Ideas & Inspirational Music Videos

After looking at various music videos it was clear that the most achievable video to make was likely to be a performance based video with cut aways. Many mainstream artists as well as other genres take on this technique for their music videos and it has almost become what we expect to see when we watch a music video, no matter what the genre of music is.


Some music videos that have contributed to my ideas are:




I really liked the used of shadows and projection in this video. The dark colour scheme but with hints of colour through the image being projected and the lights worked really well, giving it that indie feel. The simplicity worked really well and the bands body language and facial expressions gave it that slightly grungy feel of indie/rock music. They are not peppy and trying to act like pop stars, clearly connoting the genre. This therefore means that when creating our music video we should keep the concept simple and not over the top as this would draw the attention of our target audience. Furthermore we should pay close attention to our bands body language and facial expression, making sure that they are giving the correct message and fit within the genre.

This video gave us the idea of using a rural area. However for more indie rock music they usually use more urban, dingy areas. However I really liked the camera shots in this video. The close ups of the artists face help the audience to identify with the musician with out  him being 'in their face'. The pans along the guitar as he played it worked really well and I felt we would be able to replicate this with our band. I also really liked the 'letters in a bottle' linking back to the name of the song. It's subtle as well as being completely explicit. This gave us the idea of maybe using some sort of prop in our music video that links back to the song name/band name that is subtle but also can't be missed. We could also try out some of the shots of the artist and the instruments in our video as well.





The first thing I liked about this video was the filter used at the very beginning. It gave it almost a retro feel as if the footage was like a flash back to summer, which instantly gave it that young, care free feel often linked to indie musicians. However it then cuts to the low key lighting of the performance footage. Again the mise-en-scene is dark but they add hints of colour through the spot lights which I really liked as it gave it the live feel as if it was the lights on the stage. The other thing that this video inspired me with was the cut aways. They were all footage of the band 'chilling out' as if the viewer was seen them in their own / backstage / private time. This made it seem as though you were getting to know the band better, making the video more appealing. I liked that in the cut aways they were seen being themselves and they connoted the cheeky, carefree attitude of the band. Therefore in our cut aways I feel like we should try to show the characteristics of each band member and what they are like as individuals as well as a whole band. Furthermore they used urban locations again, which we should also include in our video as it will help to clearly present our genre.





   The first shot in this video is a long shot of an urban street presumably in a large US city. This could also be an idea for our first shot, using an establishing shot. Again the low key lighting was one of the first things I spotted. The use of hand held camera right at the begining to introduce the band made the video feel raw, which is the complete contracts of the 'perfect' videos produced for the big pop artists, which clearly helps to introduce the genre from the outset. My favourite shot from the whole video is around 0.48 where we can see his silhouette standing. As he is against a black background with a spotlight between him and the wall. I thought this shot was great for something a bit different and to create an impact. Therefore this has inspired me to try and make good use of shadows and silhouettes in our video.