OutKast - Hey Ya!

Over the past couple of weeks I've grouped up with three other people (Dan, Saffy, Ollie), who have similar ideas and aspirations as me, in order to create a music video. Having deliberated for a few hours as to what song we wished to cover in our video we finally settled upon OutKast's 'Hey Ya!', which we feel is the perfect choice for the wacky style of filming we want to do. Having been released in 2003 it remains a popular song even now almost 10 years later. It has become synonymous with energetic dance and has proven to be a catalyst for a whole new genre of music. It was one of the first successful attempts at creating a hybrid of dance, electro, funk, alternative hip-hop and pop. It's a unique adaptation of dealing with a problematic relationship and is unlike most other songs covering this topic in that it is uplifting, upbeat and optimistic. OutKast's official video reflects this and retains a lively, fast-paced feel throughout which has proven to be our inspiration at the initial ideas stage of pre-production.

Whilst impressive, we don't want to replicate the original video

We've watched the video several times to gain a greater understanding of all aspects, ranging from mise-en-scene to editing, and once we have devised a plan for our own version I will further study each piece of technical construction further. We've noted how the song was received by critics within the industry - PopMatters described it as 'brilliantly rousing' and 'spazzy with electrifying multiplicity', whilst NME labelled it 'akin to trying to lasso water'. We wish to retain these positive traits in our own version as it was a structure that clearly worked with audiences. Despite this we are already referring to ours as something that will 'be structured by having no structure'. This basically refers to the fact we'll have no specific storyline that we'll be presenting in the video - instead it will be a blend of incandescent colour and innocent teenage fun. The innocence of youth is very much our ideology at this point. We feel if we can capture it in an amusing, relatable way then we'll have been successful in injecting our own unique take on what is already a very 'out there' song and video.

We've yet to decide on our band's name but this is something we'll settle upon over the next few days as it's important we begin to finalise our identity. We don't want to mirror OutKast so it is very likely that whatever we call ourselves will be vastly different to their name. We've not got to a stage where we've assigned particular parts of the production to each member of the group but we'll all work together on the pre-production and post-production. The actual construction of the video will have to be considered carefully as there may be someone who doesn't wish to feature in it. Personally I'm keen to play an active part and hope to have a leading role of some sort when we've settled upon what it is that we are going to do.

Overall I'm very happy with our choice of song and feel we've given ourselves a great chance of producing a video that matches our personalities. The potential is there for us to take the video in any direction we wish and we'll certainly be creative when putting our ideas on camera.

OutKast - 'Hey Ya!' Official Video (YouTube):

(At the time of this blog entry being published the video has amassed over 23,330,000 views)