The image above shows the artist of our video, he name is Jack Thomas and is Jay's team-mate at their football team.
He is a keen musician who sings and can also play the guitar and piano. His passion for music makes him an ideal character for our music video as he can learn the lyrics to the song 'What A Life', and he can actually play the guitar so it doesn't look like he is simply putting his hand over the strings.
Due to the fact that he plays live music on a regular basis we may gain advantages such as his advice on certain shots or location, as he could give us a musicians perspective on the video. With him being a natural musician he is therefore confident in standing up in front of audiences, so filming in busy areas such as London should not cause a problem.
Here they are guys. They have been carefully thought about and planned in order to break your work up into manageable pieces and for this reason they are non-negotiable.
There is SO much to do this year and your ancillary tasks come out of your main task so getting that finished is of the utmost importance.
As well as this you have a huge amount of work to do on your Evaluation questions which are going to be more detailed in terms of content and more sophisticated in term of presentation so these will take you about a month to complete.
Monday 30th January 2012 - Rough Cut
(Feedback completed by Friday 3rd February)
Friday 24th February - FINAL CUT
Friday 9th March - BOTH ancillary tasks
Evaluation Question 1 - Thursday 15th March Evaluation Question 2 - Friday 23rd March Evaluation Question 3 - Friday 30th March (end of term)
Evaluation Question 4 - Friday 20th April
FINAL deadline for EVERYTHING finished and posted on your blog - Friday 27th April
Above is the copyright letter the group sent to Noel's record label:
Sour Mash Records
in which we wanted to ask for permission to use 'AKA...What A Life' for our music video.
A problem we encountered was that we could not find an e-mail address to contact Sour Mash Records, however we managed to find an address in London so we will therefore send a letter to the company and wait for a response.
The group will now await a response from the company deciding whether we can use their song or not. If we are not given permission to use the song we will need to re-plan and choose another song by a different artist.
The walkway leading up to the stadium could show as an effective area to film part of our music video, this is because the crowded area will portray many types of person as watching football is done by a varied group. If we go before an England match at night we could also catch the arch in the background as a shot, this will help show one of many landmarks in London which can show the different ethnicities and social groups of London.
Leake Street is a dedicated street art tunnel which is sometimes known as 'The Banksy Tunnel', the street was used for the 2008 Cans Festival which is primarly for street artists to show their work. This area would help show the varied culture in London as it differs greatly to the more upper class areas of London such as Westminster and Chelsea, as our main idea is to film a vast amount of cultures within London to show many types of life.
Southbank offers a whole host of landmarks such as Big Ben, The Houses of Parliament and The London Eye. Showing these famous landmarks will hopefully connote the idea of having a range of culture, religion and social class across London and thus portraying the varied lives people experience in the city. The Southbank also has many street performers which may help with some shots as a street performer's daily life will differ to the tourists surrounding them.
The area of Chelsea is a well known high class area of London, using this location will definitely help evoke the sense of varied cultures in the music video. This place will differ greatly to other areas we plan to visit as poorer regions such as East London will have a completely different culture to those in Chelsea, this could be heavily influenced by the variety of ethnicity in East London, where as West London is mainly white and of high social classes dominate as the area is expensive to live in. Having our artist in these areas will also be a clear way of showing how he has traveled London and experienced all the cultures and religions in those areas, thus showing a range of people's lives.
Filming within a tube station may prove difficult due to certain regulations, however if we are allowed to do so we may use tube stations such as Piccadilly Circus at busy times to film. Using a tube station to film will guarantee too show a diverse range of people as London's tube network is used by thousands daily, as we want to create an image of the variety of lives people live in London so go with the song 'AKA...What A Life'. Using the tube stations and filming the tube itself will also help show the areas of London and the famous attractions to London, as the tube network is widely known across the world.
The official video for the song 'AKA...What A Life' by Noel Gallagher was released on October 6th 2011.
This image is from Noel's official website which shows the video for the song and a short description for when the song is available for download. It also goes on to give a brief explanation to where it was filmed and who was involved, the actor and comedian Russell Brand plays a large part within the narrative of the video.
