Location

To successfully produce our music video, there were a lot key factors and one of the main factors was the locations different shots needed to be filmed in. there for a lot of thought was put into this. We went through our shot list one by one and each member of the group was given their opinion on where to film the shots, there were many good and ideal locations but we also had to take in the time limit as well as the costs to getting or even in some cases paying to use the place e.g. theater's. After we had gone through the shot list we had to decide which of the location was best for the music video. We all decided that the first shots would be best filmed in a theater as it would be the best place for it. It had all the space and equipment we needed for it e.g. spotlights, closed walls etc. it was then a matter of choosing which one, luckily we was lucky enough to find one close to college, Hulme cooperative theater. (Pictures of the theater) The next scene is girl running through backstreets of town during daytime. We found a perfect backstreet in town it was just near Chinatown however, it was hard to pin point a date and time to film because of the rush hour periods and the fact it was getting dark very early. Regardless we decided to film on that location and it was the backstreets of St James Street. It was perfect due the scenery it showed as it had stairs, doors and all kind of props that we could use. (Pictures of the back streets) The last scene is the final shot and was one of the hardest to pick a location. As it had to be perfect as it was the vital and the most important shot of the music video. We had a lot of trouble choosing the place. We had lots of idea were to shoot such as South port beach, Heaton park, Fletcher moss gardens etc. It was a tough decision but we all decided the best location would be Fletcher moss gardens as it had the perfect scenery and it was practically free to use as well. (Pictures of Fletcher moss gardens)

 

 

 

Oh Land Shotlist

 

1. ECU of single eye, darkness surrounding it.
2. ECU of both eyes looking scared. (Shot from the left)
3. ECU of both eyes looking scared, looking in a different direction. (shot from the right.
4. ECU of both looking straight on at the camera, again looking scared.
5. ELS of girl up on balcony, holding onto banister, looking around.
6. LS of girl in corner of theatre again looking around scared.
7. MLS of girl behind curtain in theatre, looking out from behind it.
8. LS of girl weaving in and out of pillars on her tiptoes, ballet style.
9. MLS of girl in the centre of the theatre floor, suddenly attempts to run and trips and falls.
10. CU of girls face looking frightened.
11. HAS of her on the floor looking upwards, directly at the camera
12. ECU of her eye. (large pupils to small pupils.)
13. Birds eye of busy central Manchester. Fast zoom in on a busy street.
14. OTS handheld track of the same girl
15. Wide shot of girl running into shot around a corner, pans across and she runs out of shot- continually looking behind her and stumbling.
16. Flash second of a grinning clowns face, complete with striking traditional clown make up.
17. OTS handheld track of girl entering into china town and running down an alley way.
18. CU of clowns face, grinning and licking its lips in an evil fashion.
19. (17)
20. (18)
21. 21. MS of girl from behind down an alleyway attempting to open a door.
22. CU of girls hand on a different door handle across the street.
23. ELS of girl running to different doors and trying to force them open.
24. 2 shot of girl and clown, clown further behind, looks like he’s floating. Girl is looking behind at him.
25. Girl struggles with a door on the left and it swings open. DARKNESS. OTSS.
26. Cu of her facial expression turn from frightened to confused. Street in the background out of focus.
27. OTSS of girl walking into doorway. Darkness around but a faint ghostlike figure of a mans face smiling innocently. She leans in to kiss him putting her hand around his neck but her hand simply slides through the doorway.
28. (from outside) The door slams on the camera. Camera then zooms into keyhole of darkness.
29. CU on clowns face laughing and rotating, black background.

