4. finding a song research
- 1. When we were first put into our media coursework groups there was initially four of us; Fahad, T’Sharwn and Jaiden. However after deliberation we realised that the group may be too large therefore we decided to split up after asking our teacher for permission which she granted. The group now stands as me and Fahad, which I was happy with as he was in my coursework group last year, therefore we are familiar with each other and work well and comfortably together. We were told that we could choose whatever song we wanted, and from whatever genre, but we had to bear in mind that if we decided to choose a song that was by a signed artist with a record deal then we had to email them and ask for their permission, and be prepared if they said no, and have to choose another. We were also told that if we didn’t want to do this, then we could choose an unsigned artist, where we could use their track without going through the hassle of asking permission. After being set the task we of choosing a song over the weekend, me and Fahad decided to pick and choose whichever ones interested us, and then report back on Monday and come to a final decision.
- 2. Firstly I decided to look at songs that I knew well and was familiar with. I decided to rule the genres such as RnB and Rap out of the equation as I thought this would be too difficult to film and also I thought that we would not be able to find the appropriate kind of actor to play this part. I started my search on www.youtube.com Although I enjoy listening to Rap, after watching the music videos I realised that conforming to this genre would be difficult as they consist of a lot of people and also the locations would be difficult to film in e.g. garages. Also, because the rapping is so fast it would be difficult to match visuals to it.
- 3. I then decided to look at some music videos which feature teenagers as our main character would most probably be one of our peers which fall under this category also. The singers that came to mind were Taylor Swift and Carly Jae Repson. Taylor Swifts ‘ teardrops on my guitar’ started with a school scene in the corridors which immediately attracted me as this would be easy to film and re enact because we are in the sir john Cass building at all times. From watching Carly Jae Repsons music video “call me maybe” I straight away liked the idea behind it, which was a girl pining over a boy she knew. I thought that this idea wasn’t too difficult to incorporate into our music video and that we could add a sense of humour into it too. Additionally, the actors and actresses in the music video were teenagers which was ideal for us because the actor and actress we would find would most likely be a teenager too.
- 4. In “call me maybe” there is a scene of her performing and singing to the camera which I liked and thought that we could maybe put into our music video. I liked the snappy quick changing camera shots as I felt it added more excitement to the music video. However because of the location which here was a garage I wasn’t completely sure because it would e difficult finding The performance scene in “call me out we could film in. maybe” reminded me of this song by passenger “let her go”. I liked the whole indie folk theme of the song with the guitar and I also liked the music accompying it, however I thought that it would be hard to match the visuals with the lyrics. I however did like the performance scene in this one as I thought it was much more manageable and easier as there was a black background which we could easily re-enact.
- 5. After looking at signed artists and still not being completely satisfied I decided to look at some unsigned artists on the website www.jamndo.com There was so many options on this website that I didn’t know where to start, therefore I pressed the side bar which said “top 10 of all genres – view more” and I was taken to a page with all the popular songs of the website.
- 6. After searching through endless songs I came across an artist called “Tamara Laurel” what first interested me was her album cover which featured a teenage looking girl which made me click on her songs available. I immediately liked all of her songs because they had the Taylor Swift and Carly Jae Repson theme in it, which is what I wanted initially. After listening to her songs many times, it came down between the songs “sweet” and “there is a line” as they were both very similar. I took these two songs and showed my group member Fahad who coincidently had also chosen two of her songs! We sat down for an hour and we decided that we liked “there is a line” the most because the lyrics were simple and we would be able to match the visuals with it easily. Additionally, what we got from the lyrics was that there is a girl that is love with a guy that doesn’t know it yet, therefore we knew that we would be able to find many more examples of similar music videos to use for inspiration such as “call me maybe” and “teardrops in my guitar” if we got stuck or needed inspiration. Another benefit of choosing an unsigned artist is that there was no need for us to go through the hassle of emailing and asking for permission.