To the respective reviewer Jonathon Greensby of Q magazine,
It has come to our attention through your own blogging that the recent music video for Acoustic Plenty has been wildly acclaimed by the band on their blog; we must state clearly this does NOT represent our own understanding of the video.
We ourselves do not claim to have redefined the most common conventions of music videos but we can state with confidence that we have manipulated and twisted them to our own style and to the will of the band. This is seen in almost all music videos as the desire to make a unique video is in every band and director, it is impossible to make something completely original but we believe we’ve pushed the conventions hard enough to make a product that won’t have an exact replica.
But to answer you properly here is the evidence you desire.
1. Developing a narrative.
1. Developing a narrative.
This came from a range of inspirations and from existing music videos so we understand instantly the unoriginality of our video. Our main inspiration came from an artist Slinkachu which was an idea developed at the earliest stages of planning, this was proposed to the band and they complied, so the rest of the narrative was then formed around it. As you can see the correlation between his art work and our video is clear in using smaller characters in a much bigger surrounding but at the same time simulating these inanimate characters are living. Of course not meaning to steal this idea completely we changed the characters to a more mobile and iconic childish toy Playmobil, this allowed us to develop the idea of the characters moving which we simulated with Stop motion. We also developed the artist profile to a much more romantic disposition to allow the narrative to develop to the intended audience of young adults.
Slinkachu's work:
Our video:
We even stole inspiration from Blur's Coffee and TV whereby for the majority of 4 minutes we follow the narrative of the bold and brave milk pint trying to find a family's long lost son. This typically tries to evoke some sense of sympathy for what is essentially an inanimate object and is portrayed by a change in facial expression and a mixture of gleeful and panicked running. This may even relate the IKEA advert that manages to summon even the slightest amount of sympathy for yet again an object with no soul or possible self movement, and all through finding the right angle of camera shot.
IKEA advert:
But overall the idea to show 2 small characters being affected by the outside world came from Blur and was only changed to become our own version by making the story much more playful and suitable for a younger audience that doesn't want the simple narrative to end tragically.
Blur's Coffee and TV:
Our video:
2. Chronological band shots
To even state for a second that we believe this convention could be 're-invented' would go against all music video progression for the past 60 years. We do not even understand where our inspiration for this may have come from on a conscious level as this is such a well established way of creating a music video. We could however suggest that the way we have filmed this convention was inspired by the band Mumford and Sons on a very subconscious level. In their simplistic yet effective video for Winter Winds, shown below, they are filmed playing instruments in amongst open fields.
Our video:
We even stole inspiration from Blur's Coffee and TV whereby for the majority of 4 minutes we follow the narrative of the bold and brave milk pint trying to find a family's long lost son. This typically tries to evoke some sense of sympathy for what is essentially an inanimate object and is portrayed by a change in facial expression and a mixture of gleeful and panicked running. This may even relate the IKEA advert that manages to summon even the slightest amount of sympathy for yet again an object with no soul or possible self movement, and all through finding the right angle of camera shot.
IKEA advert:
But overall the idea to show 2 small characters being affected by the outside world came from Blur and was only changed to become our own version by making the story much more playful and suitable for a younger audience that doesn't want the simple narrative to end tragically.
Blur's Coffee and TV:
Our video:
2. Chronological band shots
To even state for a second that we believe this convention could be 're-invented' would go against all music video progression for the past 60 years. We do not even understand where our inspiration for this may have come from on a conscious level as this is such a well established way of creating a music video. We could however suggest that the way we have filmed this convention was inspired by the band Mumford and Sons on a very subconscious level. In their simplistic yet effective video for Winter Winds, shown below, they are filmed playing instruments in amongst open fields.
We simply copied this idea and redesigned to fit Acoustic Plenty's background and the type of music they produce. In this case it was showing the band busking in a park within a city. But the concept of taking the band and placing them in their familiar surroundings for performance art still remains. As Mumford and Sons did this to appeal mainly to their Folk and Indie followers we too filmed Acoustic Plenty in busking surroundings to make a connection to their followers of buskers and those who appreciate 'small time bands getting a break'. We personally chose to do this to avoid putting the band in a concert surround or simply on a stage as we believe this is the simplist version of the performance convention and has been replicated by everyone from Coldplay to Oasis to even Mumford and Sons themselves.
3. Repetition of camera shots
Again this is such a well established convention and not an open ended one at best, it cannot be re-invented. The start of modern music video making happened around the 80s when the rule book was being written and what was instantly established for most music videos was that the audience wanted to see the whole band, the individual members and the actions being conducted by their lips or hands. (long shot, mid shot, close up). Naturally this order doesn’t have to be repeated over and over, creativity allows for the order to be mixed up. We have simply taken this guide line and made it our own by using varying orders and even mixtures of different shots such as extreme close ups. To say our inspiration came specifically from one place is impossible because almost all music videos follow this simple convention. It would be nearer the truth to say our repetition of the extreme close up shot has come from Coldplay's Violet Hill whose video we watched closely to gain inspiration on reflecting an atmosphere.
Our video:
4. Keeping a running theme
Often a running theme throughout a music video is maintained by the genre of music because we all naturally associate certain images, colours and movements with certain types of music. For instance a violent classical composition would conjure up striking images of fighting or a chase scene whereas the strong lyrical tunes of a gentle folk song may give images of the country side. To make sure the jovial theme consistent in Acoustic Plenty's song's lyrics and tune was shown visually in the video, we had to create representations of joy and of young love. Of course this was shown by the character's love story but the feeling of autumn and the change that this season brings seemed to be apparent in the lyrics. This was decided because the season runs a kin to many iconic romantic scenes and has a warm feeling to it. As mentioned we determined the need to keep a running theme through analysing Coldplay's Violet Hill but as most music videos have a running theme to suit their genres we never established this inspiration from one source. We can however state that inspiration on how to show these themes was taken from the video for Air Traffic's 'No more running away'.
Overall we haven't created something new, we haven't personally boasted about our video and this was all created by over hype from an excited band. Thank you for reading and hopefully understanding.
