Many texts have influenced and inspired aspects of our music videos. Throughout our planning and research we have incorporated these texts in to our video via implicit and explicit references. We feel that by making these subtle references to other texts, our work is more sophisticated and has more meaning and value behind it.
The costume of the main character and the thematic basis of our music video was inspired by the video for The Hoosiers song 'Goodbye Mr A'. This videos's premise is that the band kill Mr A, a super hero, and then take his place as vigilante protectors of a town. The cliche, comic book-styled super hero basis of the video was what influenced and inspired our music video's theme. We think that the idea of a hero vs a villain is a well trodden and explored path- in essence it's bout good vs evil. However the super hero vs super villain take on this classic narrative conflict is modern and has lots of opportunity to adapt it. As well as providing inspiration for there basic thematic principle for our video, the style of the superheroes in 'Goodbye Mr A' was a large influence on us. The costumes worn by Mr A and then consequently The Hoosiers, provided us with inspiration for our own music video style and costumes. We decided to add a slightly more modern twist to the style however we feel we kept enough classic, cliched elements such as boots, a cape and a large sign on the chest, to provide the audience with a subtle reference to The Hoosiers video.
One of the main themes that we are trying to portray through our music video is the internal struggle people face between good and evil. For example the line from our chosen song "try as I might, I'm loosing the fight, to get better" highlights this well. The super villain is in conflict with himself. The 'good' side of him is "loosing the fight" to the bad side of him. This is a classic thematic and narrative structure in media and literature. One of the famous example is "The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde". This novella is about a man who experiences two very different personalities, one of them good and one of them bad. We wanted to take this traditional, classic narrative theme and add a modern edge to it. We feel by mixing this idea with a superhero theme, we have achieved this. This reference is less explicit than the stylistic reference to The Hoosiers and instead is implied through the repetition of the lyric "try as I might Im loosing the fight to get better" and the visuals which amplify this lyric.
Finally, a far more explicit reference we made was to the music video "Passing Out The Pieces" by Mac DeMarco. In this video a melon is used as visual effect to make it seem as if someone has squashed and stamped someones head. In the video a quick cut is used to make it seem as if someone has stated and squashed someones head where in actuality it was just a watermelon. We thought this comedic affect was highly affective and wanted to emulate it in our video. We feel that this effect is both surprising, innovative and adds comedic value.
By including explicit and implicit references to different media and literature texts, our final product arrives far more meaning and overall is a stronger piece of media text itself.
