Before we began any detailed planning for our music video, I decided to use my initiative to contact Epic Records to gain permission to use our chosen song for educational purposes. I did not see the point in making lots of plans and then finding out we did not have permission to use the song. Previous research had showed me who the record company was and a quick search using Google search engine led me to the correct website although I had to email them through Sony Entertainment instead of the website for Epic Records. By sending this short email, which took me approx. 5 mins to compose, I am preventing myself and Christopher from running into any problems relating to copyright or plagiarism.
As you can see from the printscreen above, I had to fill in a query form which would then be sent to personnel. Due to the large quantity of emails I assume the company receive each day, I will not expect an email back. With this lack of communication possible, I have clearly stated at the bottom of the email that if we do not hear back then we will assume that permission has been granted. Although this is risky, there are certain rules for use of internet products for educational use and I believe we will be covered by this law.
Before planning our music video, me and Chris sat together, analysing the lyrics of the song, deciding what we felt was the meaning of the song and each lyric. We also considered the lyrics to try and piece together some basic ideas which we could use for our music video. This process allowed us to not only focus on the lyrics separately but we also looked at the song as a whole dividing the chorus from the verses. Below is a copy of the lyrics with our annotations. It was our responsibility to annotate the lyrics to the best of our ability with information which was relevant.
As you can see from the annotations in the image, me and Chris found many things which we held opinions on and we commented on them around the lyrics. Although some of the annotations are completely irrelevant and would not make any logic sense to some one other than ourselves we felt this was better as it made it more personal. We annotated the chorus, the meaning of the song and we also tried to formulate some basic ideas such as the ‘night time scenes’ comment towards the top of the page. We found it very hard to annotate these specific lyrics as there was so many different meanings to the song which could be followed and we were not sure which path to follow. From annotating we have came to understand that although our first instinct led us to believe the song was about losing someone through death, it could in fact mean that someone has lost a very important relationship with someone in their life eg. a father. When matching the lyrics to the current music video it was clear to see that they had followed the latter idea and considered many peoples understanding of the lyrics.
Throughout the first paragraph of the lyrics there are a lot of opposites between what both people are doing which strengthens the idea that they no longer have a connection as the singer has ‘lost’ this person. We also circled the chorus throughout the song as we wanted to consider whether we would be able to use the same few clips of footage over and over again to represent the chorus or if we would have to change the footage depending on whether we chose to make a concept based video or a narrative based video. We’ve also commented on where the tempo of the song changes as we felt this important when considering the emotion the singer is trying to get across.
Before me and Chris began planning our music video, I wanted to collect some research on the song and see what the general public and artists of the song felt about the meaning. My research also looked at the record company that recorded the song and also the music video. The song was released on September 13 2005 by a record company known as ‘Epic Records’ and was the debut album for The Fray. The genre of the song is known as pop rock/alternative rock.
The song was originally produced in relation to an experience Issac Slade, the lead singer and song writer went through when working as a mentor at a camp for troubled teenagers. It was his intention to write a song about all of the people that tried to reach out to this particular boy but was unsuccessful. The verses of the song describe an attempt by an adult to confront a troubled teen and the chorus shows how the singer himself was unable to save this boy. Below is a quote that the band said in relation to the song:
“Well there’s a group home here in Denver called Shelterwood, and it takes in teens who’ve had a tough time; their parents don’t want to send them to jail, but they can’t keep track of them themselves… A friend of mine was actually the president for that particular school, so he asked Joe and I to come up for one of their weekend retreats… I was paired up with one boy in particular. His story was just amazing – all the relationships that he had put at risk because of the decisions he made, and eventually losing the relationships… the cost of his lifestyle and his choices, and kind of relating them to my own life and my own stories; seeing all the relationships I’ve threatened for one reason or another. It was a really inspiring weekend.”
The band have now opened the song up to interpretation because the lyrics are so wide and so many people can relate to this particular song.
