Overall music video inspirations

After planning out what we wanted our video to include and look like, we decided that our two main influences were the 'Touch' video by Shift K3Y and the 'Heart Attack' video by Demi Lovato. Each video gave us different inspirations, but we were then able to add to these aspects with our own initial ideas to make our video more original and so that it fits with the tempo and song that we have chosen to use.

The first video that we were inspired by is Shift K3Y's 'Touch' video. He uses coloured smoke against a dark background, which creates contrast and this is the kind of effect that we want with the powder paint when the balloons burst, because the dustiness of the powder should be evident in the camera shot. It will not create the exact same smoky effect but we have used our own ideas to make it original for our video.

He also has neon coloured palms, which was probably created through a green screen, but we were inspired by the neon colours so we decided to get the brighter, neon powder paints for our video. The paints will be thrown at the actors so it will cover the whole body, but we will also take a few images with the paint on the actors hands to consider using for our album digipak.

This video also involves a lot of close ups and extreme close ups. We thought it would be good to do this for our video because the song is quite dramatic so the close ups would emphasise the actors facial expressions that will go with the mood of the song. Also the screen grab from Shift K3Y's video shows a close up and a neon hand print on the actresses arm, this can again show that we wanted to use neon paints to create a similar effect, but for our video the paints will be covering the whole of the actors bodies because we will be throwing the paint and filming it hitting the actors bodies and costumes.

The second video that we were inspired by is Demi Lovato's 'Heart Attack' video. She has quite a few costume and setting changes, and within this video it cuts from a high lit setting to a low lit setting, and then back again, similarly with her costumes, she wears white in the high lit setting and black in the low lit setting. The first setting has high lighting, there is a plain white background but it also has black paint dripping down behind the singer, to create contrast against the white. The costume she is wearing also has black handprints across the top, again creating contrast.

We felt inspired with using multiple settings and costumes because it will make the video more interesting for an audience to watch, and whatever setting we use we will have a different costume to fit in with the surroundings and how we will be filming the scene. This is what Demi has done, she has used contrasting colours to create difference in her video, and she has then created costumes for the setting so that they fit together. Especially when she is in the 'empty warehouse' looking setting, she is surrounded by a band, the lighting is low and she is wearing all black and dark eye make-up to create a dramatic effect and emphasise the changing tempo of the song.

From this video we are able to see that by just using a plain background it can still make an effective setting, particularly if you're using contrasting colours, it will create a dramatic effect or it could suggest a particular message that the song is trying to portray. We felt inspired by this as we are likely to be using a plain black background for a couple of our settings, even though it is simple we feel it will still fit in well with the rest of our video and chosen song.