GroupPitch2
- 1. GROUP PITCH Combined Ideas & Plans
- 2. THE BACKGROUND OF THE BAND Dinner and Suit are an American, alternative rock band based in Tennessee and was formed in 2008. The band was formed when cousins Jonathan Capeci and Joey Beretta began writing music together. Along with recruiting their long time friend Anthony Genca to play bass, the cousins built a band playing with various drummers in their first year. They have played alongside other bands such as Imagine Dragons and Lawson. The band's name is a tribute to Joey and Jonathan's great-grandmother. As Jonathan tells it: “Joey and I are cousins and our great-grandmother was a seamstress who made and repaired clothes during the early part of the 20th century. When the factory that employed her would discard suits, she would take them home and spend her free time mending them. It was the Great Depression and times were tough for everyone. Wanting to make a difference in her own way, she made it a common practice to invite people who were down on their luck over to the house, cook for them and just spend time with them. When they left, she would give them one of the suits she was finished working on. Our family would tell us that they left her home with ‘dinner and a suit’ – and hence the name.”
- 3. WHY THIS IS SUITABLE FOR A MUSIC VIDEO There are a few factors that brought our attention to this song and which persuaded us to choose it as the one to create the music video for. The first reason is because of the lyrics. When analysing the lyrics true emotion was revealed and we saw this song had the potential to evoke genuine feelings from an audience. It meant that as soon as we heard this song we immediately had a sense of narrative to go with it and because we all connected to it, we initially had many ideas to brainstorm with. Secondly, the song is slow paced. We deliberately chose a song that was a ballad because we felt it would be easier to create the content for. When a song is upbeat and energetic, there is pressure for lots to be going on at all times. We did not want to restrict ourselves this way because we thought the emotion and true narrative ran the risk of becoming lost. Finally, we liked the fact that this song is sung by a young, American band. These type of artists in the music industry are currently very popular, for example, One Direction and The Vamps. We can gain inspiration from their existing music videos.
- 4. SHOTS THAT INSPIRED US These shots resemble an idea we have thought about including in our own music video. They were taken from the music video for One Direction’s “Story Of My Life” single. Our idea for some of the content for our video includes flashbacks and then an element of them disappearing. This is demonstrated here although slightly differently, as the element that changes in these shots are the members of the group being all grown up. The fact that our idea has already been similarly portrayed by a famous band in the music industry, gives us confidence that our idea has the potential to be successful.
- 5. GENRE Dinner and a Suit are an alternative rock band, this genre of music emerged from the independent music underground in 1980’s and became widely popular by the 1990’s. The 'alternative' definition refers to the genre's distinction from mainstream rock music, expressed primarily in a distorted guitar sound and generally nonchalant, defiant attitude. During the late 1990s and early 2000s, several alternative rock bands emerged, including The Strokes and Franz Ferdinand that drew from post-punk and new wave. Post-punk revival artists such as The Killers had commercial success in the early and mid 2000s. By 2010, in the United States the term alternative rock fell out of common usage and the term indie rock was used. Alternative Rock has become very popular in recent years and perhaps this is due to how it differs from other genres of music is why it has become popular, it has given a calm sense of Rock.
- 6. THE SONG The song ‘Enough’ is from Dinner and a Suit’s EP called Too Late. It is written about the singer’s past relationship, and the person who the song is written about must have broken up with him, as suggested by the lines “what did they tell you that made you write?” and “Maybe I wasn’t what you were after all”. The song lyrics are very repetitive so it can be assumes that the song was written as a train of thought, possibly regretful. The singer is questioning the subject’s motive for leaving the relationship. Other than this there is not much of a storyline in the song so we have had to imagine one, mainly including a break up at the beginning and flashback/memories of the couple when they were together and happy. The singer will lip synch throughout the video and we will have a band performance to follow the conventions of a music video.
- 7. CASTING This is Dylan and he has agreed to be cast as the main character for our music video. The main character is the artist who will be singing the song. The reason we picked Dylan is because he is a young, good looking, lad and so it is believable that he could be part of a band. We have decided to only include him as a main character in the music video even though he is included in a band. This is because for the majority of the time the audience can only hear one voice singing the lyrics apart from backing vocals. We will feature the rest of the band when the video cuts to the content of them performing live e.g. a guitarist and drummer. ? ? ? ? The reason we have kept the second main character a secret is because the process of choosing the person is still taking place. We have a list of people we are considering for the part but have not come to a decision. Something which we are brainstorming is whether this character is a boy or a girl. The music video will be about a couple’s relationship, and so why can’t that be a gay couple? We are trying to think outside the box so that our music video has the repeatability edge to it but is also relative to the audience. There are some practical elements to this though and the whole concept is something the group need to discuss further.
- 8. CINEMATOGRAPHY Camera shots: music videos tend to consist of many different camera shots edited together. Our music video will use a range of shots: like most close ups will be used to show the main singer, long shots to show different characters moving, tableaux shots to show the band performing together and also establishing shots, to set the scene of the video. There is a chance of us using other shots as well, but for our initial ideas, these are shots that we are planning on using for now. Camera movements: as we have an extremely low budget for making a music video, we do not have the equipment to incorporate a lot of camera movements. However, we will use as many as we can: panning, zoom, tilt and perhaps tracking shots to show our talents whilst shooting. Camera angles: we will also try to incorporate as many angles in our video if relevant, these include low, eye level and perhaps overhead angles.
- 9. EDITING Slow editing to create a sad atmosphere within the music video to play on our narrative. Transitions will be used in order to indicate when flashbacks will be taken place for the narrative of the music video. Abrupt cuts to and from the live band shots so audiences can only see snippets of the artists performing, as they would within the music industry. Slow motion will be used to create tension at the beginning of the music video during a fight. This ill allow audience to see the artists facial expressions.
- 10. LOCATION We thought a park would be a suitable setting because from listening to the song we all imagined an autumn/winter season. Also the song features bells which reminded us of Christmas, a time associated with long, cold, dark evenings. A park would be able to capture the essence of this season because the trees will all have autumn coloured leaved and if it is outdoors the costumes will be able to easily reflect the weather. The park we had in mind is Walpole Park in Ealing as it has this path lined with trees which would look really good to film in October/November. We imagined filming our ‘singer’ walking down this path, and him sitting on a bench with his ex which would be a memory. Alternatively this archway could have been used as it will also reflect the seasonal time of year. The park also has a lake with a bridge which could be used to film the actor walking over it or throwing pebbles into the water. As the park closes when it is dark we will have to film before the evening but this is what we planned anyways as it is harder to film in the dark without the correct lighting.
- 11. LOCATION Other locations we thought of are Lydia’s house/garden as she has a raised sun deck area which could be used as a stage for the ‘band’ to perform on. This would be easy to access as a group member lives there. It will be easier for us to arrange the set to suit what we want as we can decorate it as we wish. As well as the garden we wanted to film some indoor scene such as sitting on the sofa which could be more memories of the couple before they broke up. We also wanted to film a scene of the couple arguing and so we could use the front of the house to film the singer walking out of the door,
- 12. PROPS Key props that are essential to our music video will include: Drums Guitars Microphone Stands Amplifiers These are just a few of these which will help to convey the groups vision of a live band. Standard props also include: Mobile phones Picnic basket
- 13. COSTUMES Our main singer from the band will be rocking a basic day to day look, where he will be wearing normal clothing. We will be following the style of what a typical ‘teenage’ boy would wear. Jeans T-Shirt Trainers Jacket (scarfs, hat for cold weather) For the rest of the band we will be keeping a very simplistic style, fresh and clean so there is an overall cohesive look.