What were your song options?
In the beginning, I was planning to work on my coursework alone. I started thinking about my song options during the summer. I really liked "Atlantis" by Seafret and "Muli" by Ace Banzuelo. I discovered Atlantic because of TikTok, the version that became viral though was a sped-up version. Muli on the other hand is a Filipino song, I started listening to it after it went on the Top 100 of Apple Music Philippines.
1. Seafret - Atlantis
Atlantis is sung by the band Seafret, They're a British music duo consisting of singer Jack Sedman and guitarist Harry Draper, from Bridlington, East Riding of Yorkshire, England. The song was from the album Tell Me It's Real and which was released in 2016. Atlantis falls in the genre of Alternative/Indie and Adult Contemporary. Personally, I interpret the song Atlantis as a sad love song. For example the lines of the chorus:
This is an intertextual reference to Plato's Lost City of Atlantis, but in this context, Atlantis is a reference to a failed relationship (the city of Atlantis, as told in Plato's book sank). The lyrics also hint that the foundation of their relationship was not good, to begin with thus it was bound to fall apart. "I can't save us" seems to be a direct confession of how the significant other believes that there's nothing to do to mend their relationship. the last line of the chorus can be interpreted as the time, love, and, efforts of starting a relationship but in the end, it all breaks down as the relationship also crumbles.
The official music video of the song has another take on the song. The music video suggests a theme and narrative of how the real world is. It's about growing up and entering adulthood. There is a suggested reality that is harsh in the very beginning of the music video, the forest, and yeti-like creature symbolize the utopian beliefs of the world we have as a child. The kid seems to enjoy this utopian world, however, they get chased and his yeti-like companion sacrifices itself for him to be able to run away from their chasers. This is another symbol of how in our real world, we can try to ignore problems and try to live as carefree people. However, we can only dodge reality for a while. There's still a point in life when we will lose things, and people we care about to realize that life is not always about fairytales and happiness.
2. Muli - Ace Banzuelo
Ace Banzuelo is born on August 4, 2004. He's a self-taught singer/songwriter from the Philippines. He became famous after his song "Muli" became a hit on Philippine Tiktok. He is now a signed artist of Sony Music PH. The song title "Muli" means Again, the genre of this song is R&B/Soul. For its MV, it features a local love team from the Philippines, Francine Diaz, and Seth Fedelin.
Their cameo made an impact on the views of Banzuelo's MV, as of Nov 2022, the music video has 26 million views. For a rising musician, Sony definitely used the cameo appearance to boost their artists' streaming sales. The MV of the song has a romantic theme to it but the narrative is very vague. Personally, I would've liked the music video more if it had a solid narrative flow. However, I liked the editing and camera techniques used in the mv. They used a lot of soft focus to create a dreamy effect and to differentiate the parts of the MV wherein the couple is still "in love" with each other. Although the mv is focused on the love team, the singer is still largely part of the mv. He essentially parallels the male protagonist, and the usage of costumes is well utilized to convey this.
During the summer, I really listened to Muli a lot. I also had some voice-over concepts about the song and I also translated the song from Filipino to English (as subtitles if ever I will use this for my mv)
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PLOT IDEA
Back in the Philippines, I was educated in a Catholic school for eleven years. Growing up I was really close with nuns and sometimes I would talk to them and ask them how they decided to enter the religious order. One time, I had a conversation with a nun and before she entered decided to enter the convent, she was in a serious relationship and she thought they were gonna end up together. However, she said her desire to enter the convent was greater than her love for the guy. She decided to break up with him and enter the convent to become a nun.
Fast forward, I was watching a true life story sent through letters (MMK is a Filipino Saturday program that features life stories reenacted). It was Renato, who was about to be ordained as a priest but they are usually sent out to have last reflections if they truly want the religious life. He meets a girl who was just got cheated on by her fiance, Nelson. She is the daughter of a flower farm owner with whom Renato was working part-time. They eventually became close and at one point Renato was about to quit the priesthood. However, before he even did this, Marina discovered that he was just out of the seminary and she gets furious at him. They weren't able to talk and before Renato left for the seminary, he wrote her a letter but it was all too late when Marina read it. Renato got ordained and Marina decided to reconcile with Nelson as he "changed" for good. Marina's parents died and she took care of their Flower Farm. Nelson was helping her out with managing the business because she was pregnant with their child. Turns out Nelson was stealing money from the business and was still continuously cheating, he also became abusive. She decided to annul him, and at one point she was able to meet Renato again. They became friends and she raised her daughter, Patricia alone. Now this MMK episode really struck me and it became my inspiration for my MV idea.
I wanted my MV to be about a couple who appear to be meant for "each other" and there's no cliche conflict like cheating, family not liking each other, or socio-economic differences trope. Although they are truly in love with each other, the girl protagonist keeps on having a "vision" of a religious calling. Unsure of what she should do, she asks for signs. One day, the guy protagonist finds out she had thoughts of pursuing the religious order, furious, he throws her bible and other religious scriptures and walks out. The girl then never got the opportunity to explain that she wasn't gonna pursue the religious life as the guy thought she was. Due to the conflict, they never officially broke up, and the girl changed her mind and decided to enter the convent. The guy resents God and after a few years found out that the girl pursued a religious life. He figured that he wanted to apologize to her so he tried looking for her location, only to find out that she died because of sickness. The closing scene is him visiting her in the cemetery.
My plan for the music video is to be a narrative and heavy with symbolism. Since I am in China, I can't really get most of the Catholic scriptures that I need. I am also conflicted about whether the Chinese audience if my coursework is shown to the school would understand the religious context of my music video since Catholicism is not really a dominant religion here. For my planned props, I was lucky cause my mom and siblings were flying from the Philippines to China so even if I was still unsure during the summer, I asked her to bring me some rosaries and a bible (both were not blessed as I was taught in the Catholic school that once these are blessed, you can't use it for other purposes like props).
I also filmed some establishing shots during the summer and I tried doing some color grading. I tried both songs as the background music just to see which song fits the aesthetic and vibes of the scenery. I think the lake shot fits very well with the wave sound effects at the beginning of Atlantis.
Atlantis as BGM:
Muli as BGM;