General: Short film project

I'm making a short film for a school project and I have a solid theme/idea for it and I need some help choosing what music to use.
It's a group project and the film we're making will be a music video, 3-8 minutes in length. We plan to have our main character in the video going through his normal day after he wakes up in a crappy mood. Everyone he passes has some misfortune because of him, which makes them sadder and him slightly happier. It's not intentional by the character, it's as if he brings his mood with him. By the end of the video the character goes back to bed but this time he's happy, the song starts again as the video shows our second character waking up in a crappy mood, then the video ends.

We need a good song to use for the video which suits our theme, we've looked at the song Open Happiness (used in the Coke advertisements) but the rap about 1/3 of the way in the song ruins the whole thing.
Any suggestions for our film are also appreciated, we've only spent an hour or so working on it so far, so changes are easy to make right now.

Cheers

This is a very challenging and foolish approach to making of a "music video," when the audio (especially when it's more than just instrumental) is not composed specifically for the story. My suggestion would be find a song first, then create a story for it.

If it's a criteria that story must be composed first and sound designs must come second, you can go and tell the instructor to lick your scrotum . Jokes aside, if that's the case, look into instrumental, it will be a lot easier.

As for the story, there are many improvements that can be made. I'm not going to make any suggestion since you guys are only about an hour into the project. Here's a hint though, focus on THE character. The CHARACTER, not CHARACTERS.

Storytelling is also something I'm very interested and passionate about. I believe that you have the potential to create something strong. Good luck and have a lot of fun.

I just wrote a very long and well thought out response to cyn and I accidentally went back by pressing backspace, deleting it all. FML.

I'll attempt to quickly sum the whole thing up:
"This is a very challenging and foolish approach to making of a "music video," when the audio (especially when it's more than just instrumental) is not composed specifically for the story. My suggestion would be find a song first, then create a story for it."
- We're working this way because we have a story which is very versatile and can fit many different songs, we are able to use instrumental versions and I am just looking for any possible suggestions for songs which fit the story better

"If it's a criteria that story must be composed first and sound designs must come second, you can go and tell the instructor to lick your scrotum . Jokes aside, if that's the case, look into instrumental, it will be a lot easier."
- The order which we compose it doesn't matter. However the marks come almost completely from how well we follow film conventions and the quality of our filming/techniques. We would prefer to make the story first though because this allows us to start writing and choosing who will act in the film. Point duly noted about instrumentals.

"As for the story, there are many improvements that can be made. I'm not going to make any suggestion since you guys are only about an hour into the project. Here's a hint though, focus on THE character. The CHARACTER, not CHARACTERS. "
- Don't hesitate to suggest, we're all ears.
We have two characters in our story, I forgot to mention that during the whole video as the "main character" brings his bad mood with him, there is a second character which is on the receiving end of the misfortune. This second character is ecstatic when we first see him and the main character is pissed off. The two of them seem to swap their happiness/sadness until the first character is going to bed happy and the second wakes up with the crap mood.
This makes the story cycle which (according to the marking schedule) will give us a shitload of marks
The swapping of the character's moods throughout the video also gives it a second meaning: people's moods and emotions brush off onto those around them.

Thanks for the feedback we appreciate it and can use all we can get..

@ sub - I will, if it's good

I can't watch your vid at the moment AJ because this crappy school computer doesn't even have the required plugins... =.=

EDIT: I just read my 'quick summing up' and derped.

Yep

Piece of shit computer let me look at it.