Music Research

We felt that the inclusion of non-diegetic music would help to further emphasise the aged feel of the piece, reinforcing the era we are trying to represent in the film.

The 1980's was a very symbolic time for music, as the decade saw a vast expansion of the industry and the introduction of a variety of new musical genres which remain thriving to this day. The introduction of MTV in 1981 enabled a much vaster exposure of bands and artists, giving them more of a chance to widely express their musical endeavours through a more convenient medium.

The 80's saw the emergence of genres such as New Wave, Synthpop, Glam Metal, Thrash Metal and Hardcore Punk. This gave us a wide variety of genres to explore when trying to find a song that we felt would be fairly representative of the time period, as well as being perhaps reminiscent and hopefully recognisable to the elder section of the target audience.

The feel of the music we searched for also varied a great deal. We were undecided as to whether we wanted to choose a song with a parallel atmosphere to that expressed in the film - so more of a slow paced, perhaps softer song, or whether we wanted to aim for a more contrapuntal sound - possibly a more upbeat, faster paced number which would undoubtedly contradict the mood of the visuals. We decided to explore both avenues, at this point leaving our options open to search around and see what would fit and what would work alongside the visuals of our opening sequence.

As 'This Is England' is one of the main influences on our film sequence, we decided to look at their soundtrack as a starting point, exploring some of the artists they used to see if we could find any links to a song that we could use. From this, we discovered the band Toots & The Maytals, famous for their vibrant Ska and Reggae. We felt their music was fairly representative of the era, and could also fit well alongside our titles. On the other hand, we didn't want to copy 'This Is England' too much.


On the other end of the spectrum, I found a band called Foxboro Hot Tubs. Although a more modern band, their sound is more reminiscent of 80's punk rock, and so could have aided a successful portrayal of the time period in our titles. However, their songs were overall quite fast paced and perhaps a little to upbeat to successfully fit comfortably with the visuals of our sequence.