edited:EVALUATION: QUESTION 1

The genre of my music video for Tempesst’s song  ‘Tidal Wave’ is indie, its sub-genre being psychedelic-pop. Indie music videos tend to push the boundaries of generic pop music videos. From personal research, the conventions of these videos tend to use bright colours, and scenes of adventure or a story. Love stories tend to play a part in these music videos and this is an element i decided to take on in my music video. Psychedelic music videos tend to also use a variety of bright and bold colours that also push the boundaries of a generic music video of the pop genre. Many of the psychedelic music videos I have seen, much like the original video for ‘Tidal Wave’ contain colour manipulations and obscure patterns. Many of these videos also tend not to feature band members so they may follow story lines or use graphic styles instead. Pop videos tend to involve love stories, also using bright colours in a more ‘fashionable’ sense. This can be seen in many current ‘chart’ pop songs where scenes of summer situations, like beaches can be seen and everything in the video is seen in a positive sense. Pop videos may show the subject of the video, ie the band member, as the focal point of the video, whether they are male or female.

Theory

Laura Mulvey’s theory of ‘Female gaze’ is prominent in my music video as it shows a female character manipulating a male for her own pleasure, although neither character Is particularly sexualised I feel this is still relevant as it shows one person exploiting the other for personal gain. 
Levi-Strauss’ theory of ‘Binary opposites’ applies to my video as it shows the two characters in conflict with each other and they’re completely opposed to one and other. This essentially creates a volatile relationship between my characters and places them in a position that is entirely opposed to each other. Although the idea of reinforcing dominant culture is not a theme of my video as this may mean the male character held control but this is not the case.
Baudrillard’s theory of hyper reality is also applicable as you could say my video also shows a simulation of reality. In this sense, you could say that the use of drugs creates a sense of hyper reality as it could be said that the events in the video could be a figure of his imagination, linking to the idea of hyper reality. 

Ronald Barthes uses his theory of codes to describes texts as 'a galaxy of signifiers, no a structure of signifields. It has no beggining; it is reversible.' He discusses 5 types of narrative codes, a few of which are relevant to my music video. The first code concerns the idea of The enigma or hermeneutic code.  This sets up major puzzles or questions which allows the audience to anticipate or predict the answer to the question. This is relevant to my music video as it poses the question, Why is she wearing the mask?
Secondly, he discusses the code of The Action which is essentially small actions that describe something happening without physically having to show it happening. I used this in my music video as I showed one of my characters being 'drugged' but didn't need to show the after effects of it happening.    

Narrative structure

The narrative structure of my music video is one of a linear style. It shows a disequilibrium throughout the video, the ‘spiking’ of the drink and searching for the mask,  until the video reaches an equilibrium at the end of the video where the couple ‘find’ each other. Love is the main theme my music video follows and shows two people who are in search of each other. This idea of a love story conforms to the genre characteristics of many indie and pop music videos, challenging that of a psychedelic nature. This love story appeals to my audience of 15-30 year olds as this is a popular subject among the demographic, especially when it comes to popular music videos.  Using love as a key element of my music video worked as a strong point as it allowed me to create a ‘relatable’ narrative that would entice my target audience but also allows the video to be more light-hearted. In my video the male protagonist is in a constant state of lust over the female antagonist, this can be seen at the beginning of the video when there is a picture of the female character on the bed side cabinet.  This ‘chase’ is what i would refer to as my disequilibrium in the video. It shows two characters in a unstable position with one holding authority over another. Towards the end of my video, the couple get closer to ‘meeting’ one and other and when they do, this would be considered my equilibrium.  Using this feature allows me to also make this equilibrium a climax. This brings a much more positive element to the end of the video, again making it appealing to the audience. I personally think my video is polyemous meaning it has more than one distinguished meaning.

HOW MY MUSIC VIDEO STARTS

HOW MY MUSIC VIDEO ENDS

I decided to make a filmic music video which shows the music video starting before the music. I wanted to do this to establish a relationship between my two characters but to also explain to situation and also convey certain messages, like the negatives of drug taking, to my audience.

UNSTABLE MANIPULATIVE
RELATIONSHIP

My music video highlights issues such as unstable relationships and drug use. In contrast, it also says don’t give up on love.  It also highlights the idea of manipulation in a relationship and the idea that a person can be ‘blinkered’ by love.  My video essentially challenges conventions of pop videos as it shows a female character manipulating a male. This issue is one I wanted to feature as there is a growing issue with relationships that contain elements of a manipulative nature. Similarly, drug abuse is another issue i wished to cover, especially when used in a way that had the intent to cause harm to another person. Raising awareness of drug abuse is not something that is generic of any of the genres of my music videos as many of these tend to glorify drug use. For example, many songs by The 1975, and indie rock band, tend to glorify the use of drugs. With this in mind, i tried to create something that was more realistic and highlighted the issues of a 'real life' relationship.

