Evaluation Q1A: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
- 1. Question 1 – Section A: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
- 2. Narrative Structure • The narrative of my video is the journey a teenage girl goes on after a heavy breakup, reminiscing on the past before she is confronted by her ex and an argument ensues, and she consequently runs home in tears. The video begins with the female character waking up alone, and going through her morning while haunted by flashbacks of a happy past with her now ex-boyfriend. The use of flashbacks creates a non-linear narrative, the video fragmented between a theme of happiness and sadness, coinciding with past and present. This is a narrative idea formed through research of other music videos, particularly of James TW’s ‘When You Love Someone’, in which flashbacks are used to create a fragmentation in his emotion and give the audience an insight into his thoughts and feelings, something we also wanted to do with our own character. Flashbacks in our Music video – show happiness of couple when in the past. James TW ‘When You Love Someone’ flashback of a loving happy family – however dark tones suggests things are not as they seem.
- 3. Narrative Structure How we decided to start our video was important as it is this that immediately sets the tone of the video and captivates the audience’s attention. We wanted to use Goodwin's theory of a link between the lyrics and visuals, so took note of the first lyric ‘tell me have you fallen asleep’ and incorporated this within our video, beginning it with our female character in bed attempting to sleep. Our video begins with a sequence of our character getting up and turning off an alarm, an idea inspired by existing media texts. Within research we found a common trope in media texts targeted towards a teenage demographic is often the protagonist being woken up to an alarm clock. Media texts that use this trope include Hairspray (music video) (2007) – in the opening sequence for the song ‘Good Morning Baltimore’, Skins (UK TV Series), and Wild Child (2008). Alarm shot within music video – enforces trope. Shot in Hairspray also shows alarm clock before protagonist wakes up.
- 4. Narrative Structure – recurring motifs A recurring motif we have used within our video is mirrors and how our female character interacts with them. Throughout the beginning of our video our character often looks in mirrors when alone, something we felt could portray an idea of hopelessness and perhaps even self-hatred as she looks at a version of herself she no longer recognises. Looking at existing music videos, Bruno Mars’ ‘It Will Rain’ also uses the motif of mirrors within his video, a recurring use of shots of him looking at himself before reminding himself of a past relationship through flashbacks. Desaturated shots of the protagonist looking in the mirror in music video. Shots in Bruno Mars ‘It Will Rain’ that also show him looking in the mirror alone after and before flashback shots.
- 5. Mise-en-scene/location The majority of our music video takes place in the protagonists house, and although she leaves this space during the narrative she then comes back at the end, suggesting a full circle as she reverts to somewhere she feels is safe and secure, only to find she does not feel secure there either. When incorporating flashbacks, we found location was important to consider as places and memories can often become attached. This is why when in the present, our characters location - be that in her own house or outside - leads her to think of happier times in that same place. For example as she is about to leave her house, she is reminded of doing the same thing with her ex- boyfriend, before she is then pushed back to a de-saturated present and suffers the realisation she is alone as she looks at herself in the mirror. The use of somewhere thought as familiar and comfortable such as a home to be used as something representing loneliness challenges this stereotype. This is also done in artist James TW’s music video ‘When You Love Someone’, the image of home made sad as he sits surrounded by his possessions in a state of despair, much like the protagonist in my music video.
- 6. Costume We also considered costume within our video, looking at how our characters outfits could show stereotypical conventions. Our protagonist begins the video in a high school hoodie, which we decided to use as an image of comfort, important because the character is attempting to console themselves after their break-up. The fact it is a high-school leavers hoodie is also important, as it suggests perhaps that the character is subconsciously trying to revert back to a past of security and regime, perhaps knowing she cannot relive the happiness she felt at this time. For our protagonists costume, we wanted to show her state of mind, so used a grey high school hoodie for the begin inning of the video and paired it with smudged makeup to create a stereotypical image of sadness often used as a trope in movies such as … The concept of a high school hoodie could also be considered important as this creates an idea our character is perhaps attempting to hold on to the past, and their happy student lifestyle of security and regime. For the rest of the video, our female protagonist wears dark clothing (black and white striped shirt, black skirt and black coat), reflecting her mood throughout the video. Our antagonist, the ex- boyfriend played by Pippin, wears a casual jeans and t-shirt combination, something we decided would humanise him, and enforce the idea of normality in their break-up. Due to this the audience can see how ordinary he is, and feel further sympathy for the female character as well as relatability to the two of them.
- 7. Characters In our video we have included two characters – but the female protagonist is our focus. Focusing on a female perspective develops conventions often found in break-up tropes within media texts such as TV or film, as females are often seen as stereotypically emotional in the face of a break-up and the narrative of a relationship often centres around their thoughts and emotions instead of the male. We have attempted to use body language and behaviour to show the theme of loneliness within the video. To do this we made sure our actors understood the context of the parts they played so they could invest themselves and fully understand the roles. We directed our female character by asking her to make her movements slow, when for example opening a door or turning a tap, and to keep her face expressionless or sad to enforce the themes of loneliness, and make it more evident to our audience of her state of mind. Our male character, the ex-boyfriend, plays a side role in the protagonists narrative, as we decided we only wanted to focus on one side of the story. We took inspiration from Skins – a British teen drama – as this narrative focuses on one character and storyline at a time, an idea we felt was not only straightforward, but also created a easy to follow narrative, siding the audience with that character. Our female protagonist is a relatable character, as there is nothing particularly different about her, portrayed as a normal teenage girl going through a break-up. This challenges conventions as often female characters in media texts have a particular trait or aspect of importance (e.g Katniss Everdeen in the Hunger Games portrayed as a freedom fighter). The normalcy of this character makes it easier for the audience to relate, an example shown in Ellie Gouldings music video ‘I Know You Care’ which shows a young girl falling in love, an aspect of the video particularly young female girls could relate to.
