Inspiration for music video

Throughout the planning and shooting stages of the production of our music video, we took inspiration for a range of aspects including shot types, action and costume from a number of different existing media products. One of our largest influences throughout the planning of our video was the band 'Madness'. Prior to the shooting of our own production, we did a variety of research into similar bands and their own video, which brought us to watch Madness' video for their hit 'One Step Beyond, discussed in greater detail in a previous post. This was the first time in which we as a group had come across a type of dance performed by the band called the 'Madness Walk'. We saw this as a perfect opportunity to increase the appeal of our own video, as well as take the opportunity to have a prominent reference within it. The walk is featured at the beginning of the video as shown below. It was a quirky and interesting way in which to referencesimilar artists,not to mention the fun shooting it!

Another of the references we used, and almost certainly our main reference, was both the film and tv series of 'This is England/'86). To really capture the urban feel of the genre, we wanted to include a number of shots of urban locations and scenes in our concept-based montage and took inspiration from This is England, in particular the scene where Shaun is seen walking along the wall when terraced housing is shown in the background. We focussed on this particular shot to influence two of the ideas from within our own video. Firstly we used the fact that Shaun was walking along the wall, and saw this to be a potential reference. We then took this idea as being from an existing media product and attempted a similar shot ourselves, shown near the beginning of the video (around ) where our acting band are shown walking across the pole in fast motion. We then added a reverse of the same shot directly after (as you can see from watching the video at the stated time) as this added an element of fun and quirkiness, hence conforming to the fun style of the ska genre. The movement of our actors (the way in which they are walking across the pole)can also be linked to the Madness Walk, previously mentioned, as we combined the idea of this scene from This is England with referencing an existing band of the same genre. (image blurred as screenshot from video).

We also imitated this shot in a different way, when focussing on the background setting of the terraced housing rather than the action of Shaun walking. We faced the camera out of a moving car window whilst driving past terraced houses. We used this footage to good effect towards the end of our video (around 2:10) and layered it over the top of other footage we had gathered showing the band 'skanking' (ska dance). This was in order to increase the appeal of the shot by making it more interesting, whilst further boosting it's reasoning to be included in the video by conforming to the conventions of the genre, by featuring the dancing ska-dressed actors on the second layer.

A large theme throughout our video is the use of monopoly money. We thought this to be a very relevant and interesting idea, considering the current economic climate as well as the economic situation at the time when ska/punk music was at it's peak popularity (1980's) as presented in the This is England '86 drama which we focussed heavily on, in which a large theme is that of unemployment due to the government at the time. We felt that by using monopoly money rather than actual money (as well as the fact that none of us have that much cash!), we were presenting the attitude of the characters from This is England regarding the importance of money, highlighting the fact that they saw the entire economic situation as a 'joke', as if it could be a game like monpopoly. For this reason we felt it highly appropriate to use the toy money.

Another reason for our use of monopoly money was to present our video's protagonist, the money-grabbing female. Because of the fact that monopoly is literally a board game, our utilisation of it presents the fact that the money-grabbing female is playing a game, as if she knows which 'moves' to make in order to gain money. It also implies that she is completely in control of this game she is playing, which can be linked to the term 'monopolisation' (discussed in detail in a self-titled post) meaning to be in complete control.

There were a range of shots in our video in which the main focus was around the monopoly money. For example the shot where the female hand is shown grabbing the money from the table. This is a very literal way in which we linked our footage to the title of our video. We also used a low angle shot of one of the male acting band members dropping money onto the camera. This presented how money is being taken from the average British citizen by the money-grabbing bankers as in the shot, the money is falling out of his grasp. It also highlights the idea that the money-grabbing female could be making financial gain from being the stereotypical money-grabber that she is represented as being, by taking money from the male characters. This particular shot was inspired by us watching a music video of a very different genre. From watching the video for 'Oh No' by the indie pop sensation 'Marina and the Diamonds' we discovered a variety of shots where she as the female singer is shown literally grabbing money and presenting herself as the stereotypical money-grabber. It was this particular shot, shown below, where she is shown picking up money viewed from a low angle through a pane of glass, which inspired our shot of the male character in our own video dropping the money onto the camera. This can be used as a direct intertextual reference for our shot, and the fact that we also played the shot backwards directly after likens it even more to the specific shot from the Marina and the Diamonds video where she is picking it up rather than dropping it.

Low angle shot from Marina and the Diamonds video, influenced shot in our own video, shown above.

Other shots involving the use of monopoly money within our production are the stop-motion animations which feature twice within our video. Prior to the shooting of our production stop-motion was an idea that we were considering greatly, and had unanimously agreed that the inclusion of at least a small section of it would increase the appeal of our production. The existing media product that further inspired our idea and pushed us to follow it through by showing us how effective it could be was a video called 'Monopoly Madness', which we came across by searching 'monopoly stop-motion' into Youtube (described in greater detail in a previous post). The video gave examples of ways in which we could use stop motion in a fun and relevant way (relevant as using the money, which relates strongly to our whole theme) so conforming to the fun and quirky concept of the ska genre. The fact that for the stop motion to be effective the editing has to be fast-paced is also a generic element of ska; the fast pace of editing is fitting to the upbeat pace of the track and conforms to the fast nature of typical ska music. Below is an example of the stop motion we used in our final video, using the money to spell out the word 'MONEYGRABBER'.