Song Choice - The Pretender Analysis

In the end 'The Pretender' got the majority vote for the song choice of our music video. We took it into consideration and all decided to agree that 'The Pretender' is a good choice for our music video.

The song choice that we have chosen is The Pretender. It is is a song by the American alternative rock band Foo Fighters. It was the first single from the group's 2007 album Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace.

The music video ‘The Pretender’ by Foo Fighters shows several features of Andrew Goodwin’s music video theory. The video commences with an aircraft hanger this could be recognised to represent the scale of the band as they are very well received in the music industry.

There are several close ups of the band are used throughout; this is heavily enforced by the record label. It creates a personality for the band and helps them make solid motives that set them apart from other bands in the same genre as them. Low angel shots of Dave Ghrol (Lead singer) and his guitar at the beginning make him look tall and powerful signifying he is the most important member of the band.

Near the end of the video the wall of red behind them explodes and showers the room in a red paint. The red paint could be visually perceived to represent the emotion and anger being the musical composition, but additionally the climax of the video. Visual editing can be visually shown to match that of the tempo close ups of the instruments being played in sync with the music shows the audience that the band can play. This can also be applied to the lip-syncing

Although the video consist of mainly performance, linking together lyrics and visuals creates an idea of a narrative. “I’m what’s right, I’m the enemy” is showing they're going against society and the police in particular. This comes towards to the end of the video showing that whats holding them together has eventually snapped and that he has given up being in ill-mannered towards the police and has deiced to make a stand.

The performers have a wide stance while playing; this is commonly associated with rock music and is often shown in rock videos.  Additionally a tedious feature of music is the appearance of the band, they look messy/scruffy and wear their instruments low on the body this additionally promotes the wide stance they have. A widespread representation in music is a massive hefty reliance on a narrative; rock videos incline to have less of a narrative and more performance in their music videos.

Song Choice Survey

This is the song choice survey that we decided to go out and take. We went and ask several different people around school to get their opinion on what song we should choose.

Choosing Genre

Here are my brainstorms on figuring out what our genre should be for our music video. Firstly we started with a normal brainstorm and listed out several different genres that we were interested in. We then thought of all the sub genres that can be inputted with our one. After we had narrowed what genre we were picking, we made another brainstorm, this time comparing: Alternative rock and Indie rock. We began to name bands and research which ones fit in with which genre. This would later on help us decide a song for our music video. After naming bands we halved the brainstorm and started listing characteristics that the genres might have. In the end we decided on choosing Alternative rock with Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Foo Fighters, Linkin Park, Fallout boy and 30  seconds to mars as our influences.

Digipak conventions

These are the conventions of what should be in more digipak, I have listed all of the different objects/items, images and text needed.

• Album name
• Track listing
• Barcode
• Images
• Record Label Logo
• Record Label Information
• Band Name
• Lyrics
• Booklet
• Band Logo
• Copyright
• Bonus disc
• Main disc
• Band Photograph
• Band Poster 
• Leaflet for any upcoming events
• Website name
• Contact details

Sinead Feedback

Focus Group Recording

Locations: The locations that we have chosen that we might film in are an abandoned area, a forest, a marsh, a recording studio and a stage.

Costume: The costumes that we have chosen are casual clothes, skinny/baggy jeans, dark colours, hoodie and worn down shoes.

Photographer: The photographer that we have chosen is Nathan Hogben, he has experience in taking pictures since he takes up photography as an A-Level.

Actors: The actors that we have chosen are us, which is: Ben, Louis, Jonathan and Terry.

Digipak plan

This is my digipak plan, there are seven sections to a digipak, the front cover, the back, the inside, the first disc, the bonus disc and a booklet. Here on my digipak, for the front cover I have decided to make it a puddle which shows a reflection of a guitar within it. The back of the digipak will have a picture of the band all holding their instruments with the track list going down the side. The booklet will be similar to the back with a picture of the band however this time they will be in a different location. My main disc and bonus disc will have dark blue ripples of water. The text will not be in the ripples on the first disk but will be for the bonus one. The back will feature a building which will show part of the location that we are in. There is also the spine which will have the name of the band on it and would usually have an album name.