Music Video

The direction we are going with the music video is one we can all agree on. I like the idea of having themes from the different plays incorporated into our song and of course video.
I agree that focusing on Shakespeare's commentary toward society, rather than just the "love" and other things people think Shakespeare is about, will be beneficial to educating our audience. Some of the themes that fit this category to me are:

1. Nature - Including lines from the Tempest and King Lear about how it is used to subject us to a higher power. I think we could take advantage of the snow storms that frequent the area.

2. A Play within a Play, or Music Video within a Music Video - I think we can get creative with this and show people preparing for a music video in a music video while developing other themes at the same time. Some of the lines that will work well with this are form Hamlet.

3. Knowledge - This can developed within the music video as a sub theme. For example, lines from Prospero going to study and losing power, or the men from Love's Labours Lost seeking knowledge and swearing off women.
Under this theme, I think it would be awesome to use parts from Biron's "justification."

Consider what you first did swear unto,
To fast, to study, and to see no woman;
Flat treason 'gainst the kingly state of youth.
Say, can you fast? your stomachs are too young;
And abstinence engenders maladies. Line 1640
And where that you have vow'd to study, lords,
In that each of you have forsworn his book,
Can you still dream and pore and thereon look?
For when would you, my lord, or you, or you,
Have found the ground of study's excellence Line 1645
Without the beauty of a woman's face?
[From women's eyes this doctrine I derive;]
They are the ground, the books, the academes
From whence doth spring the true Promethean fire]
Why, universal plodding poisons up Line 1650
The nimble spirits in the arteries,
As motion and long-during action tires
The sinewy vigour of the traveller.
Now, for not looking on a woman's face,
You have in that forsworn the use of eyes Line 1655
And study too, the causer of your vow;
For where is any author in the world
Teaches such beauty as a woman's eye?

4. Intensity of War - There are many good quotes to along with a music video here. Some of them include the famous St. Crispin's Day speech (we could use parts) or powerful, poetic lines that show vigor such as "there's not a piece of feather in our host..." A lot of King Henry's lines are very poetic. If we want to run with a theme related to him it would be fitting for a music video. Here are some of his lines:

Shall this his mock mock out of their dear husbands; 435
Mock mothers from their sons, mock castles down;

Cheerly to sea; the signs of war advance:
No king of England, if not king of France. 830

5. Acting vs. Our True Identity - This is one of my favorite themes in Hamlet. There are so many lines where Hamlet is tearing apart his emotions to find out who he is. We could use a lot of his self reflecting lines in order to capture this theme. Further, the music video could portray one of us in different scenes going about (hitting on different themes in different venues) to find out who we really are.
Check out some of Hamlet's self reflection:

To be, or not to be- that is the question: Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer Line 1750 The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing end them. To die- to sleep- No more;...

'Tis now the very witching time of night,
When churchyards yawn, and hell itself breathes out Line 2265
Contagion to this world. Now could I drink hot blood
And do such bitter business as the day
Would quake to look on. Soft! now to my mother!
O heart, lose not thy nature; let not ever
The soul of Nero enter this firm bosom. Line 2270
Let me be cruel, not unnatural;
I will speak daggers to her, but use none.
My tongue and soul in this be hypocrites-
How in my words somever she be shent,
To give them seals never, my soul, consent!

"O that this too too solid flesh would melt,
Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew! ...

How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable
Seem to me all the uses of this world!
Fie on't! ah, fie! 'Tis an unweeded garden
That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature Line 340
Possess it merely. That it should come to this! ...

She married. O, most wicked speed, to post Line 360
With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!
It is not, nor it cannot come to good.
But break my heart, for I must hold my tongue!"

I am excited to talk it over with you guys. We can use all of these or one of them. This is going to be an awesome project, but a lot of work.