LEGO HOUSE MUSIC VIDEO PITCH

THE TARGET AUDIENCE. The song we’re using; Lego House has seen the most success with girls thirteen and up, partially because of the subject matter and partially because of Ed Sheeran’s oh so sexy face. The songs lyrics are centered around tenderness and love, keeping people warm when it’s cold and all sorts of other stuff that mopey teenage girls seem to like. Ed Sheeran also has really stupid hair, so that helps. That isn’t to say the song was designed especially for this demographic, as the song also saw immense success in almost all facets of society.

THE SONG CHOICE.

The song was one we were all fairly familiar with, didn’t outright hate and the lyrics, titles, subject matter and really stupid video meant it lent itself well to adaption and change, allowing us to convey all our artsy, faintly pretentious ideas with a degree of creative freedom.

RESEARCH- COUNTING STARSAlso popular with giddy teenage girls was ‘counting stars’ by One Republic, just like Lego house it features attractive young people who probably use lynx deodrant and have stupid hair. Aside from that, though the lyrics deal with similar subject matter; the line ‘dreaming about the things that we could be’ is similar to Sheeran’s line ‘and it’s cold in a dark December, but I’ve got you to keep me warm’ in that it deals with the kind of sophomoric love story that popular songs usually do, it presents a kind of idealistic beautiful romance in the face of an inhospitable climate.

As for the actual video, it seems to lack a direct, overarching narrative, focusing, instead on the band performing and gyrating and stuff, and intersecting this with footage of an old man being energetic, something reflective of the chorus which cries ‘old but I’m not that old, young but I’m not that old’.So, in essence, the video for counting stars is helpful in that it tells us an overarching plot isn’t at all necessary, and that, a video, can, if it wants to, merely support the song. Which is what we plan to do.

RESEARCH- LET HER GOAlthough the lead singer of Passenger has actually bearable hair and looks like he wears deodorant that won’t kill you if you inhale it, the two songs, Lego House and Let Her Go actually share a fair few similarities, such as the focus on lyrics, minimalistic hooks and the focus on one performer as opposed to the entire band, alongside the faintly melancholy tone centring around love (because people that aren’t socially stunted just can’t bring themselves to shut up about that) and relationships falling apart. They’re both very warm and comely and lovely and all that stuff, Passenger also has actual facial hair, not just wotsit dust he smeared on his face.

STORYBOARD.

Wide/ establishing shot. Wide/

establishing shot.

Wide/establishing shot.

Mid shot,

Establishing shot

ACTUAL IDEAS FOR THE VIDEO.Whereas the official video features Ron Weasley being ginger for five minutes, we plan to build a Lego house, using stop motion capture to record the Lego house at each stage of its production, and in the actual video it’ll slowly build up as each image is put together. We intend to take a photo every time a brick is put down, this will allow us to slow down or speed up the video when necessary as we’ll have access to every point of production, so we can choose when to increase the intervals; one moment we might show each individual brick, at another we might skip five.This will be intercut with video footage of a performer looking serious and pretending to play guitar in black and white, to suit the sophomoric tone the song, and also to lengthen the video so that it’s actually comparable to that of the song. For this we’ll make use of a midshot to illustrate the performers facial expression, their body language and the fact that they’re holding a guitar. At the end of the song, as the music fades, we could knock down the Lego house and film it in slow motion, making use of a mid shot to illustrate the impact of the kick, alternatively, in order to better reflect the subject matter, we could kick the house down at the start, and the rest of the video could be about rebuilding and repairing

MORE IDEAS!!

Alternatively we could do the entire thing in stop motion capture and take photos of performers walking around and doing stuff, like walking, taking a photo at each stage of the walk, and photo shopping these into pictures of the Lego House using Photoshop or macromedia fireworks, in a manner comparable to the video for Coldplay’s ‘Don’t Panic’. This is infinitely more possible then the alternative of simply filming people walking around with a Lego house back ground, which would require a high quality green screen and other special effect wizardry. The video lacks a standalone narrative, this was a deliberate decision as, the narrative of the actual video was, in no way, reflective of the subject matter of the actual song; a rather glaring flaw. This idea does the opposite, placing particular emphasis on the song and its lyrics, rather then detracting attention away from them like the official video. Rebuilding the Lego house fits the meaning of the song: about powering on through problems and issues and coming back when life knocks you down, like the Rocky speech, but you know, with guitars.

Thanks ,then, for listening to someone who isn’t, in any real way ,qualified to talk about music, talk about music for five minutes. Bye!