Green Day- Wake Me Up When September Ends

"Wake Me Up When September Ends" is a song by American punk-rock band Green Day which was released in 2005.

Using Goodwin's conventions of music video, it is clear to see that throughout the whole of the video, there are clear links between the lyrics, the music and the visuals. It is seen to be a narrative and performance video whereby the audience is shown a storyline taking place whilst also having the video cut to shots of the band performing.

The director cleverly chose actors who were already famous and well known to be in the music video: Evan Rachel Wood (The Missing, Thirteen) and British actor Jamie Bell (Billy Elliot, King Kong) enabling them to tap into an existing fan-base, other than the Green Day fans, which would then encourage them to watch it.

The video tells the story of a loving teenage couple who swear never to leave each other. The major turning point in the narrative is when we see them argue when the boyfriend enlists in the United States Marine Corps.

During the acting in the scene, a range of different shots (varying from close ups to two shots) were used to show the emotions of both of the characters. The slow motion build up at the beginning of the scene built up the tension of what was about to happen and it may also reflect the slow tempo and beat of the song.To help this, the door is seen to slam at the same time as the beat of the song so not to interrupt it. The boyfriend interprets his actions as a way to show her that he loves her so much that he would put his life on the line to keep her safe; the girlfriend, however, is heartbroken, as he broke his vow to never leave her, and terrified at the thought of him being killed in war.

An advantage of having a narrative continuing throughout the story is that it captivates the audience and encourages them to carry on watching in order to find out what happens next.

As the music starts to play again, we cut to a shot of the band playing to remind the audience that it is a music video. It may also be a requirement from the record company for the band to be shown. However, even though the band is shown in the video (more towards the end), the main focus is predominantly is on the actors which is unusual.

The continuation of the video shows the boyfriend going off to war in Iraq. The intertextuality used is particularly effective as it was addressing an issue which is present in the world at the time; there was much debate regarding the meaning of this song and if it echoed the events of 9/11. Billy Joe then stated that the song was a tribute to his father. The scenes are intercut with others of the girlfriend tearfully mourning in a quiet field. The video ends on this juxtaposition, emphasizing the pain and heartache of losing loved ones due to the war.

There are many movies that replicate the storyline and theme of the video such as Pearl Harbour, Dear John and The Men.

Music Director Presentation - Jonas Akerlund

Jonas Akerlund on Prezi

Lip - Syncing Activity

For this activity, we were given a track called "You Wanna What?" and clips of students from another school performing it and our task for this activity was to use the clips that we were given and match them up to the track.
It was a highly entertaining task which enabled me to develop my skills and use components such as markers to make sure that the timings on the videos were accurate.

Practise Lip Syncing

For this task my partner, Frankie, and I chose to recreate a video for the song Blue by Eiffel 65. We chose this as it was a song that we both liked and thought it would be fun to film/dance and sing to.
I think I completed this successfully and developed my skills as I learned how to use markers and make sure that the track matched up to the video.

Music Tracks

When trying to choose a potential track for my music video, I came across many different genres and looked at as many songs as I could so that I could keep my options open and keep a broad mind about what I wanted my video to look like.

I first thought about using a song from the dance genre as I felt this would enable me to work more freely with the footage that I'd shoot and would give me more ideas to work with. This also meant that the editing would have to be quick and sharp on order to keep up with the beat and retain the fast pace the video required.
The song that I thought would be good for this was The Ting Tings - That's Not My Name. This was because as there was not much happening in the original video, I felt that there was a lot for us to play with as a group. One of the idea's we had as a group (Disha, Frankie and myself) was when the line "They call me ...." was to have jump cuts of different people's faces on a close up shot and we felt that this would mirror the lyrics.

The next song I thought would work well for us as a group was Everytime We Touch - Casada. We felt that this would be a good possible track as the beat was fast and when thinking about it, we thought we had quite a lot of good ideas to put towards the video. The majority of the video would have consisted of fast jump cuts which would have included a number of shots, varying from close ups to long shots of the main performer. There would also be shots showing a club/party scene.

After a while of searching through different dance/pop songs, I felt that going for a completely different approach that I didn't think anyone else would help us to succeed. As the criteria only allowed us to use a song that wasn't released in the last 10 years or had a popular video, I thought looking at Radio 1 Live Lounge covers would enable us to be opened up to a whole new range of unreleased music.

As a group, we began to search through the several Live Lounge covers that had been performed and there were two songs that particularly stood out to us. The first was a cover of Kesha's Tik Tok by Example and the second was a cover of Linkin Park's Numb by Jamelia. Neither of the two songs had been officially released or had an official video produced for them so they fell perfectly into our criteria.
Ultimately after a long discussion as to which we thought we would be able to produce a video to more effectively, we decided to go with Jamelia's cover of Numb.

Christina Aguilera - Beautiful

Christina Aguilera is an American singer-songwriter who first cast onto television when appearing on the show Star Search in 1990.

"Beautiful" is a song written and produced by Linda Perry and is taken off Christina Aguilera's second album, Stripped (2002).

It tells the story of a girl who tries to deal with the abuse and the hurtful comments that get said to her causing her to feel insecure and unconfident. The song is about how she overcomes it and doesn't let the comment affect her.

The video is both performance and narrative based. The different stories acted out in the video mirror the lyrics and the issues faced of being different and needing to "fit in". Throughout the video we see the characters embracing their unique-ness and continuing on the way theywant despite what others may think.

The video starts off with an extreme close up of Christina's face where she whispers "Don't look at me", which is the message that echoes through about how the characters in the video feel. The main focus then turns to them and the lighting is particularly effective when we first see them as they are all positioned in dark rooms with a spotlight shining on them making them the centre of attention. This is shown using two screengrabs below.

Favourite Music Videos

1.) Paper - The Get Out Clause

The Get Out Clause, an unsigned band from Manchester, without funds a crew or equipment turned to footage from CCTV cameras to make their video. They set up their equipment in around eighty different locations in Manchester and played to the cameras. They then, under the Freedom of Information Act, wrote to companies requesting the footage to be given to them.

Only a quarter of the companies fulfilled their request, ultimately leaving them with only twenty out of their original eighty locations.

To help them promote their idea, the band turned to the man who helped to make Oasis big, Liam Walsh, who thought the idea was a brilliant way to sell the band.

2.) Duffy - Warwick Avenue (Label: A&M, Mercury)

Aimee Ann Duffy, better identified by her stage name as Duffy, is a Welsh singer-songwriter who is known for being the first welsh female in 25 years to acheive a number one in the UK Singles Charts. This was with her song "Mercy".

This video premiered on the 23rd of April 2008 on Channel 4. Almost the entire video is composed in a single shot. It starts with Duffy leaving Warwick Avenue Tube Station in the back of a cab and it ends with her still in the back of the cab wiping her tears whilst singing. The director, Daniel Wolfe, had orginially thought that this was only going to be one scene from the music video but thought it felt so real that he continued filming on to make it the whole video.