Music Video

PresentationBethany Jones

Standing In The Dark

The Song…My song ‘Standing in the dark’ by Lawson, is

slow/fast tempo song, I chose it because it

fitted with my narrative of a break up gone

wrong.

Lawson released their first single ‘When she

was mine’ in 2012, their breakthrough single

was ‘Brokenhearted’ released in 2013

featuring B.o.B, from 2013 to 2015 the band

did not release any music due to taking break.

In 2015, they released ‘Roads’ which

eventually climbed it’s way to number 4 in the

charts.

The band were well known during their prime,

however their fan base lost in interest during

the band’s break, and since then they have

become less well known.

The Song…The song ‘Standing in the dark’ is a track about moving on from a break up, it centers around a boy coming to understand that he has to move on from the love of his life.

Original Video…

The original video for the song, focuses on the lead of the band looking through glass to see that the girl he loves has moved onto someone else. The video primarily focuses around performance and instrumental, therefore in order to make my video different and stand out from the original, I want to focus more on the narrative and what the song means.

Lawson – Standing in the dark -https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsbPkZPKEuY

Genre…

Lawson are considered a pop rock band, this is determined from

the band writing catchy pop lyrics with their conventional guitar

based rock song.

This genre conventionally does well in the charts, as it is

something you can dance to but also you can relate to.

Likewise, the band are regarded for this in particular, this is

shown through their songs such as, ‘Brokenhearted’ and ‘Juliet’,

these songs were covered by multiple YouTube singers and

popular bands/artists at time of release.

Lawson Broken hearted - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jekHmNtLcig

Lawson Juliet - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1V18P7JkAuA

The Vamps Cover of Broken hearted -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBcW-5vereQ

Videos From the Genre…

As I have been researching the genre, I have noticed that

a lot of bands/artist’s are considered ‘Pop Rock’, that you

wouldn’t really expect to be from that genre.

Personally, I believe the riffs in the song make it rocky,

and the catchy lyrics make it memorable for the audience

or listeners, for example the One Republic song ‘Counting

Stars’ – when the drums and piano kick in, it adds layers

to the song making the audience want to song a long

One Republic:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hT_nvWreIhg

Videos From The Genre…

Furthermore, the genre enables an element of freedom, for example the artist Ellie Goulding…

Burn - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGyEd0aKWZE

The track ‘Burn’ is in fact considered more a ‘dance’ track, however if you listen closely to the instrumental of the track, it has similar riffs to ‘Counting Stars’ by One Republic, therefore you hear it and remember the genre.

Likewise, the video narrative is extremely similar, if you relate the video above, to the Calvin Harris video for ‘Summer’, they have a very similar party feel to the video, it makes people want to go out and enjoy themselves. For example, both the videos, start off in cars, Goulding’s is does have a slower tempo start compared to Harris’s, but the pair have used it to employ into the audience that that is what their song should be used for.

Calvin Harris – Summer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebXbLfLACGM

Stills…As you can see Goulding is using flares, to

add that extremely fun daredevil element to

her video, likewise she is stood in the middle

of a road, contributing to that rebel aspect,

making people want to have a good time.

Likewise, Calvin Harris uses the same

technique, the walking on the road in the

middle of the no where, adds to the

arthuncity of the video, it makes the

audience want to be them.

Videos From The Genre…Asides from understanding the genre of the Band, I

really want to keep my music video true to the genre, therefore when it came to thinking of a narrative for my video, I looked at Maroon 5 ‘Won’t go Home Without you’ -https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlMEGBsw6j8

The video is a cross between narrative and performance, the video is based around a man trying to impress his girlfriend, who just isn’t interested in him anymore.

The video flashes back to one particular night in their relationship.

The flashbacks is in black and white, whereas the performance is in colour, this allows the audience to clearly distinguish between present day and the past, this is something I would really like to include in my video as it involves elements of flashback.

Video’s From The Genre…

I have also looked at Pink’s ‘Just give me a reason’ – the video is a bit of an anthem for people who don’t want to lose someone they are still in love with.

I really like how the video uses a simple set, for example for 90% of the video, certain around the a bed and a TV, I really like how they have set the scene.

For example, the bedding is all screwed up and there is rubbish on the bed, I really like this idea for my video, as the boy is completely heart broken, and adding this setting will contributing to the feel of how his life has fallen apart.

The video gave me a lot of inspiration for how to set my video and get the effective feel that I want for the video.

