Inspiration from films and music videos.

INSPIRATION FROM MUSIC VIDEOS

One of my favourite music videos is the song “Stray Heart” by Green Day. It is a single taken from the album Dos and was recorded in 2012.

The video depicts a man flicking through records in a music shop and buying some Green Day records. He presents them to his girlfriend but she is horrified to see a hole in his body where his heart should be. He walks down the street and sees a trail of blood. He follows the trail and catches up with his heart outside the girl’s apartment.

I love this track as it shows the traditional punk rock style of Green Day blended with a garage rock style.

I would like to use this video as inspiration for my own work as I really like the narrative style and the way it interprets the lyrics of the song.

FILMS FOR INSPIRATION

I first watched the film “Tommy” three years ago. It is a rock saga based on an album by The Who, who were an early 60s rock band.
“Tommy” is a rock opera which tells the story of an abused deaf, dumb and blind boy who grows up to be a guru and is claimed as a Messiah.
Tommy is played by The Who frontman Roger Daltrey and stars the other members of the band including Pete Townshend who is the guitarist and songwriter in the band. It features many other famous cameo players including Elton John who plays the pinball wizard, Eric Clapton as the preacher and Tina Turner as the Acid Queen. The star cast also includes Robert Powell who plays Tommy’s father and Oliver Reed who plays his stepfather.
It very much reflects the rebellious, confrontational attitude of rock bands, particularly back in the 1960s, and is full of alcohol and drug references. It is also very sexually explicit.
I thoroughly enjoyed the film. I loved its rather wild story and the way that it falls from one unlikely situation to the next. I loved the rock music in the film and since then have listened to the whole album on which the film is based. This very much began my love of rock music and I have taken inspiration from this film.
“Woodstock” is an American documentary which tells the story of the Woodstock Festival that took place in August 1969 in New York. It was a massive success and received the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.
It features an amazing line up of rock stars performing their songs. It includes The Who, Crosby Stills and Nash, Joe Cocker and Jimi Hendrix.
I loved this movie because of the music which I really enjoyed, and because of the amazing atmosphere at the festival. Watching this made me determined that I would experience this kind of atmosphere by attending a music concert, and indeed I am going to go to Reading festival this year.

-Peter Godwin-

I took inspiration from the music video to the Kings of Leon song 'Use Somebody.' The fact that the band are a mainstream example of the punk genre means there are numerous elements which we can draw from, in terms of how this video is structured and how the artists are conveyed. However, because they are mainstream, they are privy to a big budget for their music videos, hence the consistent establishing shots of skyscrapers. Despite this, what we can incorporate is the more intimate shots of the band back stage fooling around, as it requires a very simplistic setting. In terms of editing, the pace is quick throughout, to reflect the tempo of the song, with shots only lasting a few seconds. While watching it, what I noticed was the performance shots seem to last longer than the establishing shots, embedding the idea that the band are the main focus of the video. We will apply this editing technique when we are in the post production stage of this unit.



When it comes to films, I don't tend to watch many which incorporate punk rock/gothic elements. There are, however, many films I've seen in which the characters convey very extreme emotions as a way of expressing themselves. An example of this can be seen in the independent film 'Bronson,' starring Tom Hardy. What interested me is how his character could change from quiet and controlled to shouting and swearing in very quick succession. This reminded me of the passion that drives the punk rock genre, and is therefore often displayed in their music videos. I will bear this film in mind when we're directing the band and actors as we film, trying to show a similar contrast in emotions as well as present the song as somewhat theatrical.



- Ryan Chapman -

A music video I want to take some inspiration from is Make Me Wanna Die by The Pretty Reckless mostly because of its use of a female lead singer and how the song incorporates the idea of someone being heartbroken, just as our song does. Also, because it is of a rock genre, there are a lot of conventions which we can introduce into our punk video, such as the performance shots, as both are similar genres. I really like the lighting in this video and although we may not be able to recreate similar special effects, I think the way it reflects the song's theme of death and negativity is a feature we can include in our own video to reflect our lyrics, depending on the conventions of the Punk genre.



A film I would want to influence our video is The Roommate (2011) which is about a girl who becomes close with her roommate at her new college. She is then violently overprotected by the psychotic roommate from her new friends at the college. This film incorporates the themes of jealousy, over protection and, as a result of these, violence. These are closely similar to those of our own narrative so I think using the nature and characteristics of the antagonist in this film will be useful for creating the psychotic girlfriend who wishes to kill her ex, in our own video. Also the characters in this film are of a similar age group to what we wish to use in our music video, so this may aid with our costume design.


-Joseph. A. Luck-