Inspirational Video- 'Under the Bridge'

I accidentally found this video while looking for the video for the non-acoustic version of the song.
It's therefore a video to the acoustic version of 'Under the Bridge' by 'The Red Hot Chili Peppers'.

The reason I thought it could be useful to look at and possibly reference is that there are several parallels with our idea for the performance, in that it is black and white for most of the song, is entirely performance, and shot in a simple location.
I think there are alot of very simple shots of the instruments, vocalist etc. that look professional and interesting, e.g. the low angle, off-centre shot of the guitarist playing.
Perhaps we can take staging notes from this video as well?

Performance Shot Idea

I think a close-up shot, probably with the face in profile, of one of the performers (probably a singer, and probably James B) laid over a shot from the narrative could be interesting and work.

Like in the video for 'Under the Bridge' by The Red Hot Chili Peppers, during the chorus.

Black & White Stills Practise: Ladsies

Image:

Actor/model thing: Lukey

Original image:

As you can see it was really very dark.

Here it is greyscaled without any further editing:

So I cheated and used Paint Shop Pro's 'One step photofix'.

After 'photofix':

I think I might have removed some more noise as well at this point.

If we greyscaled it now it would look like this:

I thought it might be able to cope with a bit more contrast:

More contrast: Also I thought it looked quite cool in high-ish contrast colour:

I shall relate this to the main idea in a minute or so.

Group Gold Blazer Idea

As posted on the group blog, Luke suggested that the lead singer wear a gold blazer, tying in/anchoring the 'Gold' theme of the song with the performance base.At first I was skeptical as it could look very Butlins entertainer/tacky or comical, but I now think it could work. James pointed out in the group meeting yesterday that we could be focusing too much on what Spandau Ballet & co. would do/wear with the song, rather than thinking of creating and marketing our own band over which we have complete freedom and control. I thought this was quite relevant to what I had been doing and how I had been approaching some aspects of the project. I am therefore going to be aware of this and avoid it if relevant in the future.

I think it that having it worn with tight black trousers/jeans and a black t-shirt could work well.

Costume for Band

Just posted on the group blog asking for James' and Luke's measurements, as I'm thinking agood place to get cheap and decent costume (especially seeing as I think we're considering a slightly retro/80s feel with the blazers) would be a second hand shop (vintage or charity), tk maxx, or ebay.

James

I think we discussed him wearing a (slightly tight?), black blazer with the sleeves rolled/pushed up a little, and the buttons at least partially open.

Some images of similar/possible looks along these lines.
I think there is a shirt/t-shirt debate to be had here. A shirt certainly allows for nice sleeve-rolling (see last image) and may prevent the looking-too-young syndrome. I think it just needs trying out.

Luke
I can't recall what specific role Luke was going to fill?
However, I think a similar outfit to James could work. Maybe a different colour combination (e.g. James could wear a white shirt and dark blazer, while Luke could wear both black shirt and black blazer?). He could also wear his clothes slightly differently, e.g. more or less buttons undone. This would cement the band's image, be aesthetically appealling, whilst also cementing these band members together. The costumes shouldn't look identical I think because this could look a little big boy band or amateur?

Others
We don't know who will play the other members, but I think the previous idea about them being somewhat similar but not identical is appropriate?

What I think we need to achieve with the costume is:

• to make the actors seem slightly older than they are
• to address/convey the band's image/genre/style and cement this with the musical genre
• for the band to look physically/sexually attractive to at least the relevant portion of the target audience (heterosexual females/gay men)
• for the style of the the costume and appearance of the band in the performance to not jar too much with the visuals of the narrative.

