Influential Videos - Luke

Due to the vast amount of music videos that have been released it would be impossible to create my own music video without taking some influences from some of them. There are some videos that link very closely to the original chase scene idea I had for our video and I think that looking at these in closer detail will offer some great influences and individual techniques that could be used to make my video as good as it can be.

One of the music videos that I found that links very closely to the idea I had for my music video is for a dance song by Dutch trance music and progressive house DJ Sander van Doorn called 'Chasin'. In the video below you can see the main aspects of the video that I think would go will with my music video. The editing is done in a way that fully represents the music, especially through the use of quick cuts to the beat of the music, different camera angles and the use of special effects such as the cctv type camera overlay. These aspects can easily be transferred into our music video, giving us the effects that we need to make our video fit in with others connected to the dance/electronic genre of music.

Another video that I found that has a lot of features that could be incorporated well into my video is for the song 'Sandstorm' by Darude. Although this is not as totally similar to other videos within this genre of music, mainly due to the longer cuts, it still offers many different aspects that would enhance our video. One of these is that way that the camera is not stationary filming the actors running past, it moves with them. The camera is kept smooth through the use of a glidecam and gives the effect that the camera is floating through the air, without the shaking of the camera brought about by someone running.

The music video for 'Invaders Must Die' by The Prodigy also uses very different techniques, including the use of fade to black transitions. The fact that the whole video is in black and white with only small snippets of colour being featured is also another key feature that we could take into consideration, maybe changing it so that we have snippets of black and white in our video. Even though the video is entirely narrative based, with no signs of any instruments being played or artists singing, there is still a small clip of the artists featuring as part of the actors in the the video. This is an idea that I think could possibly be a good thing to include in my video as it can be seen as a way of the artist promoting themselves within a video where they are not necessarily expected to be seen.

One final video that has influenced the way that I intend to create my music video is for the song 'Graduation' by Gemini. All throughout the video there are focus pulls and soft focuses that give a great effect, one that would help my video look a lot more professional. These different focuses are mainly of the artist when he is singing, but there are also some of the environment around such as in the forest and of the clock. This shows that the effect could work with most things we would choose to try it with. There is also a lot of filming of the environment within the video, showing that you do not only need the video to be constantly relating to the music. This could be connected and justify our idea to create a timelapse of the London skyline during a section of the song we have chosen.