Where to start ...

The first thing we needed to decide was a song. We brainstormed ideas of potential artists, we wanted a song that had a storyline that we could develop. Some of the artists we started looking at were:

• Scouting for Girls- James Bond and Need a Holiday
  
• Coldplay- Scientist
  
• Oasis- Lyla
  
• The Rifles
  
• Plan B- Hard Times
  
• The Script- For the first time

As a group we all liked the song 'Hard Times' by Plan B, the lyrics of the song made it so easy to visualize a potential video. We had the idea that the video would follow the main character throughout the day, portraying peoples struggles in life and how they can attempt to overcome them. Plan B Hard Times. There is no video for this song which could be seen as a positive or negative, people would have nothing to compare our video to but also we could not take inspiration from the official music video.

Through the hard times, people say that you gotta be strong
Through these hard times, people say you gotta keep going on
Through the hard times, people try and kick you when you're down
Through these hard times, don't it always seem like there's never anyone around to help you when you're strung out?

(Through these hard times)
When you're falling out, no one seems to care
(Through these hard times)
They just run you down, tell you that life isn't fair, no.

Plan B - Hard Times lyrics | LyricsMode.com

Another plus point of the song is that everyone can relate to it, everyone experiences hard times in their life, so they can relate to the lyrics, if our audience can not relate to our video then why will they watch it. We were imagining the video being shot in London with the main character walking around and on his way seeing people who are having a 'hard time'. We could also throw in the characters personal experiences via flashbacks.

From the very start we decided we wanted a song that was not well known and from an artist who people did not really know. We felt that throughout our video people would be constantly recognizing Plan B's voice, taking away the reality from the video. We decided as a group that we wanted our video looked as if it could be on MTV, and not as if we'd just chosen our favourite artists and made a video. So back to the drawing board we went.