30.  Girl falls into black frame as she tries to stand uporizontal curvy green ‘bass lines’ knock her over and she begins to bounce around and fall on the lines (which will mirror the sound of the music. (ANIMATION)

CROSS CUTTING WITH

31. A ballet/street dance interpretive, aggressive, silhouetted- behind a sheet- dance routine with a guy and a girl- (clown and her_
32.  Animation
33. Silhouetted routine
34. Animation. Curvy horizontal lines straighten out at a declining angle creating a slide for her to slide out of the frame as opaque girl…
35. HALS of girl sliding into frame into tall grassy fields. (NOW IN WHITE DRESS)
36. MS of her on the ground looking around confused. She quickly turns her head to look behind her- deep focus as we see nothing there but green fields.
37. POV shot as we get a glimpse of the same faint guy from the darkness. She begins to get up and starts to run toward him
38. OTSS of her running through the firld (shallow focus) the image disappears (deep focus). 
39. ELS from in front of girl running.
40. LS from the side of girl running
41. LS of girl running through trees
42. Wide shot of a lake- man on the other side, slightly more opaque but still ghostlike. Girl walks slowly into shot. Still camera.
43. Side angle CU of her face, her breathing is heavy.
44. Same wide shot as before. Girl takes jewellery off and cardigan off and begins to walk into the water and swim. Man is out of focus but still in blurry view.
45. Getting out at the other side of the lake
46. (from other side) CU on her face as she pushes up out of the water.
47. OTSS of guy shallow focus, girl walks into frame.
48. 2 shot of them face to face, he touches her face and she moves her head into his hand instinctively. He moves his hand to the back of her neck and then moves the other one too.
49. CU on her arms wrapping around his waist.
50. OTSS of her putting her head on his shoulder.
51. OTSS of her as her head falls into nothingness.
52. ECU of her eyes looking confused. (he has disappeared)
53. POV shot as she looks down to a dark head of hair, looks at her dress, stained with colour and lifts up the childs chin to find a clown child crying.
54. Same wide shot from across the lake but there is no one there with the girl. She is alone with her arms wrapped around nothing.
55. Close on her stained dress with no one there.  Fast zoom out, across the river, though the trees across the fields, to the first shot in the ‘white dress’ scene where she is sitting amongst the tall grass.
56. Close on face with clown make up on it. The girl tilts her head upwards and has an evil smile on her face.

 

Inspiration

Inspiration

 

Once settled on the song, Florence and the Machine was a big influence for the initial thoughts of the music video. In terms of themes and ideas we were, of course, influenced by Oh Land and by the song lyrics of Numb. However, Florence’s music videos also inspired us in terms of Craig Davis’ theory. Florence usually has music videos that fit into the amplification category and we liked this idea for the surrealism involved and the creative interpretation possible.

   We took some general themes from Florence such as the idea of nature and the natural, and the idea of the surreal, which we were certain of from the start.

   Costume-wise, I wanted something shocking and unusual as to uphold the surrealism that the video involves; also something to represent the metaphors and connotations in the video. The costume of the clown for example, the clown primarily, has been used to represent a sign of death. The white make up represents loss of life and the colored make up over the top represents the emotion. Therefore the clown is a combination of both the deceased male in the video and the emotional, deluded female protagonist. Another thing that the clown could denote is society, society looking down upon mentally ill women (big political statement, however, this connotation would be for the past eg. The Rest Cure ect.)

In the first, second and third scenes our female lead is wearing a black formal dress. The black here connotes loss and is associated with death, evil, and mystery. Black is a mysterious color associated with fear and the unknown. It usually has a negative connotation (blacklist, black humor, 'black death').  In heraldry, black is the symbol of grief, which could possibly insinuate (as well as the mysterious white glow of the male) that her assumed husband is dead.

In the second section of the video she wears a white wedding dress. White is associated with light, goodness, purity. It is considered to be the color of perfection. White means safety. As opposed to black, white usually has a positive connotation. Therefore the sudden wardrobe change is to highlight the fact that she is closer to ‘him’ and finally she reaches ‘him’ and is euphoric.

Another inspiration for us was the film Alice In Wonderland, we liked the strange, eccentric vibe to the film and the innocence and naivety of Alice and so we wanted to create this for our female protagonist. Also the theme of confusion and being lost in our video is taken from Alice being lost down the rabbit hole. 

Initial Song ideas.

The first ideas that were brainstormed for the song were Something’s Happening Here by Buffalo Springfield, Indiscriminate Act Of Kindness by Foy Vance and, initially, Heavy Eyes by Oh Land. However we then discovered Oh Land’s Numb; which is video-less and were enticed and interested in the surreal factor that we could portray within it. 

