Initial Ideas for Video

To get some ideas started, we both individually printed off the lyrics and annotated them. I used black ink to show the different parts of the lyrics and what they represent each. Such as "There's a sun up ahead", which highlights the sun, but could also mean that there is always something good to come out of something bad.

In the first verse it says: "keep on tryin'", this suggests that you are to keep your head up, and as long as you're still alive, you can live the life you want to live. "You start a revolution or start a band", this basically means you can make an impact on the world. Music is such a big thing worldwide, that it becomes memorable and can change things, such as charity singles. Therefore starting a band could also be the start of a revolution.

In the second verse it's all about turning around and becoming confident, and forgetting all about the problems you have. "Raise up our glasses", suggests drinking, people drink to 'drown out one's sorrows', therefore people can relate to it and drinking helps to forget about people's problems, allowing them to "forget about the hate".

In the bridge, it mentions: "if you want we'll take a stand", this again links in with the revolution and that it only takes one person's thoughts to influence millions of others. This "stand" could be against anything, from war to racism, from being bullied to crime in general. It shows that people can make a change or revolution just by acting on what they believe.

The last bit is an add-on to the chorus as it has the same structure, but different lyrics. "Can't the whole world love one another", this is formed as a question, and one of life's answers. People never find out the answer there is so many conflicts in the world that it would be impossible for the whole world to love one another. But it doesn't stop people from trying. "Throw down your weapons, fix all the hunger", suggests world peace, which again relates to the whole world loving one another. But also talks directly about the war, which suggests that they don't like what is happening in the world.

After annotating the lyrics closely, I formed three different ideas, which are written in blue ink. They all are pretty similar since there is not a lot of things we could do with the video. Anyway here were my ideas:

Idea 1: Start off with a person playing (probably the guitarist since the guitar is the main instrument in the song), and people hear and start to come around the person, listening to the song. Not long after it becomes a crowd, and the message of the song has been received by them and they are holding up banners and posters about world peace, and slowly it becomes a protest so big that it appears on the news and that little gathering becomes a revolution and changes something big.

I liked this idea, however it seems really big, and really difficult to make since we'd have to have many different shots and angles of the crowd, and get them to protest, we'd have to film our own news channel and try and film something that will show that it made a difference.

Idea 2: Takes place in the Lickey Hills Country Park. The guitarist starts playing, he told all his friends about this, and set up an online event. A crowd develops not long after, and people are singing a long. The crowd know the chorus and sing-a-long to it. They also have actions, such as making hearts with their hands, in the last chorus.

I think this is a good idea, and doesn't sound too difficult, but it wouldn't be easy either. Trying to find a quiet spot in the Lickey Hills will be difficult, and also trying to get enough people to be available at the same time and them all to be singing a long to the chorus, along with them know when to do which actions. However it is definitely an idea we are considering.

Idea 3: We follow four different people, who all have different problems, maybe one is getting bullied, where another's family is poor and he/she isn't looking healthy. Then they hear about an event going on, and as they have nothing better to do they decide to turn up, and they relax, forgetting all about their problems as they sing-a-long with the rest of the crowd. in the final scenes, we see how much the song has helped these four people to change the way they act and manage to resolve their problems

I like this idea, but it seems really difficult to film. As well as having an event to film, we're going to have to do four times as much filming trying to show each of the four people with their different problems and then somehow show that they have been resolved. I am even finding it difficult to come up with four different problems that they all relate to the song. This is definitely a good idea, however I could see this being a disaster after we've filmed it.