One Shot Wonders!

The song Sitting, Waiting, Wishing is from singer/ song writer Jack Johnson, the sixth song from the album In Between Dreams. 

The song is about a man you is continually rejected by a woman, and is asking the question "Must I always be waiting on you". Yet the actual video to the song does not have a strong link between visual and lyrics. 

The music video incorporates revers narration with Jack Johnson being the main focus and other coming in and out of the room.  The setting is a random room that starts of in chaos, with broken furniture and objects thrown about. As the video is played we see the room become cleaner as the objects come back together and food flys out. The most impressive feature of the music video is the fact singing Jack has to learn and sing the song in revers, so when the song is played back in revers he appears to sing properly.  

The playback narrative of Sitting, Waiting, Wishing is very similar to ColdPlay's The Scientist of their album A Rush of Blood to the Head. In this music video we see lead singer Chris Martin singing in revers as the video is played back, also seen in Sitting, Waiting, Wishing. The song has a better storyline to it then Sitting, Waiting, Wishing but then The Scientist is not a one shot wonder.

Alt-J Music videos

Breezeblocks was directed by Ellis Bahl, a relatively unknown and yet-to-be discovered director. Apart from the Alt-J Breezeblocks music video is was hard to find any other work from her. Because of the relative unknownness of the director and also the bands uniqueness the video hasn't been awarded or particularly highlighted. This does not mean however that the video wasn't good, the video itself demonstrates the attention to detail needed when playing back a video, especially when it includes a complex story line. Throughout the music video we assume that the make character is attacking the woman, this is until the last minute of the video where we see what's really happening. The storyline takes a huge twist as we now see the woman has his wife hostage and is in fact attacking the man, he is just defending his way of life. 

In my research to find out more about the director, Ellis Bahl, I came across the website www.ellisbahl.com/. The site has a number of work from various directors/artists, they all incorporate and embrace they indie warmth feel(?). The site has other work of Ellis, one is the example below called Ohio by Robin Bacior. The video is split into twelve, showing a dancer dancing in a empty room. The is effective as it keeps the attention of the audience.



Fitzpleasure is another music video from the band, this time it was for director Guillaume Cagniard to make his own, and he does just that. The video for ‘Fitzpleasure’ was shot in one day in a studio in Paris. The video includes living artwork performer Tim Steiner, tattooed by Wim Delvoye a Belgium artist who works with COSA. Tim turned his back into a piece of art and came especially from London to be part of the shoot.  Wim Delvoye was also asked to assist in the music video, we can see his input with the strong themes that run throughout the video. Delvoye takes inspiration from art history, Gothic cathedrals and sculptures of the 19th century, these themes can easily be recognised with in the video. 



Cagniard has previously worked with French artist and photographer JR, creating music videos for his huge urban based artwork. Also Cagniard is not afraid to nudity in his videos. With it appearing moderately in 'Fitzpleasure' and also blurred in 'Ain't Got No' by Patrice. Below is the music video, it uses a stop- motion animation effect of the speaker artwork to make it look like the artwork face is singing (I'm not sure of the significance of the naked people with trolleys is though). The other video below is just one of the examples of the collaborations the director has with JR.

 I feel by looking into other music videos of the band and also the directors, producers and artists they have worked with I am able to understand the bands specific characteristics and criteria for making a music video for them. After my research I am now more confident that the plan I have for my music video will fit into Alt-J's style of music video. 

Stop Motion - First Attempt

I decided to practice the stop-motion animation shots of my sheep as not only do I need to plan the movement of the sheep and their fluidity, but I also have to work with iMovie to edit the stills together.

This is my initial stop-motin attempt, it includes all of the shots taken. The only problem is that the sheep appears to be walking along the back-board of the bed, whereas it should be jumping. To alter the motion of the sheep I deleted some of the stills taken.

In this version I have only deleted some miner movements or duplicates of the sheep. This gives the sheep better movement and a judderyness I was aiming for, yet it still appears to be walking rather than jumping.  

Finally I deleted major sections of stills, it has created a movements that is slightly to quick for what I was aiming for. But has helped as I now know for my final piece that this type of movement is not right. I will be using a pace closer to the second edit, and make the sheep jump three times over the characters head rather than the initial one jump that appears to be more of a walk. 

