R&P Post 13: Influences and inspiration from art, fashion and culture

Over the past few weeks I have been doing some research and building up a wide range of influences and inspiration from a variety of different place. Below I have denoted my key influences from art, fashion and culture as well the development I have made as a result.

Wes Anderson Films

 'The Royal Tenenbaums' (top and bottom left), Moonrise Kingdom (middle left), The Grand Budapest Hotel (top right), The Darjeeling Limited (bottom right)

I am very interested in the cinematography of my music video and I feel it is important to create an atmosphere through the way the camera is being used and the footage is being captured. My inspiration for this comes predominately from Wes Anderson's cinematic masterpieces and the way in which he creates mood through the symmetry of his shots. As you can see in the image above, he works hard with the mise-en-scene to create an exact equilibrium in each frame and as a result presents the audience with a slightly distorted and surrealist view of reality.

La Haine - Mathieu Kassovitz

There are three main reasons why this french film has inspired me for my music video project. 

Firstly, as can be seen in the image to the left, Kassovitz experiments with very dynamic and intrusive camerawork in order to help reveal the setting, atmosphere and emotion of each scene through only one shot. This has influenced my ideas quite significantly as it as led to me wanting a very dynamic performance scene in which the actors really exploit their spacial relationship with the camera.

Secondly, I have become extremely interested in the use of black and white through watching this film and I love that by losing color, the director has enhanced and enriched the mood and message of the piece. Overall, I am very keen to adapt this idea of black and white for my music video as I believe, if it is done well, it will give us a very defining U.S.P (unique selling point) to market.

Finally, the last key inspiration is the use of the shots where Said (one of the main characters) opens and closes eyes. These shots connote his various realizations throughout the film and they create very powerful dramatic effect. I would really like to do something similar in my music video, however I do expect it to be challenging to to introduce something with a similar effect in just a 3 minute video.


60's Mods & Rockers

I think that this period of British culture will be the most influential to my project. I have researched in great depth about the relationship between the Mods and The Rockers and how fashion and music completely split the generation. I am really interested in bringing those two groups together, combining their looks and styles and then mix that with modern day culture. I think that this will create quite an interesting and unique band who's image is based on many prior success artists from both sides of the spectrum, but still wants to offer something new.



Skaters

This is the final societal group that I am very keen to incorporate into my artists image. Skate apparel and accessories in very much in fashion and is wore by a lot of young people internationally. In addition to this, for decades, the skater community has represented a marginalized group of youths that skate for a sense of personal identity as well as diversion, especially in places such as Southbank. As a result, I think that it would be quite an interesting audience to target and would help incorporate equality and cultural values into our bands image as well as aiding our edge and quirky representations.