From talks with some of the band members we came to the conclusion that when we hear the song it brings images of ‘Noir’ films to mind, where it is kind of mysterious and seductive, but what we want to do is put a comedic twist on this. Inspiration for this idea came from the Foo Fighters song “Walk” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PkcfQtibmU) it sets off the story of Dave Grohl who we are left to assume is late for band practice, stuck in traffic he decides to walk, a lot of unfortunate things happen to him and he loses his temper every time. The band all star in this video as different characters and then at the end he arrives to band practice.. Plays the last bit of the song, then the police bust in and taser him for the crimes he’s committed! It kind of puts a funny turn throughout each event and it is a very well made, funny video. So this is something we want to take inspiration from in that point of view, letting the audience make up their own mind on what is happening, not to give them the information, but to make them think more in detail about it.
The “Noir theme” comes from a gag genre known as “Noir Comedy”, we looked into this and found some of the videos we thought were the best! The video’s are “Sam’s Letter” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8F_r8I0_H4) and “Dog Day” (https://vimeo.com/96405793). “Sam’s Letter” is more of the style we want to lean towards, the scene colour the outfitting, we want it all to be similar. However in both of the Noir Comedy shorts there is a voiceover. This is typical of the Noir and Noir Comedy genre, we don’t want this in the music video, instead we will relate things to the lyrics, make it quite comical and keep the viewer concentrated on both the music and what is going on in the video.
I have requested that in the performance part the band dress up. Suits, ties, bowler hats, really anything that fits into the film genre. The whole video will be in black and white as this is a convention for “Noir” films. This is something the band liked the idea of quite a lot. They said it was more their style to be like this.
For the gag aspect we looked into this clip, it is called “World’s WORST Movie Chase Scene” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNjbx_-BtP8). What we all found useful with this is the overall style, the bad acting, the terrible chase scene and the vibe of the video, it does make you laugh. This is the kind of ‘tongue in cheek’ style the band want and want to portray themselves as. I think that this does set them apart from other bands, they want to adapt the three styles, merge them together. Another thing we want to take into account is how much the band is in the video, like with the Foo Fighters they are all in the video throughout. This is something we want to use to our advantage, this is the bands advert as it was stated in the Lara M Schwartz book and using them as actors in the film is the best way to show all their different personalities.