I decided to promulgate the ideology of women holding control over men and having the ability to stand up to men, although this is a prominent idea in society it does not tend to appear in music videos. This essentially allowed me to challenge many characteristics of indie and pop videos in the sense that it allowed me to show an almost second side to relationships.

My video contains the image of a mask which could be considered a reoccurring motif for my band. The mask holds messages for the music video but also creates a second identity for my female character, allowing her to manipulate the male character but also the situations both characters find themselves in, acting as a key to some difficult situations much like the female character deceiving the male.

Locations

My video used 5 separate locations, a bedroom, a market, a derelict building that had been written on, a graffiti wall and a multi storey car park.

BEDROOM

The bedroom was used as a place of safety; this was then subverted by the ‘spiking’ of the drink. The use of a bedroom is one that is used commonly in indie and pop music videos but not in  the same way. A bedroom  is usually used as in videos as a signifier of a happy or safe location but in the case of my video it is the opposite as the male character lets his guard down whilst sleeping which allows him to be manipulated.

The market was somewhere that allowed me to use the busyness to my advantage. It allowed me to essentially create distractions for each character and allowed the female character to perplex the male more. Busy places are locations that aren’t used in generic music videos in the same way. They would usually be used as a way to show love through the busyness where as i have used it as a way to show how confusing love can be.

The derelict building, to me, held multiple representations; it worked as a place to hide for the female character but also as a symbol of their relationship as it was derelict. Again, to me this was not a generic location of my genre as it highlighted the negative elements and highlighted the issues in the couple’s relationship. The words on the building worked as a way of expressing the male characters thoughts and allowed me to create a more physical sense of his feelings which i haven’t seen in music videos of my genre before as expressing a male’s thoughts doesn’t seem to be something that is particularly focused upon.

DERALICT BUILDING

NORWICH MARKET

The graffiti wall was my way of conforming to genre characteristics by bringing in elements of bright colours. I used this as a flashback which allowed me to give the impression that the relationship has changed and didn’t used to be manipulative.

The car park was used for the climax of my video. This is obvious from the fact that i used the top floor of the building. I feel like isolated locations are something that links to my genres as it allows the focus to remain on the couple in the video. It also creates an equilibrium between the two characters which again links to my genres as it means the two characters will be on the same level as each other.

TOP FLOOR OF ST. ANDREW'S
CARPARK

GRAFFITI WALL

Costume

The costumes I chose for both of my characters was fairly simple and consisted of all black clothing and shoes.

My male character wore all black clothing showing little to no skin. I chose black as it held dark and mysterious connotations with a fear of the unknown. I decided to keep the skin that was showing to a minimum as this made the male character seem less easily influenced. This isn’t typical of my genres as the use of black isn’t something that is commonly seen without at least an element of colour.

My female character also wore all black clothing and shoes but showed a little more skin. I chose this as the showing of skin shows that she is more easily influenced but can also show a sense of confidence in her manipulating of him. The fact that she is showing more skin almost shows that she isn’t worried about the fact that she is showing but more interested in her relationship and his reaction. Again to me, this isn’t typical of my genres in the sense that she’s wearing all black but the idea of her showing skin is something that’s slightly more generic. 

MY CHARACTERS IN COSTUME

Characters

In a way, having one male and one female character is generic of my genre in the sense that many videos follow the growing relationship of 2 characters. Indie music videos also tend to follow a chase between 2 characters which mine also does. I chose not to name my characters as i felt this made them more of a relatable and identifiable to audience members who could see themselves in them. In terms of body language and behaviour, i wouldn’t say the representations are generic as many videos tend to follow a female chasing a male character but i chose to subvert that and use the characters in the opposite sense.  This meant my female character was the antagonist and the male the protagonist. The behaviour, especially the ‘spiking’ of the drink is not something I would consider typical of any music genre, especially not my own. The idea could be linked to the glamorising of drug use but I don’t see my idea as glamorous but more as identifying a prominent issue in society.

  

Props

I used 2 main props in my video which consisted of a mask and a vitamin tablet. These were 2 elements that I specifically wanted to focus on as they were the basis for my entire video. As you watch the video, you can see that the mask is only worn because the drink has been ‘spiked’ as she is trying to hide her identity. I wouldn’t personally say that spiking someone else’s drink or using a mask to trick them into thinking they can see you everywhere is something that is generic of my genres but more used to raise awareness of issues in modern society.  The mask is also hugely significant as it is basically the entire basis of the music video. It create enigma and also acts as something for my female character to hide behind as she may be insecure about herself or the relationship she is in.

