Relationships Between Lyrics and Visuals

Today in class we looked into how the way song is sung can be effected by the lyrics and particularly into how this can then effect the visuals used within the music video. The task we completed in class used the song 'Dry The River' and we had to unravel what we thought the visuals would be bit by bit. We completed this by first only hearing he song, then only seeing the lyrics and then seeing it all together with the music video so we were able to compare it to what we thought we would see and how we rated the video.
When only hearing the song his was what we individually thought we would see in the video:

• Charlie Weeks- It will be set on a farm in a barn, on a very dull or miserable day. The video will start only on the lead singer and then will go with the singer into the barn where the rest of the band will be introduced and it will be predominately performance based.
• Matt Rabbitt- He thought it would be set in a city with a continuous tracking shot of them walking down the street and as the video goes on more and more people join the shot as the song builds up to its climax.
• Connor Harper- He decided that the video should be based around a narrative of a concert with the lead singer himself being involved within it and he meets a woman at the concert and the fall in love.
• Jack Bezant- It will set on the top of a hill where all the seasons will pass in a time lapse with changing weather and then when the climax occurs the weather will be stormy. Along with this there would be cross cutting to a narrative where a man gets stood up and how he reacts to this.
• Angel Duncil- She said it would be shot in lots of different locations, where in the shot you see happy people, but the main character, who is the lead singer is sad. This means he is surrounded by these happy people wanting to be like them. The mood is dark and miserable as it is about how the singer just broke up with his girlfriend.
• Georgia Alliston- The video would be performance based with the band performing in a small venue and this will go along with a montage of clips which features loved ones leaving each other. E.g. breaking up, at the airport, not just couples. This was to create the theme of goodbye in the video.

My opinion in what would be in the video was:

I thought that this video should be split between narrative and performance through cross cutting. The performance based element would be set in a small basement venue, surrounded by fans with lip- syncing and playing of the instruments. This is to further the idea of a concert occurring with many of the close up shots actually being on the instruments rather than he band members themselves. The narrative which goes along side the performance is about a couple and at the beginning of the music they start of happy with the slower section of the song. However once it reaches the climax of the song that is when they break up and have a big argument. The main male character in the narrative is actually the lead singer in the band and whilst the narrative is in the past those sections of the music video will be in black and white to show the past element of it. Then after the argument when the lead singer is alone and sad i is in colour to show it is now present day. Although at the end of the song he realises he needs to move on and be happy again and that is where the narrative finishes. 

The next task we had to complete involved looking at the lyrics. We had to look at them in depth and from them try to think about another way the music video could be shown. We thinking about it this time we had to try and think about a less stereotypical music video about love and think more outside of the box. This was easier to do with just the lyrics compared to before because you were able to see exactly what they were saying and therefore have more time to think about, analyse and understand what they were intending through what they were saying. Here is what as a group we analysed and came up with from the lyrics:

After this we had to complete our final task which was seeing the real music video. After we watched the real music video we had to give our own feedback and thoughts as to what we thought of the music video. Below is the real video:

I thought that the music video was quite interesting and alternative, but it was a bit stranger than I initially thought. This is because I found it was a quite intense and deep with all of the band members laying on the floor and very few of the shots being on something other than themselves and a dead crow. Even though I didn't personally enjoy the music video I think that it displayed the song's genre well as Indie , therefor advertising the song successfully to people who enjoy hat genre of music. I also thought that the use of the elements was clever as it displayed the idea that they loved the person through everything in the world. Another element of the video which I thought was good was the fact that the visuals became greater and greater as the song went on. This because the build up in the intensity of the visuals fit with where the climax occurred within the song. Considering how simple the idea for the video was I thought it was very effective.

Reflection:
I have realised that from completing this task that it is very important that the audience is able to make at a small link between the lyrics and the visuals. This is because without this it could result in the audience becoming bored of the song very quickly, and therefore not sell the song, which is the main purpose for a music video. So in conclusion, I found that without the visuals and lyrics having a link there is very limited chance of the song selling well making it a vital process to look at when the final task comes around.