CHOSEN IDEA

Fourth Idea:

The music video in which I will create will be a combination of both narrative an abstract, taking elements from all three previous ideas. The beginning will consist of the male sat at a kitchen table being the abstract center piece of the contrast of what is reality and what is in fact a dream. We will see him get frustrated with himself, showing a violent nature, throwing kitchen wear. As the narrative unfolds we see him returning back to the chair and from this the audience will then begin to understand why he is so angry and upset with himself. With a flash back we see him and the girl sat at the table having breakfast, the girl seems anxious and explains that she is going to leave the man for good. The male is angry with this and hurls abuse at the woman. A fight breaks out between the man and woman and he chases her to the bathroom where he places her head in a sink full of water until she struggles to breathe. The male realizes what he is doing and quickly relieves the pressure of the woman and leaves. With a jump cut we see the girl sat against a bathroom wall crying with make up down her face and see the male trying to apologize. With a straight cut we see the male sat back at the table.

INDIE ROCK MUSIC VIDEOS FOR INSPIRATION

Oasis - Sunday Morning Call
2000

Miles Kane - Don't Forget Who You Are

The Killers- Mr Brightside

These music videos are all examples of Indie Rock bands and artists and their music. Through these music videos the conventions are demonstrated effectively despite the narrative being different in each. The conventions of Indie Rock still shine through.

 

BACKGROUND TO INDIE ROCK

The term Indie Rock derived from 'independant', in terms of music labels and describes a small low budget label with the 'do-it-yourself' attitude of the bands and artists involved. Although distribution deals are often struck with major corporate companies, these labels and the bands they host have attempted to retain their autonomy, leaving them free to explore sounds, emotions and subjects of limited appeal to large, mainstream audiences as well as for a Niche Audience. Indie Rock is a genre of Alternative rock and first came around in 1980's in the United Kingdom and the United States. It had many sub genres including Indie Pop and Jangle Pop.
Indie Rock is becoming increasingly popular as the music created by the artists is getting recognised more frequently due to sites such as iTunes and Youtube. The music created which was originally intended for a niche audience but is now becoming appealing to the mainstream audience. There are many bands and artists that fit into the Indie Rock genre and are often recognised by the type of clothing they were and the sounds they create.

Artists in the Indie Rock genre:

Arctic Monkeys
Bastille
Alt J
The Killers
The Wombats
The Kooks
Miles Kane
Nivarna
The Strokes
Imagine Dragons
Oasis

The Indie Rock material produced is the kind of media that will essentially never get old and boring to listen too in comparison to pop. The material is unique and old material is becoming increasinly popular, for example Oasis formed in 1991 originally labeled as a rock band, their material is still listened to by the young, middle aged and the old.
The music videos of Indie Rock all follow the same conventions stated on an earlier post and tend to be Black and White to set the mood. The idea of the combined narrative and performance has been carried through over the years. The idea of a solely narrative msuic video is also used a lot and it is very effective in some cases as with the Arctic Monkey's music video; Leave Before The Lights Come On. Through its narrative the audience begin to understand why the main character does what she does and why the events happen, the lyrics are reflected in the narrative.

Arctic Monkeys - Leave Before The Lights Come On

INITIAL IDEAS

Write a synopsis of what happens in your narrative, explain the plot, what is your story, the message you want the audience to give?

First Idea: Based on the narrative from the music video of Bob Dylan's - 'Beyond here lies
                    nothing'.
   
The beginning of the narrative starts with the males face at a medium close up shot, zooming towards him with a blank expression. His face is the abstract centre piece to the contrast between the dream and the reality of his dysfunctional relationship.  With jump cuts we see the girls face happy and smiling with a fast forward to her crying and upset putting keys on the kitchen side and walking toward the door. Hidden in the narrative there is reference to the 'Where the Wild Things Are' a children's book by Maurice Sendak, as from analysing the lyrics I saw several relations and want to present this to the audience.
The story unfolds as to why she is leaving and shows how the male can see she isn't in love him with anymore. It then rewinds to show how she used to be with him and how she is now. During the development we see how he is too possessive with her but he doesn’t realise and everything he seems to do annoys her in some way.
Clearly hurt by the thought of him loosing her he does all he can to try and convince her he loves her but it ends up physical and we see his face as medium close up, zoomed as he is knelt by her body on the floor in darkness with only flashes showing both his face and hers.


