Basic Process Of Song Choice

Road To "What A Life" on Prezi

Above is a simple Prezi presentation which shows the process of our song choice of Noel Gallagher's 'AKA...What A Life' which is to be released on his bands new album 'Noel Gallaghers High Flying Birds'.

The ability to use Prezi is very useful in this case as it allows the user to click to see the show from start to end, as well as zooming out to see the whole presentation as a whole and therefore choose what areas of the presentation they wish to read.

What A Life lyrics

Lyrics Noel Gallagher lyrics - AKA... What A Life lyrics


The lyrics to the song of 'What A Life' have enabled us to create ideas of potential shots, as the song uses basic equipment such as an acoustic guitar and Noel's voice we can have shots with our artist with a guitar miming to the song.

The lyrics "chasing down that rainbow" and "take this tiger out for a ride" have given us ideas for shots such as the hustle and bustle of London streets, with people commuting to and from work. This may prove difficult as some places such as Rail Stations may not allow us to film inside, due to security reasons. However we will ask for permission and if we can take some shots in a rail station it may be a possibility for the video.

The chorus of the song could possibly sho

w people of London going about their daily routes and work. As the line "what a life" could show other peoples lives in relation to our performers life or just what he witnesses during his time in the city. This could range from the shoppers in Oxford Street to people living on the streets. We have not yet decided what time of day to film the shots, however we all like the idea of starting the video at dawn and ending the video at dusk, this will therefore show continuity and have a simple flow to go with the lyrics.

Another shot when "what a life" is sung could be part performance, with our artist miming the words within the streets or other location we choose. The image we may portray of our artist could be a busker, as we feel a busker in London will see many different people and experience different types of life as London is full of unique people. The shots could include Point Of View shots from passers-by who are watching the busker, this could create a sense of voyeurism.

Other lyrics to the song such as "maybe you dream" could show people with a facial expression

showing they are thinking about their life, and maybe how they want a more fulfilling life. This

could include someone after work or on a lunch break at a cafe or bar, thus portraying an idea of regret or sorrow during the song. A person with their face in their hands I feel would be an affective shot for this lyric as it easily shows despair or a high level of stress.

Alternative Rock

The song 'What a life' by Noel Gallagher is classed as Alternative Rock which emerged in the 1980's. The genre itself is made up of sub-genres such as Grunge, Brit-Pop, Indie-Pop, Rock-Pop and Gothic Rock, these sub-genres were influenced by the ethos of Punk Rock back from the 1970's and 1980's.

Other examples of Alternative Rock artists can be seen in a short video I created:

In the early 1990's the form of Brit-Pop was introduced by the media, this classed bands such Oasis, Blur and Pulp. The formation of these bands were to compete with the American Grunge scene, and they showed similarities to other genres such as Punk Rock and Glam Rock. Oasis was the most popular Alternative Rock band of the 1990's, with their album (What's The Story) Morning Glory being the third best selling British album in history.

More recent Alternative Rock bands such as The Strokes, Franz Ferdinand and The Killers found commercial success in the 2000's. The magazine Entertainment Weekly said in 2004 "After almost a decade of domination by rap-rock and nu-metal bands, mainstream alt-rock is finally good again."

Soccer AM Website

During our group discussions over possible songs to use for our music video we all selected an Alt Rock genre, as this genre is popular between us.

Jay visited the Soccer AM website as he knew there was a section about music the show uses, we all thought this would be an effective idea as the show often uses less famous songs by a wide range of artists. After listening to a selection of songs Jay came across a Noel Gallagher track which was played on one of the previous shows, after all listening to it we agreed it was an ideal song as it was fairly unknown. As the song 'AKA...What A Life' by Noel Gallagher was popular between the group we did struggle to find inspiration of what type of video it could be, we therefore played the song and brainstormed possible ideas.

The image shows where the song was found on the website. Although the song was reasonably unknown at the time there is a risk of it becoming very popular as the show did promote it to its thousands of weekly watchers. If the song does eventually become more popular and a video is released we will have to ensure our video shows some similarity but has our own unique style, as we do not want to plagiarize the original video.

The Group's Song Choice

The song choice was extremely important for the whole A2 course, as the video we create will correspond with the song.

We had a group discussion on the song we will use for our video which showed so many different artists, we all decided on the general genre of the song which was between Indie and Rock. The artists we discussed to use ranged from:


The Kooks, Coldplay, Oasis, The Rifles, Two Door Cinema Club, Kings of Leon

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After discussion we preferred to use a song by Coldplay called 'Clocks', however the band is one of the most famous british bands of this era, so therefore we decided that making a music video for one of their songs may be too challenging as they are 'too famous'. We also discussed using a song by Plan B called 'Hard Times', we agreed that the song created many ideas for a video, however as Plan B is known worldwide we felt using him would be difficult as he already has many music videos out and connotes a certain style in many of them, therefore we would have had to copy his style and therefore the video would not be original. We therefore decided to use a song which is fairly unknown, which proved difficult as researching a song you haven't heard of is very time consuming.