Background information on Oh Land

Background information on Oh Land

 

 Oh Land is a solo artist from Denmark, her original name is Nanna Oland Fabricius. She is the daughter of Bendt Fabricius an organist and Bodil Oland who is an opera singer.  She was born in the capital of Denmark, Copenhagen on the 2^nd may 1985.

Oh Land was originally a ballet dancer but due to an accident which resulted in a spinal fracture her dance career ended suddenly which kick-started her career in music.

Her first debut album was called Fauna and was released in her native country Denmark on the 10^th November 2008 and was published by a Danish independent record company called Fake Diamond Records. Fauna wasn’t a hit or really that noticed around, however her follow up album titled Oh Land made up for that, as it reached 5^th in the charts in Denmark and 184^th in billboard 200 charts in US, the album also served as her debut in US. The album was released in US on the 15^th march 2011. On the 7^th of April 2011 she was given the brink of fame: music artist award in the ‘NextNowNext’ awards.

Oh Land is still a young artist as she is only in her late 20’s, and still got a bright future going for her, she has already toured with some famous people such as Katy Perry who is a well-known and successful artist.

The song that she was most popular for in the US was Son Of A Gun and it was White Lies which was one of her other hit singles and they were both from the album Oh Land.

 

Alternate idea to Oh Land Numb video

 

1^st minute of Foy Vance- Indiscriminate Act Of Kindness.

Extreme Long Shot from her side. Walking down the beach, Long shots, getting dark, windy, starting to rain. Close on tear falling down her cheek as she struggles across the beach. (Handheld) Direct close up on her front profile.  (Song begins).

Cuts to the exact same shot but with a different background, mascara running down her face and her soaking wet. At the door of an old farmhouse/inn. Side shot of her in focus, a door opens with orange light denoting warmth out of focus in the corner of the shot. Framed Long Shot of girl silhouetted before an huge arched door, her head is dropped and light is all around her from the doorway. Old man appears and reaches to take her bags from her, she instantly wraps her arms around herself. He enters and stands to the side beckoning her in.

Over the Shoulder Shot of girl with man a couple of metres away lipsynching “It’s alright I got a room here you ca share mine.” Camera tilts upwards and focuses on mans eyes, lense adjusting as if a Point of View shot from the girl.

“You can change in the bathroom…” Old man indicates upstairs. “A tear came to her eye”, Girl looks back trying not to cry, lip trembles- shallow focus, racks to deep as man stops and turns to see what is wrong in the distance. Racks back as a solitary tear dances down her ceramic cheek. 

Problems we faced

Budget:

When planning our music video an important aspect to consider was the cost. We originally decided on our budget to be around 20 pound, however, we soon realized that to get to the locations we needed, the budget would have to be increased to around 50 pound, the final cost of the production was as follows:

Transport: 20 pound
Theatre rental: 10 pound
Clown makeup: 5 pound
Costumes/outfits: 10 pound
Other expenses: 5 pound

We split the cost between 3 of us and it each paid around 16 pound.

Time:

Time was another factor which went against us, due to conflicting work hours, there was a limited amount of time available where we could all work, therefore we had to sacrifice some filming time to make way for other priorities. Also, as it is the winter months, we had to do all our filming before the lighting got too dark at around 5pm, this again put further restrictions on our available filming time.
These limitations meant we also had to change our original shotlist, we originally intended to have an animated sequence in the middle of the video, however as we had less time to edit as we needed more film time, we replaced this instead with the dancing sequence.
To combat this problem we would next time also plan our time needed and if it seemed unlikely we would have time, make our plan simpler

Weather:

The weather was also an issue, as to avoid disrupting the continuity editing we needed the same weather throughout, this was difficult as the weather proved unpredictable and we therefore couldn’t film on certain days.

Editing:

Editing was also an issue, some of the effects we planned to do proved difficult, and as each of us had limited editing experience we couldn’t achieve some of them, and therefore had to again modify the production plan.

Digipack research

Whilst planning our digi-pack advertisement for our music video, we decided to first research other digi-packs of albums in a similar genre, we therefore chose one of the albums we looked at to be Florence and the Machines’ ‘Lungs’.

