The Genre of my chosen song is Indie Folk. This is a fairly modern genre of music that only in the last 10 years has become popular. There are now many artists who perform in this genre.
The first Artist I'm looking at is Gabrielle Aplin. She is a British singer-songwriter whom only in May 2013 released her debut album 'English Rain'. Her songs are a a lot like the songs by the artist of my chosen song Mree.
The second is a band called Mumfords & Sons. The band generally fit into the genre of folk rock but some aspects of their songs and style are a lot like the Indie folk genre. The band consists of four men, Marcus Mumford, Ben Lovett, Winston Marshall and Ted Dwane. They emerged in west London in December 2007 and from then on have grown in popularity. They use many classical instruments to create a very unique sound that is instantly recognizable to anyone who has heard them before.
The third artist artist is a man called Ben Howard, a fairly new artist who self-released his debut EP 'Games in the Dark' in 2008. The singer-songwriter started writing music at an early age and plays his own guitar and percussion. His songs vary in tone as some can have quite dark lyrics but other are lighter with less deep emotion.
This is the music video for one of her most popular songs 'Please don't say you love me'. After watching this video you can see that most of the aspects in the actual video are 'old'. For example the car the two characters are in is a really old Volvo and the cloths they're wearing look quite unfashionable and vintage. Furthermore you can see the video clips themselves have had a filter added to them when being edited. This again looks vintage, this feel really slow and steady. This is emphasized by no fast cutting and editing. The shots of the characters are long and emphatic, with many close ups to catch the reaction of the characters to the events.
The song has a very mild sound which is easy to listen to. In the song the only instruments you can hear are an acoustic guitar, piano and some percussion. The simplicity of the song is what makes it so unique. This is what makes the song of the indie folk genre as in older folk music the songs were very simple with only a few instruments. The songs are more focused on the lyrics. Like in this song the lyrics are very deep, this compels the reader to create their own narrative when they're not watching the video.
From this video I can use the vintage feel in my own video as this song has some parallels with my own song choice and so I think it would work well. Also I like the idea of using natural light rather than creating the light myself, the use of the sun in this video is really effective and I really want to incorporate this into my own song as my song is about winter and in the winter the sun is really low on the horizon and so can create interesting effects.
This song is called 'Winter Winds' and is by Mumford and Sons. The song once again has a very classic and vintage feel although it doesn't have a music video. The use of classical instruments like acoustic guitar and percussion, but Mumford and Sons have a very unique sound as they use instruments that aren't often used in songs. Like the banjo, trumpet and double bass. This is characteristic of the indie folk genre and the lyrics to their songs are also very meaningful and create a interesting narrative.
From this I would like to have an instrument in the video as a prop as it is such a common characteristic of the indie folk genre. Ideally I would like to have a grand piano somewhere in the video but this would be quite ambitious as finding somewhere that has a grand piano I can use. If not I could easily use a key board or even percussion.
The song only consists of an acoustic guitar and the lyrics.
This is simple yet effective as the lyrics of the song are very deep. The music
video itself is also very simple. It looks like it's been filmed on a hand held
camera and it doesn't have any professional aspects of it. There are some uses
of greyscale and focusing to add some effect but the video is really focused on
the singer. There is no narrative but the lyrics of the song hint the idea of
the singer going through their own narrative.
After watching this video I would like to add some random
events to add some emphasis on the world going on around my character. Like
people going about their daily business or cars driving past.