Pink’s – Just give me a reason -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OpQFFLBMEPI

Videos From The Genre…Also, Tom Odell’s ‘Another love’ – influenced me when it came to creating a true narrative. I want to keep the narrative extremely true and real to the story and the lyrics of the song, but I also want to keep the video alive and interesting.

Therefore, I looked at a lot of break up anthem songs, to get a good feel of what people like to look for in a break up narrative, therefore Tom Odell’s, ‘Another Love’, was a great video to take influence from, he stays directly looking into the camera the whole time, while a girl tries to get his attention, as he sings, she lip syncs certain lyrics to match his, as the music video progress and the relationship goes further down hill.

Videos from the genre…The colour of the video changes to a fiery red and bits of the set faded in and out, I would like to include this in my video, when the girl is shown with another boy.

I thought it would be an effective idea to have her staring into the camera while the new boyfriend does nothing and goes out all the time.

I feel this would give the narrative more of an edge and make it more artistic, because a narrative can be hard to keep interesting. But, with including that aspect to the video.

I feel it will bring it to life and give the audience more of a feel to what the couple is going through, furthermore it will make the difference between flashback and present day more clear.

Videos From The Genre…Moreover, rather than just looking at the music and how to film the video, I

wanted to look at narrative videos in order to get my narrative right.

Therefore, in order to achieve this I looked at, short films, such as this one –

Free People – ‘ROSHAMBO’ - https://vimeo.com/58375780

The film follows a couple who are falling in love, this gave me insipration for

the begginning of the video, as the couple are in love before it all goes

wrong, the couple use ‘Rock , Paper, Scissors’ in order to decide whether or

not they should leave or if they should stay together.

It gave me a good sense of what it is like to be in love in the modern age, it’s

all about choices, it also gave me inspiration to include a scene before the

music in order to set the tone of the video for the audience and give them

more of a sense of the storyline.

Videos From The Genre…Furthermore, the short film expresses both the girls and the boys view of the

video, much like my video, I feel like the short film effective describes what it

is like to through a break up for both the girls and the boys.

The short film, made it me think about the realistic aspect of the video,

taking inspiration from Tom Odell’s video, with the fading in and out of the

objects, I want her facing directly forward into the camera, but then I would

like her to get a phone call from him, in order to make it more realistic, that

they are both struggling to move on.

Likewise, instead of flashing back to the sad times in their relationship, half

way through he video, I will flash in back to the happy times in their

relationship, I will flash the video back to how they both saw the day they

broke up. Therefore, it further highlights the fact it is from two different sides.

Free People – Roshambo: Rock (Girls view) - https://vimeo.com/65227571

Free people – Roshambo : Paper Scissors (Boys view) -

https://vimeo.com/71546824

Target Audience…The band ‘Lawson’ are considered a mainstream band, therefore they will have a fairly conventional following for their music, they were popular at a time when audiences were crying out for pop rock music, for example their first single ‘when she mine’ – released in 2012 – went to number 2 in the charts.

The band have 320k following on twitter, and over 200k subscribers on You tube, however the band have over 34 million views on You Tube, showing that their social media following does not reflect how popular the band are in terms of views or charts.

Furthermore, I want my video to relate to as many ages groups as possible as I feel the band do, their music is not explicit, also their style varies, their song ‘taking over me’ is a dance track, whereas ‘when she was mine’ is a love song, this relates back to the genre of the music, pop rock gives you the freedom to explore different ideas and concepts. Therefore, because most people can relate to a break up at some point in their lives I feel my video will relate to many people.

Target Audience…Therefore I plan on targeting a wide range of audience, I feel like

anyone who has been through any kind of break up I feel like it

could relate to them.

As I will have teenagers as my main actors, I feel the video will

relate to teenagers a lot more than an adult would, because they

would have a concept of the emotions of a teenager.

I will target them by focusing on the emotion of the song, as break

up songs is normally something people can relate to, I plan on

adding in certain artistic qualities, in order to keep the audience

interested in a more narrative based music video.

Furthermore, because I am focusing on the emotions of the actors,

I feel like this would build trust between them and he audience

therefore building a relationship between them.

Concept…My concept is narrative and performance based, it is based around a teenage relationship as they cope with the highs and lows of a relationship in the modern age, putting a literal meaning to the lyrics of my chosen song ‘Standing in the dark’.

The video is a continuous cross between present day and past.

The video opens with a piano based backing track while we explore the couples ‘Happy’ stage relationship, taking inspiration from the short films, the couple will always use ‘Rock, paper, scissors’, to decide where they will go next in their adventure.