(Picture)
The front cover of the digi-pack features a close mid-shot of Florence amidst a flowery background; the image is typical of the indie genre and has a vintage almost hippie-ish feel, which appeals to their typical audience. The gory fake Lungs hanging around Florence’s neck are juxtaposed to the serene backdrop and have a shocking effect on the image, making it striking and eye-catching and helping to promote the album. It is also relevant to the album title, “Lungs”


(picture)
This is the back cover of the digi-pack, it features a song list, typical of most albums, as ours is a single, we will not be mimicking this, besides this the design is fairly minimalistic, with a diagram of a lung (again relevant to the song title). The monochromatic colours keep the minimalistic feel. The illustrated lung is labeled with numbers 1-13 as the album contains 13 songs, each component of the lung a separate song. We liked this design, as it is less invasive and easy to look at.

(picture)
This is the design on the booklets on the inside of the digipack, the dark colours again keep the retro feel and the quoted lyrics on the left side add a poetic touch. Again the picture features Florence with lungs around her neck, her nudity is understated and suggests the freedom associated with her album and type of music, the lungs providing partial cover make sure the image is not seedy.

Florence And The Machine - Cosmic Love music video

Florence And The Machine - Cosmic Love Lyrics

A falling star fell from your heart and landed in my eyes
I screamed aloud, as it tore through them, and now it's left me blind

The stars, the moon, they have all been blown out
You left me in the dark
No dawn, no day, I'm always in this twilight
In the shadow of your heart

And in the dark, I can hear your heartbeat
I tried to find the sound
But then, it stopped, and I was in the darkness,
So darkness I became

The stars, the moon, they have all been blown out
You left me in the dark
No dawn, no day, I'm always in this twilight
In the shadow of your heart

I took the stars from my eyes, and then I made a map
And knew that somehow I could find my way back
Then I heard your heart beating, you were in the darkness too
So I stayed in the darkness with you

The stars, the moon, they have all been blown out
You left me in the dark
No dawn, no day, I'm always in this twilight
In the shadow of your heart

The stars, the moon, they have all been blown out
You left me in the dark
No dawn, no day, I'm always in this twilight
In the shadow of your heart

Florence + The Machine - Cosmic Love video analysis

Category

The category this music video falls into is a performance/narrative category, as the video contains the performance of the artist, lip syncing to the lyrics. It is also narrative because there is a link between the lyrics and the visuals as it follow through, however it is not purely a narrative video as some of the clips is just bizarre and doesn’t fit the story.

Genre of the song
the genre of this song and music video is kind of like a modern indie pop, this is mainly represented by the well known artist as well as the costumes she wears

The artist, song title and genre of music

Artist- Florence + the machine

Song Title- cosmic love
Genre of Music- modern indie/ pop

Music video analysis

The music video begins with a shot of a light bulb flashing. Florence Welch is then seen to walk through some trees with autumn leaves, and a light falls into her eye, making her scream. The video then moves on to show Welch lying on the floor in a black outfit, in a mirrored room filled with different colored lights around her. She then stands up and dances in the room. The video then moves back to Florence walking through the autumn leaves, with blue, green and purple lighting shining on her, and she appears to be lost as she is surveying her surroundings. The scene of Welch in the room of lights then changes to darker lighting, and her outfit changes into a white dress with lights. Later in the song, during this scene, leaves are seen to surround her as she is dancing. The video ends with Florence taking the light from inside her chest, and releasing it into the air, and it floats into the light bulb which started the video.

Technical codes

The music video is most likely to be filmed in a studio as you don’t see any sceneries or the weather outside. Regardless the editing of this music video is flawless as each clips flaws smoothly through the video, there is a lot of jump cuts, close ups and mid shots of the artist, there is also parallel editing as she is in two places as the same time jumping from one to another depending on the pace of song. There is also a lot of use of special effects starting from the floating light to many others including splits screens and so. There is also use of extreme artificial lighting throughout the video to create that ‘bleaching’ effect on the artist to give them that ageless look. There are also use strobes and flashing lights through out the video.

Goodwin’s theory

The music video does follow Goodwin’s theory as it has a clear relationship between the lyrics and the visuals as well as the relationship between the music and the visuals. There is also lots of close ups of the artist due to the demands of the record label to prompt the artist.