"Noel Gallagher has shot an amazing video for Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds' new single 'AKA… What A Life!'. The video was co-directed by Mike Bruce and Blake West, who worked with Noel on the video for 'The Death Of You And Me'. Filmed in California, Arizona and New Mexico, the video features an outrageous performance by actor / comedian Russell Brand"
Below is the video for the song which will therefore give us many new ideas for our own video, it may also evoke some problems for the group as we cannot plagiarize the original video.
The video for the song 'Wonderwall' by Oasis has reached over 30 million hits on YouTube, the song was released on 30th October 1995 and is probably the bands most famous song.
The start of the video shows an empty, almost derelict room with a record player situated in the centre of the shot. The Long shot used allows the audience to see the setting and possible trend the video will connote. The shot also shows a clown walking from right to left towards the record player, the diegetic sound of his footsteps shows a slow pace which is used to build the pace of the song up gradually. The clown then goes on to turn the record player on and an LP with 'Oasis' begins spinning, the close up used to show the LP is effective as it boldly promotes the band as the name of it takes up the whole shot which makes it easy to see the video is for an Oasis song. The desaturated effect may have been used to evoke a retro style is popular for the typical Alt Rock genre. It could also have been used to make the video more simplistic as the video is supposed to be about an "imaginary friend who's gonna come and save you from yourself", this quote from Noel Gallagher could show the video is trying to show someones imagination, if so the black and white effect works well as it's often used for a nostalgic theme or shots involved with people's memory.
The next stage of the video begins with the song starting, and the next scene is of Noel Gallagher playing an acoustic guitar. This is broke up into many shots which chronologically get closer to Noel with cuts to each shot as the song continues, it starts with a long shot which shows him isolated in the same room the clown was in before hand. This could continue the idea of an imaginary friend as when Noel is on screen the clown isn't, this could show he is within Noel's mind. The way in which each cut gets closer to Noel is effective as it could portray a sense of closeness between Noel and the audience, or the series of close ups could build a sense of voyeurism, which according to Andrew Goodwins's theory is a typical convention of music videos as the close up promotes the artist. The notion of looking is effective as it illustrates people watching the band which emphasizes its popularity within the Alt Rock genre.
The video also uses a range of narrative and performance shots, this is an ideal way of shooting a music video as it allows the audience to see the band playing the instruments and singing which actually makes the song, as well as a story which can be illustrated by the lyrics. The story in this video is about the clown being an imaginary friend to Noel Gallagher, and the clown is there to save Noel from himself. This idea was shown on Wikipedia (click for link) which Noel told to NME in 1996 about it being based on imaginary friends helping people overcome certain problems they face in life. Below is a short video which shows some of the performance and narrative shots within the music video.
The narrative shots above create the theme of the video, which is everyone needs an imaginary friend or place to go when they need saving from the pressures they face in reality. The shots of the clown reference the idea of the video and as they appear it may evoke a sense of imagination by Noel. The person juggling could create an idea that Noel's favourite imaginary place is to do with a circus, as a clown and juggling is often associated with a circus, these shots illustrate a subtle theme of imagination and possible nostalgia for Noel as the circus could play an important part of his life.
These shots are part of a continuous clip from the video, it shows Liam Gallagher singing part of the song with the rest of Oasis being faded in and out. This could show how Liam is the lead singer but it could also portray a sense of more importance, as he is in the shot through-out where the other band members are only in them for a few seconds each. The use of fades is seen many times within this video as it evokes a sense of imagination, the shots shown with the fades may have been used to add to the sense of nostalgia or imagination and to show the main singer in the band which is Liam Gallagher.
During the weekend I was reading 'The Sun' newspaper and within the 'ShowBiz' section I saw an image of Noel Gallagher, I then went on to read the featured article.
The article informed me that Noel Gallagher is to release a music video for his new song 'AKA...What A Life' which will feature Russell Brand. The video will apparently be shot in Mexico, California and Arizona. This may cause a potential problem as we do not want to copy his style, because we want to create our own original house style for the music video.
The news of Noel producing a video for the song is not all negative, as it may help us think of more possible shots to take and a method to follow the style. Although the video is to be shot in other countries it could still prove to be useful as we want to follow an Alt Rock image in our own video.
The Sun website also revealed some shots which will be used in the video. Here are three possible shots which will be seen when it's released.
The image above shows the artist of our video, he name is Jack Thomas and is Jay's team-mate at their football team.
