Actors Costume Within Music Video

In our video we are trying to reflect the stereotypical costume of the Metal genre i.e. leather jackets and hoodies. The lead singer Solay is wearing a leather jacket and red trousers. The leather jacket is paying tribute to the old bands who use to use leather such as Steel Panther, Motley Crue. Although these bands are more hair/ glam metal, it is still a sub-genre of Metal. The red trousers are to connote the violence and anger associated with Metal. Metal is an incredibly angry genre (as i have previously explained in my post 'The Origins of Metal').



Below is a picture of Motley Crue displaying the fashion of leather. Wearing leather was seen as to be rebellious and against the norms which were being enforced on society.

The bass player, Sam, is infact a huge fan of the genre. He also is wearing a leather jacket. Unfortunately I do not have a picture of him from the back because on the back of his leather jacket are multiple badges of metal bands such as Iron Maiden, Slipknot and Rancid. These simply help to show his passion about this type of music. This could also influence the bands unique sound of Metal bass lines etc. Accompanying the leather jacket is black skinny jeans which again come from the hair/glam metal era.

Glam metal bands dress outrageously to rebel against society and make a statement. Hair and glam metal bands include bands such Skid Row and Kiss (pictured below).

Nick (the drummer of The Upgrade). Nick is not wearing a leather jacket however his jacket is black connoting the darkness of Metal such as the leather. Underneath that he is wearing a opened checkered shirt and a white t-shirt under that. The red checkered shirt could be influenced by genres such ans country and western.

The combination of their different characteristics influence their music as a band/as a whole. They have songs heavily influenced by funk, jazz, heavy rock, 1980's love ballads etc. This gives them a unique sound as a whole band which is a perfect unique selling point from a commercial point of view.

In Search of Metal Prezi

In Search of Metal on Prezi

Idea Within Music Video

We are wanting the lead singer of The Upgrade (Solay Elibol) to nod at the rest of the band and have them follow him. This idea can be related to another music video called 'Not The Only One' by a band named 'Rumble Strips'. Since the video is not available on YouTube I am unable to embed it so below is a link to the video on vimeo.com.

http://vimeo.com/4766044

Below are screenshots from the music video 'Not The Only Person' - The Rumble Strips. These shots inspired some of our own ideas about the two members following Solay and walking behind him.

At 1:44 the woman hidden under his overcoat is incredibly similar looking to the girl in Fritz Lang's 'Metropolis' released in 1927. See picture below:

The city in Metropolis in which the film is set is a dystopia. The dictionary definition of 'dystopia' is

"An imagined place or state in which everything is unpleasant or bad, typically a totalitarian or environmentally degraded one."

Below is an image of the city within 'Metropolis'.

Notice that a film which is easy to relate to this is a slightly more modern one. It is Ridley Scott's 'Blade Runner', (1982). The city in which it is set is incredibly similar to that of 'Metropolis'. Of course these two films, both of which are set in dystopias, are never going to be set in similar places because each dystopia is a subjective view of the directors vision of a dystopia. A screenshot showing the city in Blade Runner is below.

Music Video Storyboard

Below is some of our ideas in terms of plot and cinematography that we want our music video to contain. The first frame was an idea we had yet had no space on our page because we thought of it after we had filled in the first page. Thus it is a frame on its own.

Possible Location Shots

The shots posted above are possible location shots. These were taken in Anglia Square, Norwich, Norfolk, UK. The mood/tone of video we are looking for is quite dark and unpleasant hence the graffiti and shattered glass. We are wanting our music video to have a very industrial and rough feel to it. A majoriy of shots we will hopefully be using will not be structured stationary shots but rugged handheld shots. We are planning to incorporate a handful of stationary shots to give the video a proffesional look but these will simply be used to fade in and out of.

The genre of metal is and always has been a very industrial and rough genre. We are simply trying to create a mise-en-scene within the music video to reflect this and conform to the metal stereotypes. This is why we are using multiple images of graffiti, abandoned office blocks and warehouses, run down areas of Norwich, Norfolk, UK.

One location we were incredibly interested in was the abandoned and derelict buildings scene in pictures 9, 10 and 11. Notice in picture 13 (one up from bottom) the very uniform looking lines of the layers of the car park. This building can be seen as very pleasant with this style of lighting e.g. blue sky contrasting the orange brickwork. However on the inside it appears incredibly vast and empty.

However our music video is going to be edited into black and white. So a shot like the one posted above, of the interior of the car park, actually looks like the picture edited below into black and white.

(The two pictures above of the interior of Anglia Square Car Park were not taken by me. These pictures were found on websites. The top one was taken from 'flickriver.com' and the bottom one was taken from 'flickr.com'. I am including this additional information so as to avoid plagiarism issues.)