Second Idea:

The narrative starts with a girl sat clenched up against a bathroom wall, clearly been crying as we see the makeup down her face, sat in what looks like soggy clothes. As we zoom out we see a dripping tap and then again the girl, medium close up make up smeared across her face. We see an argument unfold with a flash back and see her packing her belongings while the male lays on the floor with a gash on his head, unconscious. As she begins to runaway a hand closes the door from behind her. The man overpowers her she is tied to the kitchen chair where the mans hauls abuse in her face. She manages to get her arms free when the man turns to get the sedatives in which he has been giving her and grabs the closest thing to her and hits him over the head. It resolves with boy the male and the female sat in the dark staring towards nothing both with blood on their hand and face.

Third Idea:

The narrative begins in a kitchen with the female appearing to be sat at a table looking extremely run down while the male makes breakfast behind her. He forces the breakfast on the table in front of her yet we see the Breezeblock which appears to be on her lap. As the narrative develops we see him giving the female drugs yet she refuses to open her mouth to take them and instead grabs her breakfast bowl and throws it at him. This angers the male and we seem him getting tenser.
We then see him sat in a dark room with an angered expression and through his eyes we see how he wanted things to be but how they are in reality and the audience begin to understand that she wanted to leave him.
Through the females eyes we then see why she wanted to leave him and how he had been treating her over the time they were together. We see how his manipulation led to her feeling isolated.
In the end we see the man laid by the woman on the floor holding a photo of her smiling, as he moves the photo from her face we see her with no emotion.

Fourth Idea:

The music video in which I will create will be a combination of both narrative an abstract, taking elements from all three previous ideas. The beginning will consist of the male sat at a kitchen table being the abstract centre piece of the contrast of what is reality and what is in fact a dream. We will see him get frustrated with himself, showing a violent nature, throwing kitchen wear. As the narrative unfolds we see him returning back to the chair and from this the audience will then begin to understand why he is so angry and upset with himself. With a flash back we see him and the girl sat at the table having breakfast, the girl seems anxious and explains that she is going to leave the man for good. The male is angry with this and hurls abuse at the woman. A fight breaks out between the man and woman and he chases her to the bathroom where he places her head in a sink full of water until she struggles to breathe. The male realises what he is doing and quickly relieves the pressure of the woman and leaves. With a jump cut we see the girl sat against a bathroom wall crying with make up down her face and see the male trying to apologise. With a straight cut we see the male sat back at the table.

INSPIRATION FOR INITIAL IDEAS

My inspiration for my initial ideas is not only from the original video of  'Breezeblocks' as that too demonstrates the idea of love, hate, jealousy and murder but the Bob Dylan music video - Beyond Here Lies Nothing. This music video demonstrates a dysfunctional, violent relationship which portrays love, hate and jealousy but breaks traditional conventions of narrative, in reverse roles the woman eventually over comes the dominating man and shows power. This is nontraditional of music videos as the man is always seen to be more dominant than the woman which is a good aspect of its narrative as it diverges from stereotypes. The music video also in some ways sticks to the social realism of the darker side to relationships for some people in violent relationships. The woman in the video manages to escapes his violence after being violent towards him and continues to drive away, however, she then reverses the car and after several attempts to run him over she gets out of the car and then they both kiss. The kiss at the end of the music video signifies the conventional equilibrium of a love story where the man gets the woman and alls well ends well, however, the narrative building up to the equilibrium breaks conventions throughout.

Beyond Here Lies Nothing - Bob Dylan

WHO ARE ALT J?

Alt J are an Alternative/Indie Rock quartet who formed in Leeds in 2007,also known as ∆, the band consists of Joe Newman, Thom Green, Gwil Sainsbury, Gus Unger-Hamilton who together have produced an EP in 2011 and their debut album An Awesome Wave which was released in May 2012 in Europe and September 2012 in the United States. They won the 2012 British Mercury Prize. Alt-J are becoming more successful and are beginning to get notice a lot more, appearing at festivals such as Leeds and Reading  Latitude, Tramlines, Bestival,  End Of The Road, Milhões de Festa, T in the Park, Green Man, Pukkelpop, Lowlands. The Band also held their own little headline tour in the Uk in 2012.
Alt J's 'Breezeblocks' was released on their Ep in 2011 and is the song I have chosen to re create a music video for. I chose the song as it holds several hidden meanings into love and hate and suggests domination over a weak soul and murder. This song is a clever song that I feel I can create several initial idea to and can create create and effective video that follows and possibly break the conventions of Indie Rock.

Breezeblocks By Alt J.

MEDIA THEORISTS