Before starting anything to do with my own music video I would need to research into some music video briefs Genero.TV has to offer. After looking through the site unfortunately there are no current live music video briefs as the site also has corporate briefs up for grabs. That being said there are some music video briefs that have already ended that did interest me, this does have its disadvantages a major one being that I cant enter the competition, my work wouldn’t be showcased on the website for people to see and I have no chance of potentially winning the competition let alone getting feedback from other people within the industry. So for this project I will be looking at the closed briefs and creating my work like it was still a live brief and instead trying to contact the creator/artist I decide to create a video for and see if I am able to get some feedback about my work. Taking all this into consideration I started to look at some briefs, listening to the song and seeing if I got some inspiration just from listening to the music and watching the official music video for each artist. After looking through many briefs I narrowed it down to 3 these include the following:
Galantis – “Louder, Harder, Better” – https://genero.tv/galantis/project
Royksopp – “Running To The Sea” – https://genero.tv/runningtothesea/project
Bombay Bicycle Club – “Lights Out, Words Gone” – https://genero.tv/bombaybicycleclub/
Once choosing three briefs and songs that I took an interest in I wanted to critically analyse them, to get a sense of the themes, audience and also the style of music.
Galantis are quite a mainstream group creating music within the electronic dance scene. With this style of music there would need to be a lot going on within a video to not only match with the fast beats of the music but to keep the audience entertained and you can see this within their previous videos. The brief says “the creative direction is being left completely open, so let the music be your guide.” The brief also states that this is a lyric video which instantly gives me less creative freedom as I would need to incorporate the words into the video as well as other techniques to show my skills within animation. It does however allow me to listen to the song and whatever inspires me at that moment can then lead to me creating it which is a huge bonus. The audience would obviously be people who like electronic dance but due to Galantis being a very mainstream group people that are fond of chart music, who are normally between the ages of 13-25 would also enjoy this song and due to the audience being quite young the video like said before would have to be engaging or the younger audience members would get bored and uninterested.
Royksopp are very similar to Galantis, although they are less renowned they also create music within the electronic scene however still have their own sound despite the similar styles. Although the music is fast paced with quick beats looking at their previous videos they try to tell a story within their music and also their videos. The brief like most of them is very simple, they are looking for someone to create a music video for their upcoming single which allows for complete creative control. The videos do not need to be fast paced and match the pace of the music but instead needs to give meaning to the lyrics to back them up and make them have more of an effect on the audience. Like said before due to the group not being as mainstream as the others I have picked their audience is a lot smaller, again people who like the electronic music genre and fans of the group however in general I would say their audience is a little older ranging from around 18-30 years of age. This is purely because they aim more for meaningful lyrics so people are able to connect with them instead of repetitive lyrics with a fasted past beat in the background, they aim for a more mature audience that can properly appreciate the music.
Lastly I chose Bombay Bicycle Club as they are a personal favourite of mine and It would be great to create something for one of their songs and get potential feedback from a group that I listen to. This style of music if completely different to the others I have picked as I wanted the choice of a little diversity and to not just stick with one genre/style of music. The genre they create music within is indie rock, not normally fast paced music this is more of a chilled out vibe which would allow me to explore different styles and themes within my work. Like Galantis they are quite a mainstream group and are normally within the charts when they create new material, this gives me a larger audience to appeal to and again some more creative control over other briefs like Royksopp. The brief is very simple it merely states they are looking for someone to create a music video for the selected song, which would allow me to look into a range of different techniques/skills and still keep to the brief. The audience would again be around 13-25 and looking at previous videos they like strong visuals that engage the audience allowing them to enjoy not only the music but the video as well. Not all the videos actually fit with the song which again works in my favour as it gives me a lot of avenues to explore.