RS - The Original Coursework Idea

Artist: Muse
Song: Bliss
Year: 2001
Album: Origin of Symmetry
Genre: Space Rock/New Prog


 

Muse are a Grammy Award winning Alternative Rock band from Teignmouth Devon. Muse are well known for putting on amazing live performances and are often voted as "best live band". Muse consists of three members; Matt Bellamy: Guitarist, Pianist, and lead Vocalist. Dominic Howard: Drums, Percussion and human bones. And Christopher Wolstenholme: Bassist, Guitars, Keyboards, Backing Vocals and Harmonica.  Most of Muse's songs are driven by the bass-line with guitar effects layered over the top, such as Hysteria and Time is Running Out for example. They have a fusion of different genres ranging from Space Rock, Prog Rock to Heavy Metal and Classical or even Electronica. They have seen huge sucess world wide selling over 10 million records worldwide, selling Wembley Stadium four times in under an hour and headling Glastonbury twice, a large list of events for a career which only started in 1994. They even plan to be the first band to play in Space! (after pursuading Sir Richard Branson for help).

Muse are big innovators of new media and have made use of brand new technology, most notably when they used new high tech 360 degree cameras at there gigs at Wembley Stadium last year. You can see the 360 degree cameras in action here. These cameras are "the future of concerts" and give the audience the ability to move the camera by clicking on the screen and dragging it around with their mouse. The band released two 360 recorded songs from Wembley as a Christmas present to their fans on their website. The same 360 degree cameras were also seen at this years R+L Festivals and fans are expecting another Xmas present this year!



The band also created the worlds first Augmented Reality Tour Programme. This Programme is the future and has technology called augmented reality built into it, when you hold certain pages of the programme up to a webcam, the book projects an image out and in 3D onto your webcam image and also provides interviews within the augmented reality.
 

Origin of Symmetry which is the album Bliss is on just celebrated its 10th birthday. Because of this the band played two "special" gigs at this years Reading and Leeds Festivals in which they adapted the stage to look like the album cover, they also played the whole album from start to finish in order which they had never done before! They also had to relearn a few songs which had been dropped from the set list over the years since the release of the album. Because of this 10th year anniversary I believe it is a great idea to create my own version of the Bliss music video and introduce it to a new audience. There is already a music video for Bliss but it is older than 10 years due to the 10th birthday of the album so it now fits into the criteria of choosing a track for a music video. I believe it could be re-branded now and what a perfect oppotunity to do it!
 

My idea for the Bliss music video is a hybrid between a performance and a narrative music video (Goodwin's theory). The narrative side of the video will be based on the songs lyrics, the protagonist is unsettled with himself and is envious of another person who is settled with himself. The protagonist wants to take away this persons perfection so that he doesn't feel envious. There will be shots of the protagonist using high angles to show his weakness and low angles on the other person to show his power. For the protagonist to be envious I want it to show him doing poor in his exams whilst the other character does better, he gets a girlfriend the the "pro" doesnt, he recieves awards in assembly whilst the "pro" doesnt and the class clap/cheer for his sucess whilst he is jealous of his sucess. I want to use a SnorriCam in the music video for CU's of the protagonist to show his emotions when he keeps seeing this person he is envious of. This is only my initial thoughts and are based around the lyrics so don't expect it to keep the same, however I would very much love to do a Muse music video and especially from this album as it is celebrating 10 years and could be a way to re-brand the album!


The performance side of the music video will be down to the lip syncing by the characters within the narrative. There is also the ability to have the characters writting the lyrics in a lesson or the lyrics being written on a whiteboard in lesson. They could also be used in a text on a phone etc. There is also an option to find a local band and ask them if they will be willing to feature in the music video to perform the whole song, that way we could get lots of shots of them performing them and then cross cut them into the narrative. It would be hard because it would take more than one filming session but it is achieveable. I have been to see Muse live before and when I saw them last year I did some live recording however the quality is not great and the camera is shakey! however I have come up with a plan of just having it being played in the background of the narrative such as being played on a computer screen/tv screen similar to "Can I play with madness" by Iron Maiden, or on someones phone screen so that the quality would not be so obvious.

The main location for the music video will be in our school along with shots of the two main characters walking to and from school and also the protagonists bedroom/house. Costumes for the music video would most likely be our schools uniform however that does mean (because we are in sixth form) we would have to raid our wardrobes to find our old uniforms! which could run into problems, however we could have the actors wearing casual clothes like our sixth form.
 

The length of song is 4:13 which could be seen as an issue as it would take a vast ammount of shots however the first 15 secs of the song is played on a keyboard and is like a little intro which could be seen as a chance to get lots of establishing shots and slower pace editing which could save alot of time and effort. 

 

For the editing I have thought of using extensive use of the multi layering technique to show the two main characters at the same time to show the emotion of the protagonist seeing the other character (man with no name!). I also want to use the "Sin City" effect where you isolate one colour on a shot so that it makes everything black and white other than the colour you choose to keep the same. Currently I am not sure of what shot I will use this effect on but it's only the early stages at the moment. I also want to create my own track dolly to give a smooth shot when I am tracking a character. It will be a budget version of the hollywood Dolly constructed by myself.

Here is the official music video for Muse's Bliss:




Here is an example of some footage I recorded last year. Bare in mind the clip will be muted so its only the visuals that are important. I did record multiple tracks so any could be used!