The instrumental will then kick into the video, and the audience will see the boy led in his bed, the setting of the bed will be messy, with screwed up bed sheets and empty packets around him.

There will be continuous cuts between the performer on the bed and the ‘Happy’ stage of the relationship.

Concept the happy and the sad…

As with any music video, you have to rely on the introduction to set

the tone of the video.

As my video is strongly narrative based I will rely on the start of the

video to set the narrative so my audience understand the concept

of the video.

In order to make the narrative as realistic as possible, I want to

include a short little silence piece during the beginning of the video,

for this I will use the a piano backing track.

The juxtaposition of the sad backing track and the ‘Happy’ stage in

the relationship, will foreshadow to the audience the downfall of

their relationship.

Concept…

As with any story there is always 2 sides.

Therefore my video will focus on both sides of the story, for the first verse and chorus you will get the boy’s version of events and how he truthfully feels once the couple spilt.

Likewise, the second verse and possibly third verse will belong to the girl version of events.

I am doing this because no one views a break up in the same way, and they will both see what happened when they broke up and their lives now differently.

The theme of ‘2 sides’ will always be promented throughout the video.

Lyrics…Sitting here wide awake

Thinking about when I last saw you

I know you’re not far away

I close my eyes and I still see you

Lying here next to me

Wearing nothing but a smile

Gotta leave right away

Counting cracks along the pavement

To see you face to face

Thinking about the conversation

I know I’m not one to change

I’ve never wanted nothing more

But as I walk up to your door

I'm standing in the dark

She’s dancing on the table

I’m looking through the glass

She’s someone else’s angel

It may sound stupid that I'm wanting you back

But I'm wanting you back, girl

And now I’m standing in the dark, dark, oh

Dark, dark

All I want to do is hide

But I can’t stop myself from staring

Wishing his hands were mine

I can’t stop myself from caring

And as he turns down the lights

I’m feeling paralysed

And as he looks into her eyes

Yeah, alright

I'm standing in the dark

She’s dancing on the table

I’m looking through the glass

She’s someone else’s angel

It may sound stupid that I'm wanting you

back

But I'm wanting you back, girl

And now I’m standing in the dark, dark, oh

Dark, dark, oh

Dark, dark, oh

Dark, dark, ohh, oohh

I’m standing in the dark

I’m standing in the dark

I'm standing in the dark

She’s dancing on the table

I’m looking through the glass

She’s someone else’s angel

It may sound stupid that I'm wanting you back

But I'm wanting you back, girl

And now I’m standing in the dark, dark, oh

Dark, dark, oh

Dark, dark

She’s someone else’s angel

She’s someone else’s angel

As you can gather from the lyrics they relate highly to the emotions of losing someone,

therefore, I plan to zoom in on the literal meaning of the lyrics when filming my video, for

example, when the song states, “I close my eyes and I still see you” – my main

performer will open his eyes to see her lying there next to him, he will close his eyes

tightly and open them again to not see her there.

Blue – Boy Yellow – Both

Red – Girl

Conventions…

The conventions I plan to include are…

Close up

Lyrics and visuals

Systems of looking I.e. A performer looks at a phone

Iconography

Close up…

I plan to use a lot of shots throughout my music video, however the close up will be used through moments of emotion or intensity…

When the instrumental of ‘Standing in the dark’ comes in, I plan on using a close up of the boy’s eyes…

The camera will gradually cut outwards, revealing the whole space, while he stays looking directing into the camera, effectively setting the video and conveying the emotion.

Lyrics and Visuals….

This is perhaps one of the most creative elements…

Throughout some scenes in the music video, there will be lyrics present

For example, there is a scene in the bathroom where the boy goes to try and calm himself down after he fails to fall asleep, lyrics will be written in the steam of the mirror…

This will have lyrics on that link to that scene, for example ‘’She’s someone else’s angel’’ this shows that he literally cannot escape it anyway he turns.

Iconography…

This will hopefully be portrayed through what the main performer

wears…

For example, most artist of this genre normally wear, quite rocky/indie

clothes.

This fashion is popular within the genre, as shown by the bands and

artists I have researched, such as one republic and tom Odell, therefore I

feel styling my main performer like this will create an iconography.

Systems of looking…

Both my main performers will at some point look at a phone, as

in the story line they try and contact one another…

Therefore when this happens I want to do a close up of the

phone in order to allow the audience to see what they looking

at…