Band Members: Gender

Thoughts on the actual band members:
I remember discussing the possibility of having a female band member, but I can't rememeber when. My initial reaction to this is that it might not work with the image of the band as a whole. I don't know why but I feel that bands' images 'work' when there is a female frontwoman, in that it sets up a sort of powerful female image to the band, and leaves possibility for this member to be the object of male affection/attraction and female admiration, they may be able to identify with the image of a powerful, leading woman. However, I feel that when there is just a random female band member women do not relate or identify or respect them, and they are rarely the object of much male attraction, and they can alter the image of a band alot by their presence. 'Gold' is also quite a masculine song, with the female being the object of male attention, especially given the direction of a love interest that we are taking it with the film noir/detective narrative. I think that perhaps the presence of a female musician could confuse the male-female dynamics for the audience, especially given that I think James is going to star in the narrative part as well.

Test Shoot

July 17th
As a group decision, we are going to be test-shooting some performance shots of James lip-synching to the song 'Gold' in the drama block [more information of this is posted on the group blog].

I just wanted to post some ideas here instead of the group blog at first, to build up some ideas to help the trial-shoot go to plan, as I will not have confered with the group on these ideas probably until tomorrow.

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July 20th
The whole group (me, cat, james & luke) spent Friday lunchtime (18th) doing the test shoot in the drama block for performance shots of james.

I think this went really well, not just in the end result but I think we all as a group had a renewed sense of enthusiasm for the project.

80s Videos

They're usually really low-budget (or at least would be to do now) and they're fun and usually really creative.


Duran Duran- Planet Earth


There is only one location for performance, but it is shot from many different angles and distances and therefore sustains interest. The frontman is very charismatic and the aesthetics of the band mean that the performance is visually engaging.

It is cut with some very surreal footage, in an almost-montagey format and includes shots of the band themself.

It is appropriate to the genre and time period as it is very ecclectic and surreal. It also fits with the 'planet earth' theme as it implies a sense of alien-ness.

I really like this video, and it would be so fun to do a song or style like it. Its very montagey and edited well to go with the music. I like the way the visuals totally reflect the tone of the song.

I would really have liked to do a video like this.

New Track Ideas

I would really like to do a Spandau Ballet song.

The band could be a contemporary band who are heavily influenced by 80s music, particularly new wave and new romantic (such as Spandau Ballet, but we shall hypothetically have them not exist for the duration of this idea). It was good music, and I do sort of think new wave will comeback soon (though I do know that Spandau Ballet are new romantic).

They could also borrow from the very classic looks of the time: I'm thinking more thelook of Duran Duran really. A bit like these photos:

also a good inspiration for performance shot; very classic.

Perhaps less 'glam'-ish than in this shot. Slightly more masculine.

again, not quite as camp and 80s as in this image:


The Songs:

Gold

For the video I would have a balanced mixture of narrative and performance (about 50:50).

Narrative: late film-noir style clips imbetween music. Very movie like.

A very loose, typical film-noir style narrative. The actual storyline of this hypothetical 'film' is largely irrelevant. The impression is that the video shows only extracts from a longer, imaginary film alongside the performance (note: it is not suggested that this is a real film being used, it is definately specially shot for the music video). There shall be very powerful aesthetics (good if filming later in the year as well, or even if weather is hot and sunny there is no danger of it never getting dark outside). The conventional film-noir imagery and signifiers (costume- makeup- shot in black and white- detective and femme fatale characters). The main focus is on the female character.

Starting shot (of the narrative) could a big close up, so big that you can only see her lips or eyes, for example: this would be very enigmatic but also very scopophilic, providing almost sensual/sexual pleasure to the male audience. This sexuality of the character would also be conventional to the film noir genre. We would then follow her through the narrative as she meets with a detective or some such down a dark alleyway/ in a car (more difficult as would have to shoot it carefully as to not show that it was being shot in 20th century, if we wanted to make it look authentic) or even a cafe or bench [would fit with lyrics 'thankyou for coming here' at beginning]. The performance would be intercut with the narrative.

