Music videos analysis

This is the music video for Enter Shikari's "No Sleep Tonight" released in August 2010. The song is about how big business men are using oil companies to make money when actually the world has sufficient technology to carry on without it. Therefor they are just using them to make money when they causing a ridiculous amount of pollution. The band is questioning how these business men can sleep at night; hence the title "No Sleep Tonight". This is just my opinion but it is widely shared when the song uses lyrics such as "The sun and see could power us, no longer cowled in oil lust."

The video shows mostly the narrative of a big important oil baron who is being followed by the lead singer. By the end of the video, the whole band plus a lot of extras are outside the business mans house and keeping awake by shouting the chorus at him.

At the start we see the lead singer walking past the business man and he barges past to display his importance and lack of respect for other people. This sets up the characteristics of this character for the audience; the probably have taken a disliking to him already. It is this man that is going to be the main source of attraction through out the video.

A little while later during the first chorus, amongst the band playing live, there is a scene where the business man pushes his wife away because he is on the phone making "an important call". This shows he's extreme selfishness and his ignorance to what really matters. He would rather make an extra pound than have the love of his wife. Another example of his self centered ego is when he is working out in front of the mirror and smiles at himself.

The next message given through the video is when the man is walking down the corridor in his house. He has various canvas photos on his wall of disasters over the world caused by his actions. He looks at at them and smiles as if to say he is proud of what he has done; but the song is asking him how on earth can you sleep at night? He then turns round to see hundreds of people outside his house asking him the same question. It gradually turns him insane as he realises that he in fact isn't getting any sleep. The band are definitely having a go at big oil companies who only think about short term profit, and how they are basically paying scientists to speak out and say that climate change and global warming isn't really and it isn't happening and that we should just carry on as we are. Thus they wonder how these people sleep at night. Personally i agree with the band; it is behavior like that that has caused the current state of our planet.

Weather!!!

Yes it's a typical English trate to moan about the weather but in this case it is a genuine issue. We want to film the scenes involving the rabbits on a sunny day because it suits the mood alot more, however its January and sunny days are hard to come by. It doesn't have to be a hot summers day, just a day where the sun is out.

Fingers crossed to have it done within the next week or so.

Storyboards Part 1

Rabbits storyboard

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Above are the storyboard ideas for our music video, we will try to stick to them as much as possible but obviously in the editing process and along the way, new ideas pop up and we may want to change some of the ideas. Also just to add, this is only the first half of the song, the second half is still yet to come.

Importing issues with Final Cut

Having filmed all of the footage in HD makes everything look a lot clearer and makes a much better final product. However the files are in MPEG4 format which Final Cut can't work with, so we had to convert it. This was actually alot harder than we thought; we tried to convert it within Final Cut itself and with other built in software but we ended up resulting to other downloaded software to convert our HD MPEG4 footage into HD MOV files so we can then work with them smoothly in Final Cut.

A long process!

Filming!

It's been a long and strenuous task, but after a lot of blood, sweat and tears, we have done most of the filming for the "live performance" part of the video. To do this we had to arrange a day in which we could all make, get all of our equipment from our houses to our shooting location, get 2 HD cameras with tripods then get all the necessary shots that our story boards suggested (which i will post shortly) we needed, all of which had to be n time with the track so we had to use a PA system to play the track from and get it to go louder than the drum kit which is the only instrument which is meant to be heard when filming; all guitars and such can be mimed.

This sounds like a lot to do and makes it seem like it would be a tough task, and that is exactly right. It was very stressful and a lot of hard work!

Now we just have to film the shots which involve rabbit costumes and such... and then we begin editing!

Album Cover analysis - Dark Side Of The Moon - Pink Floyd

This is the album cover for Pink Floyd's "Dark Side Of The Moon" which is the 3rd best selling album of all time. At first glance it doesn't look like much at all. There is no sense of normality or convention.

First of all there is no album name, nor is there the artists name. Why? Somehow or another this has been one of the most effective artworks ever created nd yet they have managed to achieve this without the audience even knowing what band has created it, or the name of the album. It could be argued that in fact the lack or identification on the front would confuse the audience and bring out their curiosity, forcing them to look at the album closer. But surely it would make more sense to say that most people wouldn't be that bothered by it and would walk straight past it if it was on the shelf of a record store. This may have been the case since it didn't actually sell that well in the UK originally, it was much bigger in the US.

But lets look at what actually is there. The symbol in the middle is something recognised by scientist and is to do with the refraction of light through a prism. This denotes that the band are actually quite well educated if they know scientific symbols but then at the same time connotes what the album is actual about; conflict, greed, ageing, and mental illness. A lot of issues in the society they lived in. So I would say that they symbol is actually a metaphor for life itself. The first years are great, all they way on the go, nothing to stop you, and then suddenly, everything changes, and you have all these problems in your own little world. I also get the impression that this idea is followed through by the black background; as if to say that is literally it, life is just there, in the middle of nothing with no apparent meaning. It is very hard to depict from something so simple and plain.

Other people have come up with all sorts of ideas. That it is a symbol of love or relationships, some say that it is about war and government empowerment. Who is to say which is right but it does bring up a valid point, that is it very abstract and left down to audience interpretation which is normally done with post modern art. Doing with artwork for an album cover is quite risky in my opinion because I believe that an album cover should have all the vital information on it first before metaphorical pictures come anywhere near the design. But that's the great thing about music, everyone has their own way of displaying it and interpreting it.

Lip Sync Complete!