Ryan Baxter, Adam Cunliffe and Daniella Johnston

Ideas Report

Lyrical MeaningThe name of the song ‘Use Somebody’ suggests feelings of loneliness and longing for somebody. This could be ambiguous for using a person in order to get something that the person want which could include exploiting, taking advantage and being selfish. The themes of this song include love, selfishness, loneliness and relationships. There will also be visual ideas that relate to this, for example there will be separate shots of the lead singer with the band and also alone so comparisons can be made. There will be contrasting shots of his life, we could also include live performances from the band showing they can use and need each other. ‘Someone Like You’ implies he has already seen the type of person he looking for, by not mentioning the name of the person, we assume this person is from a distance, so they haven’t met. ‘While you live it up, I’m off to sleep’ suggests that he doesn’t get to live a normal life and have the freedom to go out and enjoy himself, we could introduce this by using binary opposition between the lives of the band and the lives of someone who doesn’t have the fame. ‘Waging wars to shape the poet and the beat’ from this we can see opposites which suggests that they have opposite lifestyles, so this could be introduced by the use of montages and fast paced editing.

Type of video – Concept/Narrative/PerformanceIn terms of concept, we could create feelings of loneliness, jealousy, love and other emotions portrayed within the lyrics of the song so we can relate to it and empathise with the band.

In terms of performance, we could film the band playing together for example during live performances or rehearsing. We could also have shots of the vocalist singing towards the camera.

In terms of a narrative, we could base it on the lead singer longing for somebody from a distance, someone who he has never met, or someone who he sees every day. The video could not contain any shots of the band and instead just have characters in the narrative, for example we could show a day in the life of a group of friends showing that they all need each other.

The combination of all three styles could be used as the narrative could cut to a from shots of the band performing.

Ryan Baxter, Adam Cunliffe and Daniella Johnston

IconographyThis could include Industrial/urban landscapes, City of Manchester’s night life, Instruments – iconic of rock music for example guitars and microphones, cars and traffic to represent their hectic lifestyle and travelling when touring, smoking/drink to show the stereotype of rebellion, Money – to represent power/fame/success, leather jackets, motorcycles and band members having piercings and tattoo’s.

Genre conventions – Rock.In order to fulfil the conventions of rock we will need to include; use of black and white, use of night rather than daylight, on stage performances, screaming crowds/fans, dark colours, stereotypes of rebellion and power, backstage footage, gestures of male friendship for example the band doing stuff together, playing of instruments, juxtaposition of opposites, faced paced motion editing, men are subjects and women are objects, montage of industrial settings, wide shots of the band playing together and shadow and low key lighting.

Camera work/cinematographyEstablishing shots near the beginning would be effective as it will create a mood for the video. Tracking and panning shots of the setting will establish the setting and start the narrative. Wide long shots of the band will be them performing together or in a bar, this will represent the unity of the band with them being in shots close together. Close ups could be used on the instruments being played for example a hand playing a guitar to show the iconography and empathise the genre. Eye line match could be used between the lead singer and other characters in the video perhaps his love interest or just something else he is looking at. Lip sync will have to be used when matching the mouth movements in shots to the actual soundtrack to make it more professional. Two shots could be used when two characters are in a frame, low and high angle shots can be used during the performance of the band and a focus pull could be used at the start and the end of the video as it will change the depth of field and bring something that is in focus out of focus.

CharactersThe band, love interest, screaming fans, camera crew, majority are male (to highlight the genre rock which is male dominated), groups of friends, one obsessive fan maybe.

Ryan Baxter, Adam Cunliffe and Daniella Johnston

General Mise en SceneFor settings, we could have; travelling on the road, backstage, in a bar, onstage/live performances, in their apartments, Manchester city centre, on a beach. For lighting we could have; low key lighting, shadows, high key lighting and black and white. For costumes we could have; generally dark clothing, tattoos and piercings, tight/skinny jeans, facial hair, messy ‘rugged’ look, leather jackets, sunglasses and designer clothing to fulfil the connotations of rock. For props we could have; instruments, money, beer bottles, cigarettes, cars, pool/snooker tables.

Editing and digital effectsWe could have cuts to make shots blend more smoothly which will make it look more professional. We could have slow motion, also a cross dissolve which could be 2 overlapping shots to highlight the contrast between them so we can compare. We could have a montage with fast paced editing during the instruments parts of the song, it could also be fast paced during the faster parts of the performance and slower during the slow parts of the performance, we could have split screen to show two videos at once which could be useful for a narrative. We could superimpose one video on top of another so that we can show two different scenes at once, this could be done during the montage I mentioned earlier.