Arctic Monkey's "R U Mine?" - Black & White Music Video Research

We like the idea of having a black&white music video, but before doing this we have researched into some other black&white music videos to grasp some ideas and what is effective in black&white music videos. This is also the song that was released before "Do I Wanna Know?" which we are planning to focus our project on.

Arctic Monkeys - R U Mine?

In the Arctic Monkeys music video "R U Mine" it is all in black and white, I thought it was good to look into an Arctic Monkeys song as it is an Arctic Monkeys song we are thinking of doing for our music video and print.

The video starts with a radio host releasing the song, it has an old-fashioned "rockstar" feel to the video which compliments the black and white effect. The video does not have a narrative structure however it does contain the genre conventions of the band playing and singing their own music and with the more commonly used performance on a stage, giving the impression the video has been recorded live.

This entire video is completely focused on the band members with multiple close ups and mid shots of the members. The camera also appears to be handheld when Alex Turner (the lead singer) is filming himself. This is quite different to what we are planning to do however having a member of our band holding the camera themselves may make our music video more realistic.

Music Video Research of "Back to Black"

We have decided to do some research into the music video for Amy Winehouse's Back To Black, since this music video has a black and white effect, something that we are considering to use for our own video.

This song also features the theme of feelings of love, similar to what we are wanting to show in our video for Do I Wanna Know. This video shows a funeral, it is unclear who for until a close up shot of the gravestone reads "R.I.P. The Heart Of Amy Winehouse", however, after the singer's death in 2011, this shot of the headstone was edited out. The fact that this video is in black and white gives everything a dull, dark feel, to reflect the pain of "losing love". Many close up shots of Amy's face are seen throughout, this is probably done to show her emotion to the audience watching the music video.

Beginning Ideas

• Video based around a break up - fits in with lyrics of the song such as "Crawling Back To You"
• Night out drinking with friends and keeps seeing this girl everywhere
• Flashbacks to argument between the couple
• Opening shot of a group walking down the street, footsteps in time to the beat of the music, title of the song appears on the screen as a foot steps over the camera
• Go to a house party on the night out where the band is playing
• Miming shots of the band playing at the party
• Mostly filmed on the streets of Driffield
• Insides shots of the party and band playing filmed from our friend's house
• Black and white 
• Girl in red dress shown in colour - connotations of love
• Slow motion could be used throughout 

Chosen Song for our A2 Music Video

We have chosen this song to use for our music video, as all members of our group are fans of the band and like this song. We also think that since the official video for Do I Wanna Know is mostly animated, we won't be influenced that easily by it whilst making our own version. We also thought that the lyrics and theme of the song would be quite good to base a music video around.

Lyrics

Have you got colour in your cheeks? 
Do you ever get the feeling that you can’t shift the tide 
That sticks around like something’s in your teeth 
And some aces up your sleeve 
I had no idea that you’re in deep 
I dreamt about you nearly every night this week 
How many secrets can you keep? 
Cause there’s this tune I found that makes me think of you somehow 
When I play it on repeat 
Until I fall asleep 
Spilling drinks on my settee 

[Pre-Chorus] 
( Do I wanna Know ) 
If this feeling floats both ways 
( Sad to see you go ) 
Cause I’ve been hoping that you’d stay 
( And now that we both know ) 
That the nights were mainly made the same 
And things that you can’t say some other day 

[Chorus] 
Crawlin’ back to you 
Never thought I’d call you when in, I've had a few 
As I always do 
Maybe I'm too 
Busy being yours to fall for somebody new. 
Now I've thought it through 
Crawling back to you 

So have you got the goods? 
Been wondering if you’re heart’s still open 
And if so I wanna know what time it shuts 
Simmer down, pucker up 
And I’m sorry to interrupt 
It’s just I’m constantly on the cusp 
Of trying to kiss you 
I don’t know if you feel the same as I do 
We could be together if you wanted to 

[Pre-Chorus] 
(Do I wanna know) 
If this feeling flows both ways 
(Sad to see you go) 
Cause I’ve been hoping that you’d stay 
(And now that we both know) 
That the nights were mainly made 
For saying things that you can’t say some other day 

[Chorus] 
Crawlin’ back to you 
And I thought I’d call in when I've a few 
As I always do 
Maybe I'm too 
Busy being your to fall for somebody know. 
And I've thought it through 
Crawling back to you 

[Pre-Chorus] 
(Do I wanna know) 
If this feeling flows both ways 
(Sad to see you go) 
Was sorta hoping that you’d stay 
(And now that we both know) 
That the nights were mainly made 
For saying things that you can’t say some other day 

Do I wanna know 
Too busy being yours to fall 
Sad to see you go 
Ever thought of calling... 
Do I wanna know 
Do you want me crawling back to you

Survey to examine what we should involve in our Music Video/Music Article/Digipak

This is the survey we created on the website "Survey Monkey". 

Please click on the link above to take part in our survey...

This will help us identify what is best to use in our media products in order to appeal to our audience, we have aimed this survey at 15-20 year old's as this is the audience we will be aiming towards.
I decided to do this on Survey monkey as I think it is an effective website that allows us to gather accurate percentages and statistics with very little chance of errors and mistakes. It also allows me to reach a wider audience and help towards a more sufficient outcome.

I posted the web address of the survey on facebook to try and get a wider audience into our survey and promote it. 

