Product Research

Production Diary 1- Thoughts about the brief

Production 1 – Thoughts about the brief

This year is going to be very interesting but tough too, and I will have to utilise all my creative skills to help me accomplish the tasks set.

I have looked over the brief and have decided to do a music video, as I think that this will be the most fun project to do, and it will also allow me to explore a new area of media. I have never really filmed anything before, so it will be a new experience, plus in my spare time I do watch music videos and behind the scenes of the music videos e.g. Katy Perry’s ‘Dark Horse’, so it would great to try and create one myself. I have come up with a list of  possible songs I could create a music video to (see picture below) and I tried to vary the genre as well as noting the length of the music video as I don’t want one that is too short or alternatively, too long.

 

At the moment, the song I am wavering towards is Gabrielle Aplin’s version of Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s ‘The Power Of Love’ which was featured on John Lewis’s infamous Christmas advert in 2012. Aplin’s recording of the song went straight to Number 1 in the UK.

I like this song because of the instruments used i.e. the piano and I tend to like cover versions of songs rather than the original and I think Gabrielle exploited this song in a different, but successful way. I also like the video, directed by Alexander Brown. The video is very simple but effective I think. The whole video has a slight vintage tint to it, which works well with the abandoned mansion, which at first is in dismal light, then gradually as the song goes on, is lit by fairy lights, as Gabrielle stays stationary playing at the piano, the tempo and pitch rising as the fairy lights increase around the room. Very simple, but effective, and I think I would like to try to get someone to be playing the piano in my music video, except I would like to distance myself from the original video – perhaps try to film the piano player in the blackened drama studio, with only a spotlight on them, something like the picture below, which depicts Ian Axel from duo band A Great Big World in the song ‘Say Something’ featuring Christina Aguilera.

 

 

The other alternative song that I like is another cover, this time by Lana Del Ray who recently recorded her version of Disney’s ‘Once Upon a Dream’, originally sung by Mary Costa and Bill Shirley in the 1959 Disney film, ‘Sleeping Beauty’. Del Ray recorded her version for the 2014 film ‘Maleficent’ also produced by Disney. It’s very slow paced and repetitive, but has a dark and eerie tone to it, which makes it stand out.