Our Final Song Choice...

After having another meeting, we decided for certain as a group that we want to produce a music video and digipack for the song Charmer by Kings Of Leon.

Here is the existing video of the song and the song's lyrics...



Song Lyrics:

Woah
She's such a charmer oh no.
Woah
She's such a charmer oh no.
Woah
She's always looking at me.
Woah
She's always looking at me.
Woah
She's such a charmer oh no.

She's stole my karma oh no.
Sold it to the farmer oh no.
She's always looking at me.
She's always looking at me.
She's such a charmer oh no.

Born in west virginia oh no.
Married to the preacher oh no.
Shes always looking at me.
Shes always looking at me.
Shes such a charmer oh no.

Shes always looking at me.
Shes always looking at me.
Shes such a charmer oh no. oh no.


One of the reasons we chose this song is because we thought the lyrics would provide us with lots of ideas for the narrative and performance aspects of the video. For example, when we had our meeting these are some initial ideas we came up with...

DATE: 24th September 2010
TIME: 9-11:45am
LOCATION: School Premises

MINUTES: We discussed the possibility of setting up a gig environment where the whole audience is female and they are all staring at the lead singer, reflecting the lyrics. This could be exaggerated into a story about a fan who stalks the band, etc. This gave us a few editing/filming ideas, such as a split screen showing four different girls or four different instruments (performance aspect) and we also discussed having a spotlight on one girl in the crowd and have her singled out and then film her dancing seductively in front of the lead singer. This idea came from the existing video for Men's Needs by The Cribs:



These are just some initial ideas but we plan to develop them further and eventually draw out a storyboard so that we are fully prepared before we begin to film anything.

Alternative Rock Moodboard

Now that we have chosen our final song (Kings Of Leon - Charmer) it is important that we carry out a lot of research into our chosen music genre and the iconography used in the genre's music videos, etc. in order to know what to include in our own video; to either comply with or challenge the conventions of an alternative rock video.

Here is a moodboard of images that I collected from search engines online such as Google, Bing and AskJeeves. The images helped me to understand the stereotypical images that people think of in relation to the alternative rock genre. Also, some of the images reflect the typical fashions of an alternative rock/indie band.


Alternative Rock Moodboard

This moodboard will really help us to decide what aspects we want to include in our music video, especially concerning the mise-en-scene of the video; costumes/props/instruments/etc.

Change of plan...

So after initially deciding to choose a ska (Toots and The Maytals) song, we thought we should do further research into other possible genres/songs before making any final decisions so we managed to narrow it down to these three songs...

1. Toots and The Maytals - 54-46 Was My Number

Pros - Lively beat/tempo, good opportunities for interesting editing (stops in the music)

Cons - Reggae genre is more difficult for us to create a believable setting for.

2. The Rolling Stones - Jumping Jack Flash

Pros - The song is quite upbeat and has lyrics that we could easily create a believable narrative to.

Cons - Everyone knows this song and there is a small likelihood that we would produce a video that wouldn't irritate existing fans of the song/band.

3. Kings Of Leon - Charmer

Pros - Lyrics can very easily be used to our advantage for the narrative ("she's always looking at me"), good bass line, interesting vocals which gives us potential for interesting editing and the current video isn't anything spectacular. This song has not really made it mainstream so not as many people will know it, etc.

Cons - The beat is fairly repetitive (apart from the bridge/breakdown, etc.)

After this meeting discussing our three final choices and the pros and cons of them, it seems as though the best choice would be Charmer by Kings Of Leon. We all love the song and it had the most pros of the three!

Meeting Log...

From now on I will be recording every meeting we have as a group on my blog and what happened in the meeting so that when we look back over the year of research, planning and production we will be able to read over our meeting logs and write a much more detailed evaluation of the year's work. This will be my first meeting log of the year:

DATE: 17th September 2010
TIME: 13:45-15:20
LOCATION: School Premises
TOPIC: Choice Of Genre and Possible Songs

MINUTES: We discussed the possibility of doing a ska song for our music video as we all like that genre of music and we thought it would be nice to use something a bit different rather than a current popular song. We considered using a song by Toots and the Maytals from the start of the film This Is England but after discussion we are not sure if we could come up with a concept that would match the song, so we might do a song by the band the kinks or the specials. We will need further discussion on this but we decided to go away from the meeting and each research into different songs and then come back and make a more educated decision on which song to choose.

Genre Theory

What is genre?

• Genre is an essential tool that enables us to study texts and audience responses to those texts by dividing them into categories based on common aspects.
• DANIEL CHANDLER (2001) argues that the word 'genre' comes from the French (and originally Latin) word for 'kind' or 'class'. The term is widely used in rhetoric, literary theory and media theory to refer to a distinctive type of 'text'.

Sub-genres?

• Sub-genres are genres divided into more specific categories that allow audiences to identify them specifically by their familiar and what become recognisable characteristics (Barry Keith Grant, 1995)
• Steve Neale (1995) stresses that "genres are not 'systems' they are processes of systemization" i.e. They are dynamic and evolve over time.
• Jason Mitchell (2001) argues that genres are cultural categories that surpass the boundaries of media texts and operate within industry audience and cultural practices well.
• industries use genre to sell products to audiences.
• music video is a medium intended to appeal directly to youth sub-cultures (to promote a band/artist)

Secondary Sources Moodboard...

Secondary Sources Storyboard

Here is my secondary research mood board of images that I would relate to ska as a music genre. The colours black and white clearly represent the sharp aspect of ska, not only the music itself but everything else involved in the culture. For example, the humour, the fashion, the attitude, etc. It is interesting to see how music as a genre can have such an impact on the listeners life in every possible way. Bands such as the Madness, The Specials and The Toasters were very influencial ska bands of the time and many londoners would have been influenced by their music.

Possible Songs...

These are a few songs that I had initially thought about creating a music video for before consulting with the rest of the group...

• The Kinks - All Day and All Night/You Really Got Me


• The Jam - Town Called Malice


• No Doubt - Any Song


• Madness - Our House/Baggy Trousers


• Paramore - Any Song


• etc.

However, after discussing with the rest of the group about what music genre would be most interesting to create a video to, we decided it would be best to choose something that was less popular or less known at this time because then there are less likely to be fans that are irritated by our attempt to make a new and better video to any official existing ones.

We decided eventually that we wanted to do a song from the Ska music genre and we narrowed it down to a couple of different songs. At the moment we have chosen a song by Toots and The Maytals called 54-46 Was My Number after watching the film This Is England. The song is right at the start of the film and we all loved the atmosphere the song creates.

Here is the song at the start of the film This Is England: