Finding an Artist

When told to plan and create our own music video to go with a track of an unsigned artist, i instantly knew the artist I wanted to use. Because of this, I had no problem in seeking what genre and artist to use, although I did browse a few unsigned pages on MySpace incase I was not allowed to use my chosen artist and therefore would need a reserve solution.

I fell upon using the artist 'Frank Hamilton' who has become widely known through the help of MySpace but still remains as an unsigned artist. I found this artist around 2 years ago when searching for new music on MySpace and throroughly enjoyed the acoustic music that he created.

I came to the decision to use his song 'You,Your Cat and Me' as it has been my long term favourite and I believe the lyrics would work well when aiming to create a narrative based video - possibly about a boy admiring a girl from afar (use of voyeurism may come into use when further planning).

Once I had decided what song I wanted to use, I then went on to seek permission from the artist. I used my MySpace account to send a personal message to his MySpace music profile, which can be found here: http://www.myspace.com/frankhamiltonband. As I interpret him to be a fairly laid back and humble artist, I took a more colloquial approach when sending him a message via social networking site. Below is a screenshot image of the message I sent him:

Below is a copy of the lyrics to the song 'You, Your Cat and Me':

And you make me sweat right through
I know that all I missed
Off my Christmas list
Was you

And you make me think out loud
And I’m holding on
But my head’s just gone
To the clouds

So wont you tie me down for good
(Tie me down for good)
And wont you tie me down for good

‘Cuz there’s nowhere I would rather be
Than on your sofa watching cr*p tv
With no-one else there
‘Coz it’s just you, your cat and me

And you make this feel like school
Going out for smokes
Playing pratical jokes
Like a love drunk fool

So wont you tie me down for good
(Tie me down for good)
And wont you tie me down for…

‘Cuz there’s nowhere I would rather be
Than on your sofa watching cr*p tv
With no-one else there
‘Coz it’s just you, your cat and me
Find More lyrics at www.sweetslyrics.com

Think it, say it
Think it, say it
If you think it, say it
If you think it, say it (cover it up)
If you think it, say it (cover it up)
If you think it, say it (cover it up)
If you think it, say it
Cover it up, cover it up

(cover it up)
If you think it, say it (cover it up)
If you think it, say it (cover it up)
If you think it, say it
Cover it up, cover it up
x2

‘Cuz there’s nowhere I would rather be
Than on your sofa watching cr*p tv
With no-one else there
‘Coz it’s just you, your cat and me
Cover it up, cover it up

(cover it up)
If you think it, say it (cover it up)
If you think it, say it (cover it up)
If you think it, say it
Cover it up, cover it up
x2

After carefully listening to the song that lasts 3:11 minutes, I went against the idea of working in a group alone as I believe the task to be too great and I highly appreciate the input of others. Instead, I joint up with Ian Beattie, another member in my A2 class and we have decided to plan and create this music video together.

When discussing with Ian what material should be contained within our music video, we thought it should be of a narrative based kind as it would complement the lyrics and sound of the track quite well. Although slightly unclear, the two of us thought it quite fitting if the story of the music video were to be a young teenage boy admiring a girl from school, unaware that she also admires him back, however the two have never met. We felt this idea to be quite simplistic but could work well with the right locations and general mise en scene.