One discovery that I did uncover when carrying this task out was that there has been 3 official music videos produced for this one particular song, one having been more effective and the others. The original music video for this particular song, shown below, premiered on VH1 on September 12 2006 and featured the recurring themes of light and stopped time. The major story line behind this particular video was a car crash and throughout the clip scenes of the car crash and all of its presumed victims are shown in pause. The theme of light is heavily featured throughout as it shines from the dark woods where the remainder of the video is filmed. Other scenes which are intercut include the band playing in a dark warehouse to show that life does carry on. This particular version of the video was placed at #21 of the year by VH1’s ‘Top 40 Videos of 2006‘.
After much consideration, I do not feel that we should follow this particular storyline as it does not fit well with my interpretation of the lyrics. Obviously this will be a joint decision between myself and Chris. This type of music video also appears very confusing to me because without extra research I would not of understood the narrative and I don’t want to have this type of confusion between myself and the viewer.
The second version of this song which was released in music video format, although rarely ever mentioned, is a format of the original video juxtaposed with scenes from Grey’s Anatomy. It does not include any of the car crash scenes from the original video although there are extracts of the band playing in the warehouse. Throughout the years this particular song has been popular in the use of TV programs and movies.
Obviously this would not be suitable for our own music video as it is made up of clips previously owned by another company and therefore this would create many problems including problems with copyright. It would also mean that we were unable to film our own music video and would rely fully on other people to film it. This would defeat the point of the project and I feel this type of music video is a way of promotion for the TV channel instead of a general music video.
A third release was made on December 6 2006 although this idea followed a completely different idea, more suited to the bands perception of the lyrics.The promo features a selection of young children between the ages of 12-18 all with a different life story related to a wide range of emotions. This includes suicide, loss of a loved one and depression. Throughout the video many of the kids cry and scream to vent there loss. This is carried out on a plain white background so as not to distract the attention away from emotion. One unique thing about this video is the continuous flow of numbered stages which are shown alongside the children such as ‘Remember’ and ‘Cry’. The video ends with the children making peace with themselves. This was the most popular of the three videos, topping the countdown at #1 on 21 December 2006.
Looking at all three versions available to us, myself and Chris both feel that this is the best version which we wish to work with when creating our own music video. There is no set narrative to this song although the viewer can clearly understand the emotion being told through the lyrics and moving image. We really liked the idea of the continuous flow of words which came along throughout the video and feel we could adapt this to fit our own idea as well as focusing on something so discreet such as nature e.g. a butterfly. It is small things like this that make me like this music video so much.
After much speculation about what song would be suitable for use in our project, and many hours of trawling through different songs/videos on YouTube, me and Chris have finally pin pointed a song which we feel is suitable and that we are both happy with. When looking on YouTube for personal use, I came across the song ‘How to Save a Life’ by The Fray. Although this song was far from upbeat, we listened to the lyrics over and over again and realised that there was many different opportunities available to us if we chose this particular song. Although the song is very well known by the majority of people in our school year, not many have watched the video and therefore we felt we would be ale to put a twist on the video and still WOW the audience.
As stated in a previous post, there was many things which we had t0 consider before choosing a song which we were going to stick with including the possible ideas we had and also whether it would work with our budget and whether the song was too long. After many hours of discussing this as a pair, myself and Chris both agree, that although this song does not suit the upbeat fast paced song we were looking for, it is suitable for all the other points we were looking at and therefore we feel we will be able to create a high quality, interesting and popular music video.
This is the video for HOW TO SAVE A LIFE:
Reasons for choosing this song:
The song is very popular and the lyrics are very easy to interpret so that myself and Chris could easily put our own twist on the song
There is no set narrative which has to be followed eg. a love story, so therefore we can take whatever path we wish with our music video
There are 3 different versions of the same idea to help myself and Chris pull together some ideas
We can play on the emotion the song creates which will allow us to use a wide range of camera angles to make the final product more interesting and show our progression from AS to A2 media studies
So that I was prepared for the editing stages of my project, I wanted to look at previous work/experience and see what advice people who did this as their proper job would give about editing their videos to a high enough standard to be used by big time artists. When skimming through the media magazine, a magazine aimed at A-Level students and provided to me by the school, I came across an interview with Suzy Davis titled ‘Editing music promos’ and after reading the interview, I feel I am can understand the effects of editing and how this will help me in creating a highly popular music promo. The interview was an informal chat to form tutor Pete Fraser where she discussed how her career developed, allowing me to see what stages I will need to undertake to achieve a high graded piece of media coursework. This is what came to my attention from reading this particular article:
BASIC INFORMATION ABOUT SUZY DAVIS
Just like me, Suzy Davis studied Media studies as an A-Level and then headed to Final Cut via The Streets and Dizzee Rascal. Well known for the creation of her music promos, this particular editor is well-respected by the industry. Her work also included working with Will Young and Benny Benassi. Her music video ‘Satisfaction’ by Benny Benassiwas the most played music video on MTV in 2003 as well as her phenomenal ‘Fit but you know it’ by ‘The Streets’.