Music Video Plan, PowerPoint

Alt j, dissolve me from panayimedia

Mind Map of My Music Video - Alt-J, Dissolve Me

Here is a mind map of my initial ideas for the music video, some points suggested I am unsure about and will have to tweak during later planning stages.

About my Song ... and Band!!

Band Profile;

The bands names, Alt-J, is the command used to write the Greek letter Delta on Mac keyboards, the ban is also know by this Greek symbol for Delta ∆. The group is made up of;  Gwil Sainsbury -guitarist/bassist, Joe Newman -guitar/vocals, Gus Unger-Hamilton -keyboards and Thom Green -drums. The band first met and formed at Leeds university in 2007, but it was a few years until they signed with Infections Records.

The song;

The song itself is upbeat and jolly throughout, using a range of instrements which is why it fits so well in the alternative music genre, specifically folk-step.

When listening to the song there are three main themes I pick out. Firstly this idea of forced sleep, clearly the person is having trouble sleeping and is trying different methods to get some sleep. These are references in the song; "Now dissolve me, two tabs on your tongue" - sleep tablets, "herd now the shepherds, who herd there sheep, sleep now my only one" - counting sheep to fall asleep and "She makes the sounds, the sound the sea make to calm me down" -  finally listening to ocean noises to relax. This links directly with the next theme which is the coast or beach. Throughout the song it references to "the sound the sea makes". Lastly there is a theme of a couple breaking up or a couple in conflict. Referenced  by "broken sweethearts who sleep apart", there is also this idea of her calming him down by making sea nioses. My opinion on this is that she has told him she wants to break up, and that's the reason for her to calm him down. 

Class Feedback

I presented my song in class today to get some feedback on my song choice, and ideas to help me with for the music video.After playing my song through the class gave their feedback and notes on the song, I wasn't quite prepared for the variety of ideas and concepts that were said. With other songs that were played before mine, people could see the same themes within a song whether is be location, characters or an editing style. Yet with mine their were no real links with peoples suggestion.

So the ideas;
People dancing, and a lot of them! This was the only suggestion which more than one person put down. However there is subtle changes with each individuals idea, not least the settings for this mass group dance sesh to take place. The first idea was to have the setting at night at the beach. I think this idea could be developed upon further as you could add a bonfire, which the group could be dancing round. Using the fire as light will create atmosphere with the way it lights up people and the shadows it would project.

Another idea which came from have a group of dancers was to have them dressed in different costumes, the suggested costumes were; aliens, dogs, cats, fish, tigers, cows and teapots. And to have the video with slow and fast paced editing. I like this idea of have the group in costumes as it plays on the bands unique and quirky style.

The final idea which suggested having dancers was the idea of having a mature boat party, that was more fun than crazy. The party would take part at night, an in the slower parts of the song, known as the 'ohh bit' there could be a shot of the stars. The narrative was  of a boy liking a girl who doesn't like him, yet he gets her in the end. At the end of the video we would see him waking up with her the next morning. Again a good idea that works well with the song, however it is not the most achievable because of getting a boat. However, the narrative of boy and girl is something I intend to use too.

The next thought from a classmate was to have the video oriental themed, in particular they said; Chinese, China town and Chinese lanterns. I can see from where they are coming from, with the intro and other parts of the song sounding a little oriental, however getting Chinese actors may prove to be a challenge. Yet the other part of the suggestion, to have the video jump in and out of dreams was something I had previously thought to use.

One suggestion was to have a sci-fi theme to the video, and deliberately use 'bad' stop motion animation. Elements like; poorly coloured backgrounds, string or hands shown, spaceship bumps into parts of the setting. In the end in turns out to be a child's sci-fi film. A good idea and I like the idea of using stop motion, I will try to incorporate this into my music video though may not have it deliberately bad.

Another suggestion was to have a man walking down an unusually long corridor, with photos of his past on the walls. As he walks down the corridor he stops, every now and then, and looks at a photo and it goes into that memory. Then at the end of the corridor there is the girl (that he may be seeing in the memories). I really like this idea of looking back over memories with a person, though I am not sure if I will end the recollecting quite so nicely.

The final suggestion was to have a split screen showing the lives of two similar characters, and at the slower acoustic bit of the song their lives are shown going in different direction. One will have a great day the other, not so much. It may be as simple as one forgetting their keys at home, but it sets the rest of their day back and could ruin it. I like this idea in particular having a split screen to show the lives of the two men, I think it will show my skill well and there is so much I could show with one being successful and the other not.