I have discussed with the members of my Media class, our teacher, my friends and members of my family the storyline for my music video. At the beginning of this course, I wanted to use Bastille's song "Things We Lost In The Fire", and have a stereotypical narrative of a young teenage couple breaking up. Over the six weeks holidays I emailed Bastille's management and tried to contact the band directly via their social networking sites, unfortunately gaining no response. I then began to search YouTube for a cover of the song but could not find one that would fit the video. As I could not get permission to use this song, I began to rethink my initial idea and song choice.
I have now decided to use Bastille's song
"Requiem for Blue Jeans", a song they released on their free mixtape
"Other People's Heartache". The song is a cover of Lana Del Rey's smash hit "Blue Jeans", using elements of other songs as well. It is a mash-up containing pieces of music from various genres. The song has a very "creepy" tone to it, making it perfect for my new idea.
The Idea
Keeping the topic of the "young relationship" from my previous storyline in mind, I am going to begin the video with the female protagonist (my friend Louise) looking over old photographs and other things linked to a relationship, such as cinema tickets and love letters. The audience begin to believe that Louise was in a relationship with the boy they see in the photos. Louise then leaves the room she is in and begins to go on a hunt for an answer, it seems. The audience then begin to question what she is doing, where she is going, and what she is going to find. Is she going to rekindle her love with the boy? Is she going to visit him?
Throughout the video Louise is going to look extremely sad, evidently heartbroken from the past. The audience then begin to sympathise for her. However, the locations which Louise visits on her journey are strange: a graveyard, the woods, empty country lanes. From this, the audience will then begin to think that the boy from the photographs previously seen has died, and that Louise is simply mourning his death.
Towards the end of the video, Louise visits a beach, and begins to walk across the sand/rocks/pier, looking out at the sea with tears running down her face. I will then interweave clips of Louise from the beginning, and then reveal that Louise is actually stalking the boy in the photographs. The audience doesn't know if Louise and the boy have been in a past relationship, or if she is stalking him. This is left to the audience's interpretation. Louise then spots the boy at the beach with another girl, seemingly being on a date or romantic stroll with his girlfriend.
The ending of the video, to me, is still on the drawing board. I have a few ideas floating around in my mind but need to discuss this matter further with my Media teacher and classmates to get their opinions.
The song is part of a mixtape which the band released for free in 2012. I downloaded this mixtape the day it came out and have been obsessed with it ever since. I love how they changed the lyrics of the song to be from a male's perspective, which will be interesting for the music video I am creating as you don't see the male's side of the story. The lyrics are then considered to be the story made up in the protagonist's mind, as her story is also left ambiguous. 