Ideas different songs gave me

To exercise our brains and try to come up with ideas we had to listen to different songs whilst removing all external distractions. When listening to the songs from different genres we wrote down anything they made us see or think of, this could be a colour, person, narrative etc. I'm going to choose 2 of the 5 randomised songs I wrote notes about and share my ideas on here. 

The first song played was 'Chosen' by Blood Orange. This song doesn't feature many lyrics apart from a short story told by a French girl and a harmonic chorus.

Instantly this song made me think of a dark night in the city where all the lights were very bright and glowing which could be done either by overexposing and adding gaussian blur to parts of the video or by having super bright lights. You could create really nice linear and cinematic light flares by shooting on an anamorphic lens.

I pictured a girl running around a busy city street at night in the rain dancing without caring about anything else going on around her. I thought the dancer would be in slow-motion whilst everything around her moves really fast to show how she feels very free and in control of her life whilst everyone else is in a rush and is locked in their routine. Her happy expressions and and ecstatic movements would help add a feeling of escapism to the video which could be a motive as to why viewers may watch it. 

I was thinking this concept/narrative style video would work being shot to look like or actually as one continuous shot, this would either require cleverly placed invisible cuts or a long duration of footage, around 1 minute 30s if slowed down.

The message of this video would be to be more expressive and free, valuing enjoyment over luxury. However this is a really difficult and unlikely ideology which you could show by having the dancer waken from a dream at the end and walk down the same street in the day to her boring job. 

 

The next song I wanted to share my notes from was 'The other song' by Spirit. This 60s psychedelic rock song has some dramatic undertones which instantly made me think of an altered reality, something apocalyptical. Firstly I pictured a regular guy, maybe dressed in a suit, walking around what seems to be an abandoned town centre (all dusty and empty). The sky looks a little bit different, possible with a hollowed out sun or unusual clouds. As the song progresses, starving people who appear to be in a trance with tattered clothes start to emerge from the abandoned shops, some of them are on their knees praying to the sky, others stand and stare and others run away from it. The man in the suit who is central in the frame with his back to the camera looks around for some sort of help and grasp on reality but doesn't find any so starts to slowly walk backwards. The shot cuts to a pit-bull (on action) barking aggressively at the sky then the pace starts to pick up and the suited man starts to panic as the sun gets hotter and brighter whilst bats start to fly out from it. 

I don't know what I would be indirectly making intertextual references to with this plot and I don't know why the song drew my mind to this idea but it would be extremely difficult to execute without a large budget and amount of expertise. Lots of CGI and expensive set design would be needed :)

This video would also appeal to viewers seeking escapism or distraction and could accompany the song well as that's also what the typical listener also seeked. 

I also explored other genres such as 90s rap, reggae, R&B, funk/soul and blues rock and had some ideas however Jazz rap and Reggae always seemed to make me think of performance style videos.