Inspiration

Videos that have inspired us:
Rizzle Kicks - 'When I Was A Youngster'
This music video itself, is similar to what we want to do in our music promo. They have used people their age acting and playing like they were children again, re-enacting past memories (such as cowboys and indians). This music video was our inspiration to do the older people acting as children.



Ed Sheeran - 'The A Team'
                     'You Need Me, I Don't Need You'
These two music videos have inspired us in two different ways. The first video (the a team) has inspired us in  the way we are going to do our music promo. This is because it is all narrative without any performance which is almost the look we want to go for. The second music video has inspired us because the music video shows quick shots of items such as a couch, we're going to use this idea to show different childhood memories.

Moodboard:





Genre

Background information on the genre type acoustic

Acoustic music primarily uses instruments which produce sound through entirely acoustic means. Acoustic music is normally made from violins, vocalists, guitars etc. Performers of the acoustic music often amplify the sound by using an electronic amplifier. However, even though the instrument is being played through an electronic item, it still maintains its natural sound to the exact note.
Folliwing the increasing popularity of the MTV show 'unplugged' in the 1990's acoustic performances by musical artists that usually compose music with electronic instruments became commonly known as 'unplugged' performances. A brilliant example of this is when Nivarna played on the unplugged show. 'insert link'

Acoustic artists
Most acoustic music includes a non-electrical guitar, however as stated above they tend to hook it up to an amp to make the sound amplified. Artists that come under the acoustic genre section are:
Ed Sheeran 'The A Team'
James Morrison 'Get to you'
Joshua Radin 'I'd rather be with you'

Representation

An acoustic artist normally dresses in a smart/casual style. So in this case, in our music promo we'd make sure the person we shall use will look presentable (like the artists in this genre). In most music videos for this type of genre, there are shots showing the artist with their guitar. This is a good way to represent the acoustic artist because it shows off their talent in the industry

Brief ideas for the music promo

In my group with has discussed a few ideas on what we could do in the final music video. Initially we came up with the idea that the song was reviving childhood memories (this was later backed up by the email from Carl Hauck). So here is a brief list on what we might included in the music video (to be finalized)

1. Balloons; letting go of a balloon or balloons falling from the ceiling
2. Eating ice cream at the beach
3. Cowboys and Indians
4. Skimming stones across the water
5. Christmas; opening of presents
6. BBQ
7. Leaves kicking
8. Looking back on childhood photographs
9. Ghosts
10. Family day trips
11. Holding hands/young love/first kiss
12. Adults behaving like children
13. Dressing up in your parents clothes

Of there will be more ideas, however these are what we have come up with so far. Also, as we can't really film children (as we'd need to get full permission from parents etc) we're going to go for the idea where teenagers (our age 16/17/18) will be acting as children (reliving their memories). However, we maybe able to get a young boy (permission from my brother needed).
Location wise, we haven't decided yet, however the idea of going to an area where there are wide open spaces with trees and perhaps a lake is what we might end up going for in the end.

Email reply from Carl Hauck

Abby Newland from the group I am working with, emailed Carl Hauck (the artist) asking for permission so that we could use his track for our final production. This was his response;

Hi Abby, Amy, and Rebekah - 

Thanks for contacting me, and thanks for your interest in using my music.  What school do you three go to?

I'd be fine with you using my music for your project since I'm assuming it's not commercial in any way.  I actually have someone who usually handles music licensing for me (Brooke Blocki - brooke@kmamanagement.com), and you may want to contact her just to make sure.  I'm sure it'll be fine, though, so you could probably proceed in the meantime.

The song "Windjammer" is the title track of my most recent album, which was filled with quite a few songs in which I was trying to come to terms with life after college and all that it entailed, especially since I was returning to my home town to teach high school.  I thought about where and what "home" is, about the people whom I'd wronged, about how dreams become compromised by "reality," and about the meaning of love, among other things.

The song in question was, for me, a way to look back (fondly) on various childhood summertime moments at the house I grew up in, which happens to be located on a street called Windjammer Court.  So each stanza is basically a vignette of various fragmented memories (that probably wouldn't mean to much to other people :).

I'll leave it at that for now, but feel free to let me know if you have any additional inquiries or follow-up questions.

Thanks again.

-Carl

At the bottom of the email address, he provided a link to his website. On this website he has the song we've chosen to do 'Windjammer' and many other songs. They included the lyrics to the tracks as well. Carl appears to be a nice person and we can again contact him if we need any help with our final ideas. Also, we have agreed to send Carl the finished production to get his views on it.
http://www.carlhauck.com/

Windjammer - Carl Hauck, breakdown of lyrics

Here is the first verse of the song that we have chosen to do as our music promo. We came to the conclusion at the beginning that this song is describing childhood memories in the summer time (this is later proven via email from Carl Hauck). As you can see, we broke down little parts of these lyrics. The idea of breaking down the lyrics is so that it can help us know what we could do when producing the music video. We haven't managed to look through every single verse completely, however, this post will show you what ideas we came up with in the verses that have been looked at.

A breakdown of lyrics; Radiohead - No surprises

This is a brief break down of the lyrics to Radiohead's song 'No Surprises'. The reason for doing this task was so that we can get into the 'swing' of getting ideas from the lyrics that the artist has produced. This song as you can see from the lyrics, is quite 'depressive' in a way that the male is almost asking to be killed and for death to come upon him. The line ' Bruises that won't heal' shows a hint of violence is the artist. A repetition of lyrics/lines is effective because even though they are the same lyrics, they can mean different things, for example the first set of 'no alarms and no surprises' could mean that the person is trying to avoid awakening from their sleep. The repetition can also show negativity to an audience. 'Such a pretty house, such a pretty garden' could be referring to heaven. 

Overall, I feel that these depressing lyrics displayed show that the person is living a sad and lonely life where they are not happy with the way that they are living.

2000's

2001. Linkin Park - In the End
Performance from the band seen more throughout the music video. As we can see from earlier music videos and band performing in any music video was never seen. However, with modern technology and budget prices being higher, it was the thing to do. Animation played in music video with real life band. Green screen was probably used more commonly now, as in this music video the background changes frequently. Cuts in the rhythm of song, lighting is used effectively to fit in with the music video, shadowing may have been used on the artists.