THE INTERVIEW
HOW DID YOU GET FROM BEING AN A LEVEL MEDIA STUDENT TO BEING A MUSIC PROMO EDITOR?
Throughout the interview, Suzy Davis discussed how being an A-Level media student helped her take steps towards being a music promo editor. A university course which she studied at Reading University allowed her to consider the impact of sound, editing and so on. In the interview she states that she was captured by the way music videos were put together and the way this created energy that she wanted to get herself shown to her by Jake Wynne in 1997. She also explains how it took a long time to work her way up the job ladder, working her way up at final cut from runner to assistant editor over the past nine years. After learning all aspects of the job including quoting and in voicing as well as cutting, Suzy began to form her own client base and was finally promoted to editor about 4 years later.
WHAT WAS YOUR ‘BREAKTHROUGH’ MUSIC PROMO EDITING JOB?
The breakthrough music promo video for this particular lady was for a dance outfit called Benny Benassi. It featured Bikini clad women wielding power tools as shown below:
It was so popular that people says it set the standard for cheesy dance videos ever since. For this particular video she received a ‘Best editing in a video’ nomination at the CADS, even though it was only her first year editing. This particular video saw Suzy be propelled into the world of promo cutting and quickly built up a name for herself with directors and record companies. In that first year alone, Suzy Davis created a total of 36 promos (many for obscure bands never seen since!).
Another thing which she felt helped her when creating the ‘Satisfaction’ was that there was no set storyboard and instead she used a selection of outrageous footage with the instruction to make it work and make it funny – freedom is always a good way forward.
DESCRIBE A TYPICAL JOB WORKING ON A PROMO AS AN EDITOR
Being a promo editor, Suzy is constantly busy, starting at 10am where she checks that all her rushes have been loaded and binned correctly by her assistant. An average promo takes a whole working day.
HOW REGULAR IS WORK AS AN EDITOR?
Her general work flow comes from the 5 hardcore directors who always cut with her. The remainder of the time she feeds off Final Cut’s general booking and uses her show reel to get her work. The important thing for an editor is to build a trusting relationships with directors (and to some extent, producers) in order to secure a healthy diary of consistent work. Nine of her promos have been carried out with Dougal Wilson, a man who is much in demand and very inventive. She states that it was good to work with somebody who’s career has developed alongside hers.
IS THE PAY ENOUGH TO LIVE ON?
Her first pointer in relation to this question was that ‘just cutting solely music videos would not be much of an income’ with some big ones such as the Will Young video she worked on, although it was one of the biggest, she only ended up with £1250 for half a month of hard work. In order for Final Cut to run to the high standard it does, the main work we do here involves high-end commercials which can be very lucrative. With this in mind, the majority of Suzy’s monthly income comes from 95% commercials. Because of the state of music video budgets, young editors often use promo cutting as a pathway to a decent show reel as this genre allows a great deal of creative freedom. To get a good enough wage, freelance is the way forward.
HOW MUCH CREATIVE FREEDOM DO YOU GET? Creative freedom varies greatly from job to job, with Suzy sometimes being told to forget the storyboard and use her initiative whereas other jobs involve her being watched constantly from start to finish by a director. The important thing to remember when editing together a music promo is that the director employs you for your vision and creative input, they want to see your take on things and the journey of the edit can be fascinating.
