Further Idea development

After discussing further with my group the idea I had about the gas masks we have decided that the narrative was too similar to that of a short film, and that it was far to complex and steered attention away from the track - which is the antithesis of our aims: to promote an artist and their album/song. 

We then looked at four music videos in the same genre which shared similar overarching conventions, (see prezi post) from these videos we confirmed one key fact: that our chosen genre of music works best visually with a nightmarish and disturbing theme. This is where the gas masks link in well, they have a very distinctive nightmarish quality.

Due to the fact that each of the videos we looked at all had a narrative, we decided that though we didn't want a complex narrative, it is still crucial that we have one to make the video more dynamic for the viewer. We started developing ideas of location, setting, costume and most importantly narrative. We decided that a great place to film our video would be in an abandoned warehouse, a location that we wouldn't have chosen had we not been informed that we could potentially gain access to one, which we have. Basing the narrative around the setting seemed like the most logical step in developing the idea, so we started thinking about nightmares that could link in with the setting, we came up with the concept that a teenage boy would be lost, walking aimlessly around the area of teh warehouse, before seeing it and entering - or perhaps that his intentions were to go to the warehouse, therefore bypassing the aimless wondering. Once he enters he sees the figures of 3 - 4 gas masked men, clumped together on the otherside of the warehouse, the viewer can see that they are doing something, but they can't see what it is, or who the people are. The boy then turns to leave to see there is no door behind him, that he is trapped in the warehouse. The gas-masked men spot the boy and come towards him, as he turns to run away another appears behind him. The middle of the narrative is vague as of now - but we intend to have some kind of intense disjunctive movement sequence to cut up the narrative- this idea may change. At the end of the sequence the boy is dragged toward what the gas-masked men were messing around with at the beginning to find it's another gas masked person - who takes of his mask to reveal its the boy - the boy is shocked, the boy's other self puts the gas mask back on the boy struggles around whilst the gas masked men attempt to brand him with their emblem - we see the door of the warehouse open again and we see the boy entering - the narrative returns to he beginning.

The key selling point in the narrative so far is the big plot twist at the end, the video would be designed to mess with the viewers mind. 


A media text with a similar concept and style is "12 Monkeys" by Terry Gilliam, it is similar in the way that the film is set in a dystopian time period, with characters wearing costumes that mildly resemble gas masks, in fact there's actually a scene in the film - set in world war 2, where gas masks can be seen.

It is also a circular narrative, meaning that the film ends where it begins. The film was inspired by Chris Marker's "La Jettee" which was a film made in the sixties totally comprised of stills, with music and narration laid over the top - the key feature of La Jettee was again that it had a circular narrative.