Ideas for the 'Smoke' Music Video

After choosing my song and after the research I did into music video types and conventions, I started to plan out my ideas for the song. The ideas are mostly inspired my the other media that inspired me in this post. In the mind-map below it features ideas such as the concepts I want to incorporate, themes, types of shots, editing techniques and key features. 

Music Video Type

Video for 'Youth' by Daughter

I liked the idea of having a hybrid music video, using and combining two different music video styles. Out of the few music videos that Daughter have officially made, performance is a key feature. I thought I would incorporate performance by having a 'singer' playing a guitar and moving about rhythmically to the beat.

As the video was split into two halves, one half became the performance half with the singer featuring in a separate location to emphasise the performance half is different to the conceptual half.

Video for 'Now' by Paramore
Concept: Powder represents
blood and death.

As the lyrics are metaphorical, almost to the point where they make no sense I decided it would be a good idea to produce a video with a conceptual element. The lyrics are up for interpretation which means I could incorporate different themes such as loss, loss of memories and the idea of disintegrating.

Themes

The idea of smoke I have interpreted as the feeling of haziness and perhaps even confusion. It plays with the idea of disintegration, which in turn could represent the loss of memories or even death. The line 'There's a man with no face just a blurred out portrait' could imply the loss of memories in regards to the person whose face she cannot remember. Other examples are as follows:

• "There's three doors and no keys" - This could represent the concept that she can visualise her memories but she just can't make sense of it.
• "I'm losing again, I'm losing my friend" - The concept of losing memories of a friend, even losing memories of herself. 
• "We're blind and slowly suffocating, we're dying" - The loss of memory is 'suffocating', over-coming her.

This concept of being over-come with loss of memory inspired my idea of using powder paint to show the singer being consumed by 'brain fog'. Throughout the video I aim to show the consumption by painting the powder on the singer and every so often adding to it to show the gradually disintegration. 

Types of Shots and Editing

Slow Motion/ Overcranking:

Slow motion emphasises key aspects of the clip. For example I aim to use it in scenes with the powder paint to accentuate the motion of the powder so it looks like smoke. A similar use of slow motion is used in the video for 'Now' by Paramore as shown in the following gifs.

Another editing technique I aim to try is to switch between speeds. It is a good way to emphasise beat and create interest. For clips involving powder paint I wish to try to show the powder being thrown in slow motion before being speed up when it makes contact with the actor.

When slowing down the shots, anything that involves lip syncing would have to be filmed differently. Throughout the filming I will play the song to make acting and lip syncing easier. However for shots that are slowed down, the music will need to be speed up so that the lip syncing is still in time.

Reverse-shot:

Reverse shots are an interesting effect which creates an massive impact. It is unexpected, especially when it only last a brief moment in the video. This effect is used in PJ Liguori's 'Colour Bandit' which also uses powder paint as the key prop. In the following gif, it shows the actor blowing out powder paint. The use of reverse shots makes it look as if he is inhaling the powder instead. Afterwards it plays normally creating an interesting contrast.