Media Studies – make a music video

For our coursework we decided to make a music video, based on our original idea of a “Jackass” style programme. Jackass is a programme of various dangerous and stupid stunts, which are all a bit different. We decided against this idea as it restricted our power to change it into an original concept.

We decided to make a music video using a punk song, as these have a very broad band of what can be included.

We started by making a song in the style of a well known band, Blink 182, but we changed it to incorporate our life at college. We are loosely basing it on a theme of our college life but at the different extremes.

We are using what Levi Strauss called Binary Opposites, these are extreme opposites, for example a bad guy being ugly and a good guy being extremely attractive.

We are using the Binary opposites of maturity and immaturity, which is a basic college idea, the mature students that do their work and the immature students that joke about and don’t take things seriously.

We thought of things that would be included in a punk music video, we had the idea of the band rehearsing in a music room and being very professional about it and then came up with the opposite which is practicing in the refectory and playing random objects rather than proper instruments.

Another idea we had is spending time leisurely we had the idea of a group of people sitting around playing cards with the comparison of them all running around like mad brandishing water-guns and having a play fight.

The next one is also a leisurely activity, playing foosball at the table in the refectory comparing it to doing reckless skating and crashing into each other.

We then thought back to the programme Jackass and one of their famous sketches is the presenters being pushed around in a shopping trolley. We thought of using this but needed a binary opposite to go in it so we thought of having someone pushing the trolley quite normally with shopping in it.

Also just walking around college, the band walking down a corridor and turning around a corner with them running down the corridor in the underpants and running into the girls toilet.

These give off a lot of ideas of the maturity and immaturity of college.

We thought of using the phrase that we had heard a lot from the show South Park, whenever there is drugs or alcohol involved, one of the characters, Chef always says “There is a time and a place for everything, and it’s called college!” and thought that we could relate this to the video.

Another idea we had was using the Kuleshov Effect, where we would take shots of random things such as people talking chilling out and people running around like mad and pulling faces.

The themes we are using are Jackass, The Teenage years and a parody effect of Blink 182 videos.

We are also going to have parts of temporal disorder in the video, using the video effects on my camcorder, this will give the impression the person watching is on drugs because the song is related to this, although we will show no shots of drugs or anybody taking drugs as this would be to suggestive, we are only giving hints of teenage life but not actually showing all angles.

There is no actual storyline to have a linear narrative to the video, its more random as this is what college is like despite being a regulated day, anything can happen!

The idea of using teenage life although is very common is so broad that we can change it to our own tastes and use our own characters in it. The whole video is supposed to be a joke filled, fun and non-serious which is the whole idea of punk rock, a lot of songs are just parodies.

We are also going to have lots of shots of the band so people can see them and know who is playing. Bands do this so they can see who is performing and identify with them and decide who is their favourite. Sometimes they can pretend to play roles which can lead on to a narrative in the video, taking for example, Sum 41 in their “In Too Deep” video they have the lay about band, with the jocks fighting against each other in a diving contest, we want the band to win which is made in a binary opposite the baddies are made to be Speedo wearing narcissists and the band wearing any old shorts and not particularly full of themselves. This is the kind of effect we want to achieve with binary opposites.