After individual research Jay suggested a song by Noel Gallagher, which is 'AKA...What A Life' which has recently been used on the Vauxhall motor advert and had been on the TV show Soccer AM a few weeks earlier. After listening to the song in both studio and live format we decided to use the studio version as the sound was crisper and had clearer vocals.

Another reason for choosing this particular song was that it hasn't got a music video as of yet, this therefore allows us to be more creative with our video as we cannot copy any ideas from the original music video, as there isn't one.



Music Playlist at MixPod.com

The Box Music Channel

I have looked on Wikipedia and The Box website to find out when and where it formed. Looking at these websites has shown what types of music The Box plays on its many shows, from this I can see if we chose to have The Box play our video it would be on the programme UK Airplay. Even though this could be appropriate for our song 'What A Life' by Noel Gallagher as The Box operates in the UK which is mainly Noel Gallagher's audience, I feel that MTV would be more suited as it is a larger corporation than The Box.

The Box is a TV channel in the United Kingdom and Ireland. The channel was formed in April 1992 and is one of many within the Box Television network, a joint venue between Channel 4 and Bauer Group. The channel mainly broadcasts music videos, although it also features other music-related programming from 4Music. The channel broadcasts 24 hours a day with Teleshopping shown late at night.

Here are some of the programmes available on The Box:

• UK Hot 40
• Fresh4Summer!
• UK Airplay
• VIP Track of The Week
• The Crush Party Bangers Top 20
• Teleshopping

Brief History

The channel was brought to the United Kingdom by Vincent Monsey (of Radio Caroline fame) and his partner Liz Laskowski, who discovered the channel in Miami in 1991 as The Jukebox Network. The UK company, Video Jukebox Network International Limited, was formed in 1991 and the channel was launched in 1992 as THE BOX in the early days of cable television.

This information was taken from Wikipedia (Click for link)

Effective Camera Shots

I visited the website YouTube to find videos which use shots that I think are memorable and in general look professional. I tried to search for a range of music genres as at this stage the group haven't decided on a song to choose for our video. This will hopefully help us decide on a genre for our video and hopefully narrow that down to a song choice. The videos chosen are all fairly popular which I think shows they are professionally made and therefore the shots used can be mimicked to some extent for our video.

Coldplay - Every Teardrop is a Waterfall - Click for link

This clip is from 0.00 - 0.06 of the music video, it was shot in downtown Los Angeles and the city skyline with the sun rising is very effective. I believe this as it's the start of the day and therefore the start of the song. This type of Wide Shot works when there is a slow start as it's subtle and allows the music to build up as the sun rises up the image. Using a similar shot in my video however, will take time as the sun rises slowly and would use a lot of film, it is still a possible shot which can be done if it fits the chosen song.

Ed Sheeran - The A Team - Click for link

This shot is very powerful and shows a lot of emotion. This connotes with the song as it is based on a homeless woman who has a heroin addiction, and is also a prostitute. The Close Up shot of her face shows her teary eyes and worried facial expression, I believe this is effective as it enables the viewer to see how she has no choice of the life she lives. The black and white effect gives her a dark persona, which could show she see's no way of escaping her lifestyle. The frightened expression however, helps the audience realise she doesn't want to carry on in this way, and therefore sympathy is evoked from the shot.

Wretch 32 - Don't Go- Click for link

This shot shows a reflection of Wretch 32 in a puddle. The shot itself may be based as a point of view shot for Wretch 32, the fact it is a reflection may emphasise how the singer is in a reflective or sorrow state of mind. There is also a use of over-cranking during this shot which adds to the reflective or even regretful persona of Wretch 32. I like this effect as it prolongs the feeling of regret which is the basis of the whole song.


Kanye West - Jesus Walks - Click for link

The video to this song portrays the discrimination towards African-Americans. This shot shows a chain of slaves marching together, with them also marching to the heavy beat of the song. I believe this is effective as the video corresponds to the track, which helps the song and video flow easily. The black and white effect used also adds to the dark persona of the song, which I believe creates a powerful message to the audience about the terrible times of the slave era.

Jay Z - Empire State of Mind - Click for link


The use of a cross dissolve is a very nice effect in this video. The way it changes from Alicia Keys playing the piano to the city of New York may be used to show a change in time, if not the way it has been shot definately shows a sense of professionalism. The location was chosen to pay homage to the hometown according to Alicia Keys and Jay Z. I like the idea of using a cross dissolve as it can show two different people in different situations, which is common in many music videos.

All images were taken from videos on Youtube.com