Back Cover Image Completed

As my music genre is folk rock I decided that I wanted to use wood etchings in my digipak. After a few days work I have finally completed the final draft of the image:

Our Current State In Production

Now we have got our narrative and part of our performance out of the way we are going to make the decision on what we should ideally be doing next as we have completed our schedule. As we are currently not satisfied with our performance shots and we'd like to get some shots in of a higher quality from different angles. We would also like to get some drum shots as we encountered some problems with getting drums in our music video. An obstacle that we still have yet to overcome.

 In terms of our filming we have been very prepared so far, we checked the weather report and planned our day in order to get our stuff. We are planning to film the last of our footage by January and we will need to prep until then to get all the equipment we need.

Breaking Folk Rock Conventions

We have decided to break conventions of Folk Rock, not only in just including a narrative but in attempting to make the music video more light hearted and comical. This is because so far I have been unimpressed with how many folk rock videos lack personality.

We wanted to go against this and take influences in our video from other subgenres of rock. We have done this in our narrative but we are also going to attempt to capture this in our narrative.

In addition to this we are breaking conventions of Folk Rock in having a carribean singer. As folk rock is entirely white dominated amongst it's artists (something very true of rock in general) we have chosen to have a black singer perform in our music video. This was at first not intentional, as he was in fact just the person who mimed the best (he was originally intended to be our bassist) and then we chose to have him as both bassist and singer.

We have decided to use this fact to break the conventions of Folk Rock within our music video.

Narrative Filming Complete

Sunday we successfully completed the filming of our narrative. We filmed James as our living statue stalking a girl through a park.
In addition to this we also filmed a few additional shots as we were unable to decide on whether to end with our tongue in cheek ending or instead take a second twist ending with him in fact stalking multiple women.
We have taken several photographs of our process of painting James:

While 5 hours of filming did prove to be very tiring however everything went well without any problems.

Tom Waits - Hold On (Music Video Analysis)

This is the second Tom Wait's video I plan to analyse as I feel this is a more typical example of Folk Rock music videos.

All aspects of the video have an old time filter on it, this could possibly . The video is almost entirely performance based with only a few brief narrative shots. This is reflecting his age but also the age of the style of music he is playing with Folk music having an extensive history.

The video is very performance heavy with him performing in different locations with different guitars. He stands very still while playing staying in one spot only moving his arms. This could be seen as reflecting his age which Tom Waits embraces.  He is represented in his usual manner of being dressed in a suit with a hat.

What little narrative there is involves a women in a car driving across America with no clear goal.

Tom Waits - Hell Broke Luce (Music Video Anaylsis)

Tom Wait is a musician who often borders on Folk Rock however he is perhaps better known as an experimental rock musician. I have chosen to analyse his video "Hell Broke Luce" for its narrative.
This video has a huge amount of symbolism.

This song is an anti war song, which talks about the real life suicide of anamerican soldier called Jeff Lucey. As such this video has a lot of anti war symbolism, it is also interesting that despite this video being clearly about the real world, the video itself is very surreal and otherworldly.

The core narrative of the video is Tom Waits pulling a house through the desert. This also makes up the performance aspect of the video as Tom is almost always seen with the rope which he is using to tow the house behind him. He travels through the video, towing the house underwater with the submarines fighting and through the desert and even through no mans land. This could be seen as Tom Waits travelling through the history of war, and how regardless of the wars changing, the story of the soldier is always the same. The story of soldiers carrying thoughts of their home (symbolised by Tom Waits pulling his home behind him) trying to make there way through the war.

Tom Waits is also represented in different ways throughout the video.

Similar to folk rock videos, the focus is very often on Tom Waits. However Waits is also telling the story of the video.  While there is no set narrative there is a lot of surreal imagery and this is an example of one of them. He is in a chefs hat with a saucepan as Jeff Lucey was a chef. Which is why Tom Waits is in this attire. Waits in this moment IS Jeff Lucey, and the song is sung from the perspective of Lucey.

Another odd way Tom Waits is represented is wearing a gas mask. This time the reference is to the London Blitz in which people would carry gas masks due to the possibility of gas bombings at any moment.

This is perhaps the boldest image within the video. The symbol on the mans hat is clearly referencing both nazi germany and america. The comparison being made here is that Tom Waits is saying there are similarities between nazi germany and america. He does this by putting the eagle of nazi germany and combining it with the eagle of america and places it on the shield of the american flag.  This is of course a very bold statement to make and it places Tom Waits as being firmly anti-war regardless of the cause.  Soon after the hat ignites. Fire is often shown as a negative image connoting pain, suffering and intense heat. Similar to that of what is felt by the soldiers in iraq which the song is dedicated too.

The general "nailed to the desk" planning a war. he is not shown as a real person instead almost like a cartoon. This dehumanises the generals and instead puts sympathy on the soldiers.

More firm anti-war imagery with a person in a skeleton costume also in an army hat. This is symbolising the death of soldiers albeit not in a grotesque way. The movement of the soldier is also quite disturbing. The way he writhes around is unusual and abstract. This adds to the almost otherworldly tone of the music video.






Tom Waits' video for "Hell Broke Luce" is a very dark surreal anti-war video making a large use of symbolism to convey its meaning. It reflects Tom Waits as an artist who is known for his metaphors and poetic style of song writing.

Explanation of Our Narrative

The narrative of our video begins with our woman walking through the park and passing a living statue. The statues eyes turn (the only bit of movement from which you see throughout the video). We then see her walking through the park and each time she turns she sees the living statue in a different frozen position not far behind her.

Initially she only gets slightly worried and uneasy. She cautiously continues her journey and the statue is found in many unusual spots watching her (behind bushes, walls etc.). While waiting for a bus she spots him frozen by the bus, and she panics and runs away.

As her journey continues and she begins to notice him more and more and she eventually panics more and more. She begins to run frantically away until she trips up. She stumbles to her feet to find him frozen behind her, she screams but then realises that the living statue was in fact only attempting to return her purse (he is frozen with his arm extended holding it).