In this directors cut I will be discussing how our music video and media products develop and challenge the forms and conventions of real life media. We have chosen the song ‘Empty’ by an unsigned artist called Olivia O'Brien. We decided that that the main theme of the song was about a young girl who feels as if depression is taking over life due to the abandonment from society. Ironically following Levi Strauss' binary opposite theory we had moments in the video where the artist is in busy areas surrounded by crowds when mentioning feeling alone. This idea came about from the lyrics of the song, ‘I can't handle these pressures’, 'I don't want to live but I'm too scared to die' to portray that being in the center of society doesn't mean you are being noticed but perhaps looked through. To reinforce the message of emptiness we have followed Goodwin's rules by linking the lyrics to the visuals by placing the artist in the busy streets of London to juxtapose the idea of abandonment.
An editing technique that is often a common convention of music videos is cutting to the beat. I believe we successfully showed this in the section of the song where the first chorus is introduced at 1:07 and at 1.24 during the instrumental part the editing of the car passing through fits the beat perfectly. We decided to use passing cars as we've discovered from research on other real media products that it was a common technique used, to make it more creative we used shallow focus and speed variation to suit the tempo of the music. It is also one of Goodwin’s rules to cut to the beat therefore it is used in many big star artists music videos, which influenced our choice in order to have a more professional looking music video.
Throughout our music video there is a range of camerawork and editing techniques used to make the video more creative and intriguing to watch. We used a tilt shot just before the lyrics 'i wish there was no tomorrow' i believe this is effective as it suggests her world is currently a mess and feels no need to carry on with this. To contribute to the shot we added the prism effect highlight the spectacle aspect of our video.Our editing techniques also suggest the artists frustration as we used layering to portray the artist looking back on her memories on the line 'Wish i could erase my memory' therefore highlighting the unhappiness surrounding her fulfilling a convention of a pop genre. These are examples of how we developed conventions of real media as we have fulfilled conventions of a pop music video through camerawork and editing techniques.
After researching a variety of pop genre music videos we wanted our artist to look dressed up so that attention was drawn to her therefore highlighting the image genre. The outfits consisted of black extreme ripped jeans with either a burgundy or silver revealing top or non revealing black top with a sleeveless, fluffy black jacket (to show contrast between the reckless and timid characteristics of the artist) with high heeled boots. Some audience members may link Laura Mulvey's 'The Male Gaze' theory to our music video due to the revealing clothing and close ups of the artists creating a sexualised image of the artist which in act is not our aim. We challenged Berger's 'Ways of seeing' theory as our artist is presented in this sexualised image to highlight that she feels comfortable dressing this way not because of a male spectator/perspective. We also wanted to keep the artists look consistent therefore she always had the same hairstyle and reasonably similar makeup, which would also suggest to our audience how she is too insecure to be seen without it. This would particularly challenge the common conventions of a music video because any other female artist who shares the same concept theme would have a variety of around 4 or 5 outfits that all have different colour schemes hair and makeup styles. In addition, the majority of female artists have makeup on therefore fulfilling audience expectations as females are usually presented as glamorous. This may be because big name stars have a very large budget where they are not limited to one style of costume, I believe we were successful in creating an expected image of the artist fulfilling codes and conventions.
We have challenged codes and conventions due to our lack of
props in the video, many artists include dramatic props due to their budget
however, I believe we were successful in highlighting semiotics and symbolic
codes through M-E-S, editing and characterization.
From our research we discovered that other real media products such as Mi-Gente by J Balvin and Willy William that the use of colour can attract an audience and make the video more appealing even if the visuals don't have much to do with the lyrics. Vibrant locations are a common convention used in pop music videos, our choice to film in Camden has helped us to fulfill this convention. I believe our choice of location can link to Stuart Hall’s Reception theory (encoding-decoding) as the lyrics portray depression, misery and weakness. However, the locations contrast hugely meaning our intention was to help the audience decode the message that the young female feels as if society is moving on without her as she ‘cant deal with these pressures’.
As well as our music video we created a CD digipack to promote our brand image and video. I designed the inside of the CD, on the left is an image of a photo of a display of Polaroid pictures which I believe would be eye catching to our target audience due to the female nature of the image. We added text including previous work that the artist had achieved ‘I hate you I love you’ and the purpose of her song ‘Empty’ to create an artist, audience connection. The front cover of our CD was designed by Ellie, an image from our photo-shoot was used as we believe its simple yet effective as the dull tones would be recognizable and provide a strong message in relation to the song. The VHS tape concealing the artists identity is a juxtaposition to the sexualised images that audiences are used to seeing of female artists in order to promote a specific image.
From our research we discovered that other real media products such as Mi-Gente by J Balvin and Willy William that the use of colour can attract an audience and make the video more appealing even if the visuals don't have much to do with the lyrics. Vibrant locations are a common convention used in pop music videos, our choice to film in Camden has helped us to fulfill this convention. I believe our choice of location can link to Stuart Hall’s Reception theory (encoding-decoding) as the lyrics portray depression, misery and weakness. However, the locations contrast hugely meaning our intention was to help the audience decode the message that the young female feels as if society is moving on without her as she ‘cant deal with these pressures’.
As well as our music video we created a CD digipack to promote our brand image and video. I designed the inside of the CD, on the left is an image of a photo of a display of Polaroid pictures which I believe would be eye catching to our target audience due to the female nature of the image. We added text including previous work that the artist had achieved ‘I hate you I love you’ and the purpose of her song ‘Empty’ to create an artist, audience connection. The front cover of our CD was designed by Ellie, an image from our photo-shoot was used as we believe its simple yet effective as the dull tones would be recognizable and provide a strong message in relation to the song. The VHS tape concealing the artists identity is a juxtaposition to the sexualised images that audiences are used to seeing of female artists in order to promote a specific image.
As a final product we had to create a magazine advert that would be easily recognizable by our target audience and promote the previous products. We used the same image for our magazine advert however, experimented with the colour tones in order to not have an exact match in products. Unlike similar products we avoided including much text onto our magazine in order to highlight the emptiness surrounding the artist.
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