My Ideas




When we were first set the assignment brief, I thought of many ways of which I could approach the task. I felt that through looking at the options I could choose the best of the options. 

When I think of music videos in general and one that I would love to do, I think of Dream Theatre’s Finally Free.


This is the final track from the album of Scenes from a Memory. This song follows quite a strong narrative already and has strong visual metaphors within the piece. It follows the relationship of three characters, two brothers and a woman called Victoria, within the story we see that there is a love triangle between the girl and the two brothers. In the end of the piece, we hear the foley of the girl being murdered and the brother, I felt that this would be good to act and felt I could play with how the film is shot and add a prologue. I am mainly inspired for this piece by Baz Luhrmann’s adaptation of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. In the sense of I could add a prologue in which I could separate the brothers and make them polar opposites, both in colour and in body language. Like shown in the film Romeo and Juliet Luhrmann uses for the capulets a cat like body language and black and white clothing opposed to the colourful nature of the montagues who have quite a relax poise throughout the film.


Since a young age I have loved the idea of creating a music video for this music video, I felt to do this I should attempt to approach all of the artists within the band and looked up there individual pages. I began by looking for a way to contact the band on their page at: http://www.dreamtheater.net/. This had no avail, having no contact details but lead me to see the different members of the band had their own pages. I felt since John Petrucci was the writer of the song, and James Labrie was the singer, these would be the priority people to contact. I tried both their websites http://www.johnpetrucci.com/ and http://www.jameslabrie.com/. Again these had no contact details which could link me to be able to ask for permission to use the song. They seem to be big fans of companies worldwide which call themselves something like “Dream Theater’s Venezuela Fan Club” which suggests they like fans who like to be proactive and engage with their text.

I felt after exhausting the links from their page that there was a high failure rate with this project and that I should choose to use music from more of an independent and local band.


The next step in my ideas was to think of local bands which I have a connection with and who I could make a music video for;

Ø Ross James Day


A Bradford born writer and singwriter. I met him when I was setting up a live musical event on the Level 3 Creative Media Diploma.

“Old White Shoes” is an original song and is open to the public. The song has a real guitar and acoustic feel to it and really pulls on the heartstrings off the audience I felt that I could make quite a nice a simplistic music video for this which showed a man who had everything and now only his white shoes and how he learns to live life to the fullest everyday.

I have been unable to get in touch with him, as we haven’t spoke since the event I have lost touch with him.

Ø Write to Record

Square Chapel Website: ht tp://www.squarechapel.co.uk/en/info/a16

A group that run at Square Chapel where I work throughout the week. All aged 16 – 24 and wanting to get some exposure.

They currently do not have any of their own songs and the time constraints both on them and on the task would be too much for them to take on.

Ø Raymonics


Three girls from the Calderdale area who used to play at an Open Mic at Square Chapel. Molly Gaskell on Guitar has set up a variety of bands.

I still have contact with the band but I feel that I could work with a different artist as I haven’t been able to think of a narrative with their music.


Ø Crimson Craft


Crimson Craft is the name of a music production company, currently in Amsterdam, owned by Joaquin Rico and Joe White, who are close friends of mine. With the issues of travel and the reputation of the company it was decided this was too much of a risky move.

Ø James Oliver


A guy I went to school with who has recently published some songs such as "Stranger" these could be good to use and I feel they have a strong emotion behind them. Although he has videos already made by another boy I went to school with Tom Stamp. I think that due to this I should go down another route with this assignment.



Ø Lucy Green


Lucy Green was another girl who I went to school with who again works closely with Tom Stamp, again I feel this wouldn't work under this assignment. 

Ø Rebecca Chilton


I met Rebecca at British Youth Film Academy. She doesn't have any studio pre-recorded pieces and I feel that  

Ø Jack Davis
 “Three Certain Special Words”

Ø Bound By a Secret
“All Mixed Up”



Ø Mike Longbottom




Ø Kim Chuah
“Close Your Eyes”


Ø Graham Woolley
“Never Falter”
“Lyon”
“Mary”


Final Idea

Graham Woolley – Mary

When listening to the song I liked how it played with the high and low notes and felt this could work well with the 3 arc structure as it follows this pattern throughout. I felt that the song was uplifting throughout the middle and then ended in desperation I thought that I could work a film around this.

The idea that came to mind whilst listening to the song revolved love and relationships. I found that this was a predominant theme which came up in the short films I analysed on the blog page “Short Film Case Studies” including shorts such as “Heartstrings”,” Zero”, “Apricot”, “Silence”, “Gone, Goodbye”, “The Desk”, “The Crush”, “The Date” and “The Long Distance Relationship”. I found all of these films fascinating, particularly The Long Distance Relationship as I felt that it was beautifully filmed and the story worked perfectly. I took a lot of inspiration from these pieces of work and hope to use this new found knowledge to help me plan to make a better film.

For this film I felt that I really enjoyed the Long Distance Relationship and how it construed time in order to keep information from the audience. I felt for this specific piece of music this would work well.

The main concept I thought of for the piece was the idea of lost love. We follow a young man, in his early 20’s. The music is meant to act as an inner dialogue for the character. I felt that it would suit if I made a prologue in which the main character is walking down a long road, holding a bouquet of beaten flowers in which we see him humming to the tune of the song in which we see he is very dishevelled. He walks up to a door and as it opens, the screen explodes into a white and the song begins.

The colour settles a bright warm colour and we see a young girl aged 7 answers the doors and invites our main character, Steve into the house, she skips along into the front room and Steve follows in a childlike mood. They sit on the couch and the two share a look and then the girl changes into a woman aged similar to Steve. We see them hold hands.

We then go into a montage where we see him knock at the door with a box if chocolates, a bright bouquet of red roses, a card, a teddy bear. Then they are sat in a big field enjoying a summer picnic. Sat at a dining room eating a dinner. In the front room watching a film.

After seeing the relationship develop then we see that the couple have a disagreement where they start fighting, and the music dips out whilst they argue. We then see them becoming more and more isolated which will be cross cut with seeing Steve walking down the road from the beginning.

It then goes fully into the shot of him walking down the road, we then see him cross the road and when he does we follow him to a gate where the music fades out, as the rain sound rises and we hear him sigh. He opens the gate and we see the graveyard. He then lays down the flowers and starts humming again as we see him sat at the grave and the flowers on the grave and the film fades to black.

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