WHAT DIFFERENCE IS THERE FOR YOU IN EDITING PROMOS TO OTHER KINDS OF JOBS SUCH AS ADS, TRAILERS ETC?
The timings of commercials and promos are very different which means editing a commercial can be far more intensive. Patience is key when editing adverts because the approval process is a lot longer. Suzy gains a lot more instant job satisfaction from cutting a promo than going over thirty takes of a guy eating a mars bar.
HAVE YOU EVER EDITED SOMETHING THAT HAS NOT BE USED?
This does indeed happen from time to time, when someone decides they don’t like what you’ve done. As long as the editor is paid then it doesn’t matter! Suzy’s experience with this problem led her to create a video for The Dogs which the band loved but the record company felt was too shocking so they shelved it.
WHATS YOUR FAVOURITE KIND OF JOB?
Suzy Davis really likes to do rock performances with a real rough and ready feel – sometimes you can cut quickly which gives you the chance to go with the flow and let your hair down. She also enjoys something with a technical challenge though, shown in Will Young’s ‘Who am I?‘. This involved going through over 50 hours of old Blue Peter footage and then painstakingly painting his face onto the original presenters. Each shot required matching the angle and lighting of the original footage using either white or green screen. The streets video was a major job too, really comprising of four jobs in one, the first layer composed of all the feet walking along and all the edges of the frames in lots of different environments, matching up street, park, pub etc. It involved a very heavy storyboard as timings etc had to be exact. Although it did look a mess throughout the process, at the very end of the project everyone was really happy with the results.
WHICH OF YOUR VIDEOS ARE YOU MOST PROUD OF?
The Satisfaction video is definitely Suzy’s proudest moment because it was all about the editing and she was able to take it up a level and it has become somewhat iconic.She also likes the work she did for a band who’ve disappeared now called Chikini, ‘Assassinator 13’. The group of workers worked out each verse and chorus like mathematical formula for the shooting with the four beats to the bar, four guitars. Her explanation of this particular video was: ‘we experimented with the order of shots but basically this was a lot of planning. The shots of them naked pop up and wake you up so you wonder whether you saw them or not’. There’s also a bear and a funny owl that pop up throughout the video. There’s even a bit where I put my own eyes and mouth in on a picture on the wall. I had a lot of fun with that video’.
WHAT ADVICE WOULD YOU GIVE TO STUDENTS EDITING THEIR OWN VIDEOS?
‘Keep it simple, without any complicated narrative. Think about how you can use your lighting to create simple effects in camera. If your shots don’t look as good as you’d hoped, there are tricks you can use which professional editors do have to resort to: the colour grading tool can be applied to every shot, you can drop in flash frames for effect, or even link two boring looking shots more interestingly by flipping one upside down or creating some kind of interesting movement. Sometimes you have to use the motion tool to create camera moves that aren’t really there. In the industry, all this is called “polishing a turd”’.
AND FOR STUDENTS THINKING OF EDITING AS A CAREER?
‘Shoot and cut as much as you can and get into offline company as runner when you are ready. Then be prepared to make tea for ages until you feel like quitting. Doing any editing work in the suites after hours is how I kept myself enthused and how I eventually got noticed too. The pay is rubbish and the hours are long but if you stick at it, it will come good’
CONCLUSION
Although the majority of this interview was not relevant to what I was trying to find, I feel the last two quotes, highlighted in bold, were the most useful, especially the first one. This was Suzy’s real opinion on what best to do when editing our own video and myself and my partner will take these words on board to ensure we get the best possible outcome for our own music video. Another really good thing about this source was that I highlighted the music videos she gave more detail about and then did some more research, looking at what kind of effects she’d used by watching the actual video. Two of these clips are shown above. By using Google to find the website ‘Final Cut’ I have been able to look at Suzy Davis and other editor’s to see what other things she’s done and what type of effects she has used when editing these particular clips.
Clearly, this piece of secondary research was not the most useful as the majority was about her life and how she had moved up the career ladder but I have been able to remove certain pieces of information and I will in turn be able to use this on my own work. The second from last question was obviously the most useful piece of information as this allowed me to see what best way to move forward with the production process.
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