2. THE BACKGROUND OF THE BAND
Dinner and Suit are an American, alternative rock band based in
Tennessee and was formed in 2008.
The band was formed when cousins Jonathan Capeci and Joey Beretta
began writing music together.
Along with recruiting their long time friend Anthony Genca to play bass,
the cousins built a band playing with various drummers in their first year.
They have played alongside other bands such as Imagine Dragons and
Lawson.
The band's name is a tribute to Joey and Jonathan's great-grandmother.
As Jonathan tells it: “Joey and I are cousins and our great-grandmother
was a seamstress who made and repaired clothes during the early part
of the 20th century. When the factory that employed her would discard
suits, she would take them home and spend her free time mending them.
It was the Great Depression and times were tough for everyone. Wanting
to make a difference in her own way, she made it a common practice to
invite people who were down on their luck over to the house, cook for
them and just spend time with them. When they left, she would give them
one of the suits she was finished working on. Our family would tell us
that they left her home with ‘dinner and a suit’ – and hence the name.”
3. WHY THIS IS SUITABLE FOR
A MUSIC VIDEO
There are a few factors that brought our attention to this song and which
persuaded us to choose it as the one to create the music video for.
The first reason is because of the lyrics. When analysing the lyrics true emotion
was revealed and we saw this song had the potential to evoke genuine feelings
from an audience. It meant that as soon as we heard this song we immediately
had a sense of narrative to go with it and because we all connected to it, we
initially had many ideas to brainstorm with.
Secondly, the song is slow paced. We deliberately chose a song that was a
ballad because we felt it would be easier to create the content for. When a song
is upbeat and energetic, there is pressure for lots to be going on at all times. We
did not want to restrict ourselves this way because we thought the emotion and
true narrative ran the risk of becoming lost.
Finally, we liked the fact that this song is sung by a young, American boy band.
These type of artists in the music industry are currently very popular, for
example, One Direction and The Vamps. We can gain inspiration from their
existing music videos.
4. SHOTS THAT INSPIRED US
These shots resemble an idea we
have thought about including in
our own music video. They were
taken from the music video for
One Direction’s “Story Of My Life”
single.
Our idea for some of the content
for our video includes flashbacks
and then an element of them
disappearing. This is
demonstrated here although
slightly differently, as the element
that changes in these shots are
the members of the group being
all grown up.
The fact that our idea has already
been similarly portrayed by a
famous boy band in the music
industry, gives us confidence that
our idea has the potential to be
successful.
5. GENRE
Dinner and a Suit are an alternative rock band, this genre of
music emerged from the independent music underground in
1980’s and became widely popular by the 1990’s.
The 'alternative' definition refers to the genre's distinction from
mainstream rock music, expressed primarily in a distorted
guitar sound and generally nonchalant, defiant attitude.
During the late 1990s and early 2000s, several alternative
rock bands emerged, including The Strokes and Franz
Ferdinand that drew from post-punk and new wave. Post-punk
revival artists such as The Killers had commercial success in
the early and mid 2000s. By 2010, in the United States the
term alternative rock fell out of common usage and the
term indie rock was used.
Alternative Rock has become very popular in recent years and
perhaps this is due to how it differs from other genres of music
is why it has become popular, it has given a calm sense of
Rock.
6. THE SONG
The song ‘Enough’ is from Dinner and a Suit’s EP called
Too Late. It is written about the singer’s past
relationship, and the person who the song is written
about must have broken up with him, as suggested by
the lines “what did they tell you that made you write?”
and “Maybe I wasn’t what you were after all”. The song
lyrics are very repetitive so it can be assumes that the
song was written as a train of thought, possibly regretful.
The singer is questioning the subject’s motive for leaving
the relationship. Other than this there is not much of a
storyline in the song so we have had to imagine one,
mainly including a break up at the beginning and
flashback/memories of the couple when they were
together and happy. The singer will lip synch throughout
the video and we will have a band performance to follow
the conventions of a music video.
7. CASTING
This is Dylan and he has agreed to be cast as the main
character for our music video. The main character is the
artist who will be singing the song. The reason we picked
Dylan is because he is a young, good looking, lad and so it is
believable that he could be part of a boy band.
We have decided to only include him as a main character in
the music video even though he is included in a band. This is
because for the majority of the time the audience can only
hear one voice singing the lyrics apart from backing vocals.
We will feature the rest of the band when the video cuts to
the content of them performing live e.g. a guitarist and
drummer.
? ?
? ?
The reason we have kept the second main character a
secret is because the process of choosing the person is still
taking place. We have a list of people we are considering for
the part but have not come to a decision. Something which
we are brainstorming is whether this character is a boy or a
girl. The music video will be about a couple’s relationship,
and so why can’t that be a gay couple? We are trying to think
outside the box so that our music video has the repeatability
edge to it but is also relative to the audience. There are
some practical elements to this though and the whole
concept is something the group need to discuss further.
8. CINEMATOGRAPHY
Camera shots: music videos tend to consist of many different
camera shots edited together. Our music video will use a
range of shots: like most close ups will be used to show the
main singer, long shots to show different characters moving,
tableaux shots to show the band performing together and also
establishing shots, to set the scene of the video. There is a
chance of us using other shots as well, but for our initial ideas,
these are shots that we are planning on using for now.
Camera movements: as we have an extremely low budget for
making a music video, we do not have the equipment to
incorporate a lot of camera movements. However, we will use
as many as we can: panning, zoom, tilt and perhaps tracking
shots to show our talents whilst shooting.
Camera angles: we will also try to incorporate as many angles
in our video if relevant, these include low, eye level and
perhaps overhead angles.
10. LOCATION
We thought a park would be a suitable setting because from listening
to the song we all imagined an autumn/winter season. Also the song
features bells which reminded us of Christmas, a time associated
with long, cold, dark evenings. A park would be able to capture the
essence of this season because the trees will all have autumn
coloured leaved and if it is outdoors the costumes will be able to
easily reflect the weather. The park we had in mind is Walpole Park
in Ealing as it has this path lined with trees which would look really
good to film in October/November. We imagined filming our ‘singer’
walking down this path, and him sitting on a bench with his ex which
would be a memory. Alternatively this archway could have been used
as it will also reflect the seasonal time of year. The park also has a
lake with a bridge which could be used to film the actor walking over
it or throwing pebbles into the water. As the park closes when it is
dark we will have to film before the evening but this is what we
planned anyways as it is harder to film in the dark without the correct
lighting.
11. LOCATION
Other locations we thought of are Lydia’s
house/garden as she has a raised sun deck area
which could be used as a stage for the ‘band’ to
perform on. This would be easy to access as a
group member lives there. It will be easier for us to
arrange the set to suit what we want as we can
decorate it as we wish.
As well as the garden we wanted to film some
indoor scene such as sitting on the sofa which
could be more memories of the couple before they
broke up. We also wanted to film a scene of the
couple arguing and so we could use the front of the
house to film the singer walking out of the door,
