Group - Track Response

What is the genre of the track?  How can you tell?

The genre of the track is alternative / noise rock, a style of rock music that became popular in the 1980's.The genre 'noise rock' refers to a style of music that is atonal and dissonant, with lots of electronic feedback and heavy distortion, as to achieve an overall level of 'noise' as opposed to a clean, more produced sound like other rock music.
In 'Careless', this is characterised by the distorted guitar, in Royal Blood's case, a bass guitar, as Mike Kerr uses a bass guitar split into 3 signals, that in turn pass through octave pedals, as well as fuzz, distortion and reverb units to create the Royal Blood sound. The vocals are also distorted at times, sitting them back in the back as opposed to them cutting through. The drums are very high powered and a lot more present in the mix than other rock music, giving the song a powerful drive.

Do you think this track represents a high or lo fi video?  Why?

I think that this track represents a low fi video, which would complement the genre of 'noise rock'. In a lot of other Royal Blood music videos, they have added artificial celluloid tape noise, to give the picture a low fi style. This also complements their grungy band mage.

What videos would be comparable?  

 

Royal Blood's 'Little Monsters' video is a good example to look at, as it perfectly fits into the noise rock genre, and is an example of a low fi production, for example the artificial noise on the picture. However, it is purely a performance based video, with no narrative concept. 

 

An opposite of this is the Royal Blood 'Figure It Out' video, which has quite a high fi production value, and is purely narrative based, with no performance or shot of the band. 

The Queens of the Stone Age 'Go With The Flow' video is also a similar song, with a video combing animated performance with a narrative based video. The band are on a pickup truck driving along, with the image following the music and lyrical subject.

Publish and label some interesting stills from the same genre.  
 

Drenge - Backwaters

 

Arctic Monkeys - One for the Road

 

Give an outline of a treatment
We are planning on having a performance based video with an intercutting narrative. The narrative will be of a man who has lost touch with his girlfriend, and taking his anger out on himself and the world. We will try and show this subtly by hinting to the idea of drink and drugs, without actually showing him partaking in this, as to keep it clean. We are planning on having a darkly shot video, with lots of filler shots of "careless" behaviour.
 

Identify suitable locations for filming particular sequences of the music

A suitable location for our music video would be a grungy, old and run down looking place, that feels quite enclosed. This would fit with the genre of the track and their existing videos, as well as the lyrics; "You couldn't care less".

Somewhere quite isolated would also work well, to go with lyrics such as "I wish I could make this disappear, So I sit and smoke on my own". 

Consider grain of voice.  What characters would you use?  

 

The band would be featured in the video with a montage of them playing, as to maintain a brand image through the music videos, and conform to our chosen genre.

We would also add in another character, who plays the character mentioned in the lyrics. This make would be drinking/smoking in relation to the lyrics, showing his careless attitude and approach to life. 

We have also drafted the des of addin a female character for a small number of shots, to play the woman who "couldn't care less" about him, to show and explain the lyrics.

 

What pro-filmic and post-production special affects would be suitable?

 

The main effect that would be suitable for us to use is artificial noise, connoting a grungy tone to the video. We could also experiment with colour washed like the 'Figure It Out' music video, although instead of red and blue we would use darker colours, like greys, connoting a darker tone on the video.

Who else would you need to 'employ' to help you with this production?

 

In early group discussions we have drafted in our group member Ross to play the male character, as he is an experienced actor who is suitable for the role. We would then need to find two guys who look like the band, one potential for this is group member Dan to play the role of Mike Kerr, and also a female to play the female role, although there are no specifications for this so will be easy to cast.