handheld type of footage is what we liked about the video and think it might be something we could use in our video.