Shot List for “Do I wanna know”: Draft 1

Shot List for “Do I wanna know”: Draft 1

Shot	Shot Type	In The Shot
1	Low to High Angle	Footsteps approaching the camera
2	Close Up	Underside of foot as it appears to step over the camera. Title "Do I Wanna Know appears on the screen
3	Wide Rear Head Shot Tracking Shot	Group of boys in the streets of town on a night out
4	Wide Front Shot	Group of boys in the streets of town  on a night out
5	Close Up	Main character of the video
6	Mid Shot Quick Cut	Half lit girl in red dress. Possibly stood in a dark alleyway
7	Extreme Close Up	Main characters eyes
8	Mid/Two Shot	Flashback to an argument between the two
9	Mid Shot Multiple Angles	Boys walking down the street
10	Wide Shot	Band playing at a cramped party
11	Side Shot Mid Shot	Boys getting kicked out of pub
12	Close Up Mid Shot Different Angles	Flashback of the boy and girl arguing and throwing objects
13	Mid Shot	Boys walking down the street towards the party where the band are playing
14	Mid Shot Multiple Angles	Boys entering the party
15	Mid Shot	Band crowd surfing
16	Quick Shots Various Angles	Party scenes
17	Close Up	Girl in red dress flirting with another boy
18	Various Shots	Main character drinking more alcohol
19	Mid Shots and Close Ups	Other people having a good time at the party various shots of the band
20	Close Up	Main character looking miserable
21	Close Up	Shot of the girl in red dress looking at main  character whilst with another boy
22	Various shots	More shots of the party and close ups of the band
23	Wide Shot	Main carachter sees girl in the red dress leaving  the party with the "other" boy

Tame Impala Lonerism Album Release Research

Print
For the release of their second album, Tame Impala released a "Deluxe" edition in a Digipak format, and also on a vinyl copy, the colour of the disks and casing all co-inside with the initial image on the album cover.

The band selected artist Leif Podhajsky to create the artwork as he had createde the artwork for their previous album and various singles. But in the end, the image was taken personally taken by one of the band members, and then edited by Podhajsky. The image fits in nicely with the themes of the album "Lonerism", the metal gate is said to represent isolation, as a barrier between the photographer, and the people in the garden.

All of Tame Impala's recent album art, designed by Podhajsky features a circle in the corner with the song and band name inside it, they also all seem to feature the same colours, this seems to work quite nicely and makes the releases all look consistent for this album.

For the band's single Elephant, the single release album art seems to fit with the video, with a psychedelic feel and bright colours. In the video, this same theme is created through the use of what looks to be spinng ghosted effects and bright colours. This psychedelic feel all fits in well with the style of the band's music.

The toup posters also again fit in with the same psychecdelic theme with interesting patterns, shapes, and bright colours. They have also used the same font as is seen on the album and single packaging.

Permission Request

Twitter:

We tweeted the band's twitter page to try for permission, because of the character limit on  twitter we had to be breif with our request.

We got friends to "retweet" and "favourite" our tweet to the Arctic Monkeys as this method usually would gain more attention from other people and the band themselves.

However even with this we have had no response.

Domino Records:

We attempted to get permission by contacting the band's record company, "Domino Records", here we emailed General Enquiries but have not had a response to our email. We sent it 3 times to make sure the email got across.

Hello,

We are A2 level media students, for the main part of our practical production for the year is to make a music video and print products (digipak & magazine advertisement) of a band of our choice. We hope to use the Arctic Monkey's new single "Do I Wanna Know?" as we think it is perfect for the style we want to work in for our production.

However we need granted permission to allow us to do this, so we wondered if this was possible? The product is for educational purposes only and we are not creating it for any other purpose.

We hope you consider granting us permission to use the Arctic Monkey's single, "Do I Wanna Know".

Hope to hear back from you,

Harriet Robinson, Joseph Goddard and Catherine Shayler

(This is what we sent to Domino Records, to request for permission)

We are yet to hear anything back.



Reverse Music Videos

We are considering having some of our music video in reverse as we have seen this more commonly in contemporary music videos.

Alt J's song "Breezeblocks" is a good example of this...

This entire video is set in reverse. At the beginning, the audience cannot fully understand what has happened, we can just guess that the man has killed the woman who is lying in the bath tub. However when we watch on, and realise that everything is in reverse the story unfolds to show that actually  the woman in the bath at the beginning is originally trying to kill the man, he seems to kill her in self defence  This is all quite confusing to watch in reverse, and I actually searched the internet for an edited video the right way around, to figure out the story. But the reversed effect seems to work very well with the quirkiness of the band, leaving audiences feeling disorientated and perhaps confused after watching the video. The whole video is really effective, and seems quite chilling at points. There is no miming throughout, and none of the band members are seen. 

Breezeblocks also won a UK Music Video Award (UKMVA) in November 2012 for Best Alternative Music Video

I like this style as I think it draws the audience in as we are trying to figure out what has happened.

The prop of the Breezeblock relates directly to the title of the song however the song is much calmer than the violent events of the music video, this works well however because it contrasts in style but relates to the lyrics of the song itself.

Cold Play  - The Scientist

This is another music video set in reverse however this is very different to Alt J's as they actually have a member of the group in the video, Chris Martin (Lead singer of Coldplay)  is the "star" in the music video. Like Alt J the audience does not know what has happened at the beginning of the music video, in this Chris Martin has been in a car crash losing who seems to be his partner, he then walks away from the scene. This again shows violence and is very dark story behind the song.

This would be good when it comes to thinking of a story as we could have a story behind it.

The Scientist video is interesting because the lead singer had to learn to sing the song backwards in order to mime the video perfectly to the song. This may prove difficult if we were to make our own video in reverse, so we may have to re-think that idea.