Lighting, camerawork, composition and editing

The lighting used in my music video was entirely diagetic. Partly because the majority of my locations were outside, it made it very difficult to artificially light my video. When we filmed the bedroom scene of my music video, non diagetic lighting was used, especially as my bedroom is quite dark as it is. As we used mostly natural light it was very hard to manipulate the way in which each character was shot and the light that fell on their faces. The idea of 3point lighting didn’t really apply to my video as i had to work mostly with natural light. I tried to create shadows in the shots that contained the graffiti wall but found this extremely difficult with the bright vivid colours. Personally i feel this is not generic of the genres of my music video as they would probably be lit professionally but i felt that naturally lighting it made it have  much more indie feel as it made some shots look much more rustic which can be seen in some indie music videos today.

AN EXAMPLE OF A MID SHOT IN
MY VIDEO

Much of the camerawork we used was intended to show the emotions of my characters in my films. There were lots of eye-level and mid shots which allowed the audience to gain a realistic view of my characters and their actions. This, to me is more generic of my genres as many music videos tend to focus on the point of view of the characters in the video and what they can see. Shots like this also help to form an opinion of the situation that the character is part of. The high angle shots that were used at the derelict building allowed the audience to take a more adult opinionated view on the situation which can allow the audiences opinions to be manipulated as they may feel they’re in control of the situation.

In my music video I tried my best to keep the

composition in a way that would keep the focus on my characters. The rule of thirds is something that was important when framing my characters faces as it allowed me to make their eyes a focal point and their mouths. This would have been more important if i had used band shots but i felt that keeping the eyes in focus was just as important. I also tried to keep my depth of field shallow, excluding the graffiti scene, as it meant the characters were the main focal point of the video, rather than their surroundings making sure the audience can focus on the main story of the video rather than brick walls and stair cases in the shots.  

In terms of editing my music video, I tried to keep it as typical to the genre as possible, I tried to use a variety of shots and cut them to the beat which was something that I felt was typical of my genres. I used an abundance of jump cuts in my video as i felt this linked well with the pace of my video and it also made sure that the story kept moving. These allowed me to quickly change from one location to another, like in the car park scene in my video, it was a pace keeper. I tried to de-saturate some of the clips in my video in an effort to keep the colour scheme of my shots consistent and generic of my genres as i found they tend to have de-saturated colour pallets compared to some of the clips in my video.

  

Representation

My music video represents age and gender. The representations of both could be said to be simplistic with some more complex elements. The representations of age are simpler than that of gender. Age is represented as a time of confusion with failed relationships. Alienation is also a key feature in my video with a sense of binary opposites with the female character being powerful and the male character is powerless. The way I chose to represent gender is more complex as I chose to subvert stereotypical representations as I chose to show a man chasing a woman which isn’t generic to music videos that I have researched. It also tends to challenge indie conventions as it shows the female character holding the power in the relationship and putting the male character in a position of danger.

My film implies that young people are easily manipulated but also confused as they come into an adult world. As both of my characters are supposed to be around the age of 18, it shows the adult world to be a daunting prospect that they may be trying to avoid. Similarly, the use of drugs in the video implies a time of desperation and manipulation in a way that will gain one of the characters ‘love.’

In a sense, the representations I have created are somewhat progressive as it shows women holding more power over men rather than being oppressed by the opposite gender. Similarly this also forms a regressive approach as it still shows inequality between genders. I think they’re also particularly stylised as they show the use of drugs as glamorous and the idea of manipulating another person as stylish.   

INFLUENCES IN MY MUSIC VIDEO

Below I have put together a group of images from indie music videos that influenced my music video, the locations and the types of shots I used.

I FOLLOW RIVERS

I FOLLOW RIVERS

The first images are from a video called 'I follow rivers.' The first shot links to the market scene in my music video you see my male character stumbling between buildings, looking for the girl. This is genre specific as the music video is also from the indie genre and contains dark desaturated colours.I also took the element of dark clothing from this music video too ask I felt it created more of a blank canvas for my characters.

MY OWN MUSIC VIDEO

NO REST FOR THE WICKED

The next set of images come from the same artist but a different video. The elements of subtle love that imply a deeper relationship are something i wanted to try to convey in my music video. Although I didn't include psychical contact, I used eye contact to insinuate a similar situation. 

NO REST FOR THE WICKED

MY OWN MUSIC VIDEO

NO REST FOR THE WICKED

The last image from this video showed the type of locations I wanted to use. With filming in Norwich being my best option, locations like this were not available to me but I tried to use similar locations that seemed just as isolated.  

TOM ODELL

This shot from a Tom Odell music video shows a similar shot to the ones i used at the end of my music video. I wanted to use a close up shot that would show very little emotion but also insinuate anger or dismay through eye contact. 

A CHANGE OF HEART

A CHANGE OF HEART

The video for 'A change Of Heart' was a huge influence of my final video production as this video was one of the main reasons i chose to use masks and show a complicated relationship behind the masks, although i did not have both characters wearing a mask, i felt i did create a similar effect with my own video. 

G324 evaluation of print productions. from Katy Arundell