Research and Planning: Class work, lyric task.

In one of our class lessons this week we were given the task of, in groups, coming up with an idea for a music video for Life is a Gun by Jay Malinowski, however we were only given one lesson to do this and then feedback to the class, we were also just given the lyrics without any information about the artist or the song such as, genre, tempo, regional identity. The lyrics are as follows:

Deep in the past
We can trigger to the barrel blast
On the avenue
Where I would crash into you

What's done is done and life is a gun
Life is a gun on the run
Oh my dear, isn't life a gun
A story shotgun that came undone
We came undone

New York's cold
On the road we became old
Standing still
But I'm running against all my will

What's done is done and life is a gun
Life is a gun on the run
Oh my dear, isn't life a gun
A story shotgun that came undone
We came undone

The well won path
Was never something I would walk
So lay it down
Lay these guns in the ground

What's done is done and life is a gun
Life is a gun on the run
Oh my dear, isn't life a gun
A story shotgun that came undone

What's done is done and life is a gun
Life is a gun on the run
Oh my dear, isn't life a gun

 

With only the lyrics to work with my group decided that we would set it in an almost apocalyptic New York, we thought this would be a good location as it went with the lyrics 'New York's cold' and we thought that they 'deep in the past' could refer to something that’s happened before the apocalypse. We thought that the narrative of the video would be adolescent males walking through the streets, in cold war uniforms carrying guns and weapons, we chose to have them adolescent rather than adult as we felt this would really emphasise the harsh reality of war and it complimented the lyrics 'On the road we became old,' so having visuals of young boys walking down roads could give the impression that the war went on for a long time. We also made decisions on editing, we decided to shoot the video is black and white with a Chroma key effect which would pick out the colours of the uniforms to emphasise their importance and we also felt that using slow motion would make the video appear more sad.

Then we were given the chance to listen to the song through once and given the chance to change and adapt our ideas.

We were quite pleased with what we heard as it was part of the alternative/indie genre and this is what we had guessed it would be. However the tempo was faster than we thought it would be so this influenced our new ideas. We then chose to not make it slow motion as we felt it would not go with the tempo of the song. We developed our idea by deciding to show the army men dropping their guns and weapons as they walk and to gradually have the colour come back, although the lighting would still be quite dark, and have the streets start to look more like the modern day New York and less like an apocalyptic world. We thought this would tie in with the music as it was quite a happy tempo in contrast with the lyrics so this way our video would end on a happier tone which would fit the speed of the song.

We then watched the official music video.

The music video was in black and white but this was the only similarity as the official music video focuses on a relationship.

I think this exercise was really useful as it showed us that when coming up with an idea for a music video you have to take lyrics and the music into account and that both are just as important to think about otherwise the video may not fit the song.