We later see her possibly sitting in a cafe but definately looking out of a window (cue typical genre signifiers- theres lots of this window business in film noir and detective films) , smoking a cigarette, looking almost sad. This is new depth to the character- she is vulnerable or unhappy, which fits with the general powerful 'inspirational' lyrics and melody of the song e.g. 'you are gold' 'always believe in your soul' 'You've got the power to know, you're indestructible'. (Almost as if the band/singer cares about her and is singing to her; will be like when you're feeling a bit down and pretend the singer of a song is singing about you to drive you on).

The detective can be the man who the lyrics 'the main with the suit and the face, remember he was there on the case, now he's in love with you, he's in love with you' are concerning. There can be shots of him maybe doing the typical film-noir thing of trying to get through to the femme fatale to admit she loves him or to 'let him in' (open up emotionally to him). He could be (silently to us, obviously) saying: tell me, tell me etc (or shaking her in that sort of way against a wall so we get the gist), and we see her mouth the words 'no, i don't' or 'i dont love you' in quite a cold way. he leaves her right away, clearly heartbroken. She is alone in the room, we see the door close in the background, and she falls to the ground crying or such.

Performance:

In a room very dark except for the quite low-key lighting, so we have some striking shadows (not ridiculously low-key with ghastly huge, detective-story shadows, just enough to be atmospheric and have aesthetic impact, and also partially to fit in with the narrative: i.e. link the narrative visually to the performance). It could be black and white, also, for these reasons. I think this idea is strong and interesting enough to captivate the audience's attention in black and white.

Some images of what I sort of mean:

(for more, go to http://images.google.com/images?ndsp=20&um=1&hl=en&rls=HPNN,HPNN:2006-30,HPNN:en&q=+site:www.newwavephotos.com+duran+duran for a search result that had alot of appropriate images)

There would be alot more powerful, direct address of the camera in close ups by the frontman, and I think James (who I believe we as a group agreed would be one of the lead singers in our other ideas as he (and also Luke) are good at performance and lip-synching) would look very good in the role.

He would be looking at the camera quite... seriously (though mostly for dramatic effect so not in a cold way).

A bit similar to the shots at '0.17' and '0.47' of this Franz Ferdinand video for 'take me out':

Target audience: I think this band could be quite comparable to Franz Ferdinand, who have quite a new wave feel which was different at the time. They had a wide target audience due to the appeal of their music, which was catchy and accessible. This is certainly similar to Spandau Ballet.

I think this song would be very good as it has alot of variation in pace and tune and rhythm, and I also think the lyrics and atmosphere tie in well with the visual idea.

I think the idea would be quite possible to do, as the performance should not be difficult, and will hopefully be possible to make effective, but I think it will be. The narrative shots, though more difficult, I definately believe to be possible. We can also build upon our prior knowledge of this genre of film that we have from our thriller project as AS level.

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Feedback on the idea:

Hi Angelastart with the group blog 1st please. you will find a posting from me on there. I suggest as a group you sit down and read it together, then think about moving forward. the spandau ballet sound is problematic as it is so well known and any form of lip synching would be impossible. Ms B

Response: I do think that the lip-synching would be possible. There is already a video for the song in which they do alot of lip-synching (but it was made in the 80s and is very different to our idea so this wouldn't be a problem). We could also cut to the 'narrative' during very difficult vocal pieces.

Here is the video:

I also think that as we will be targetting a different age group (the contemporary teen-20s market) it wont matter that the sound is well known. Most of my peers I spoke to had not even heard the song or the band.

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EDIT: 18th July

Ahh, I think I may have misunderstood Miss Bs concerns regarding the casting/performance part of the idea a little. She raised the good point that James could have potentially been unconvincing as the lead singer as the voice may not convincingly come out of him, as he is only 17 and the lead singer in Spandau Ballet has a very big, rich, mature voice. For this reason we needed to do a test shoot (see group blog) to ascertain whether he would in fact work in the part- if he had not then it could have led to a huge reduction in the quality of the video.

Following the test shoot it was decided by all that, fortunately, it was a convincing casting for the performance. Phew!