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.