- 8. Props Within our music video, we have used props as part of our narrative. A key prop which begins our music video is the phone – used as an alarm clock. Using a phone instead of a retro alarm clock is a decision we made that we felt would modernise the trope of being woken up to an alarm, which is an idea previously found in media texts such as ‘Hairspray’ (2007) or ‘Wild Child’ (2008). In this way, we have challenged this trope, creating a modern atmosphere that we hoped to continue within the rest of the video. The characters interactions with the props is also something we have considered. Towards the end of the video the female protagonist throws items of her desk in an act of anger and frustration. This is a common trope within teenage drama, media texts of film and TV often using this idea to show a characters anger. An example of a media text that uses this is Victorious (2010-2013) where in episode “Tori gets stuck” female character Jade throws items in her room in anger. Our use of this trope enforces this representation of teenagers being angry, our use of props showing this representation. Other than the props in our protagonists bedroom, little other props are used, which could perhaps suggest that after her break-up, the protagonist has lost a sense of ownership and identity, unable to interact with her belongings in the same way. This is enforced by the fact she throws her belongings across the room at the end of the video, evidently feeling a sense of loss and hopelessness that often comes with the pop-indie genre. Protagonist throws items on desk
- 9. Camerawork When planning and filming our music video, we looked closely at how we could use camerawork to either enforce or challenge conventions. We used a range of camerawork, opposing ideas such as low angled shots followed by high angle shots to create a variety and captivate our audience. Our video begins with a high angle shot looking at our protagonist in bed, before continuing to low angle shots of her feet as she gets out of bed and walks to the bathroom. High angle shot High angle shot at a lower level Low angled shot
- 10. Camerawork (continued) This varied use of camerawork in the beginning shots is an idea used within UK TV show Skins (2007-2013), a variety of shot types used to introduce the protagonist at the beginning of the series. This immediately captivates the audiences interest as it establishes interesting visuals when introducing a character, an idea I have been influenced by when making my own video. High angle shot High angle wide shotMid shot Skins also explores dark themes and a portrayal of teenage angst. The variety of shots when introducing characters could suggest a disorganised hopelessness, the idea of loss of hope often portrayed within the pop-indie genre.
- 11. Camerawork We also used tracking shots in our music video, focused on the female character. This creates a sense of searching for a sense of belonging and enforcing the portrayal of hopelessness within our video, themes often found within the pop-indie genre. As well as this, the audience being led to follow the protagonist on her journey will encourage them to find relatability within her character, as they can feel a part of life as they experience what happens to her in the video. This adds to the theme of loss of hope and identity, as the audience follow the character when she is alone, further portraying her anguish and hopelessness. In the video, close-ups have also been used to further portray the theme of hopelessness found within the pop-indie genre. The audience being able to see the protagonists face and experience her emotions fully means they will be able to interpret her anguish and see her loss of hope, as well as relate to her and be more likely to understand her emotional pain.
- 12. Lighting Something we wanted to do within our video was set an atmosphere of vulnerability and sadness, particularly surrounding the female protagonist. To do this we often looked at how we could use lighting, experimenting with different ideas before settling on a visual tone we thought best suited the atmosphere we wanted to create. Lighting Idea 1 Lighting Idea 2 When filming we tried two ways of using shadow and light. Lighting Idea 1 (use of a back-light to right of camera) allowed the shot to be well lit, but maintain a gloomy effect on the protagonists features. In lighting idea 2 we used no back-light, relying on natural light from the left of the camera to create a stark contrasting shadow on the protagonists face. While I feel the second idea is effective in it’s expression of a vulnerability and dark atmosphere, I feared the lack of ability to fully see the protagonists face may look unprofessional, as well as mean the audience wouldn’t be able to see her emotions. Because of this I used the first lighting idea, and relied on a blue colour grading I applied in post to ensure a gloomy atmosphere.
- 13. Lighting (continued) Throughout the video we have used a contrast of lighting, particularly of colour. Cool tones and blue-ish lighting to symbolise bleakness of present. Warm tones and orange-ish lighting to symbolise happiness of past. Contrast of cool blue tones and warm red tones in performance –symbolic of artists inner struggle with past and present. The use of lighting to symbolise emotions at different points in the video is also used within pop-indie artist Lorde’s “Green Light” Music Video, coloured lighting reflected onto the artists face to also symbolise an internal struggle she is having due to a broken relationship. Lorde is surrounded by blue light, but a warm orange light is reflected onto her face. This contrast could suggest a struggle of emotion and response to her feelings, much like the struggle our protagonist is also having within our video.
- 14. Editing When editing the video I used a varied pace, the shots beginning slow paced as she struggles with her sadness when she wakes up, but increasingly faster paced ad more frantic as the protagonist herself becomes more agitated and frantic within the narrative. I have done this so that the editing reflects the protagonists behaviour, and enforces the impact of her heightened emotions. The audience can relate to the character more due to this change in editing, as they are more likely to see the increase of emotion and understand her thought process. The fast-paced editing increases mostly as the drum beat kicks in towards the end – the character found crying in her room within this point of the videos narrative. To make my editing more effective I ensured the cuts would synchronise with the beats of the drums, as the visuals went from narrative to performance. Something I felt was highly effective is that I cut the original drum beat to synchronise with the protagonist throwing her items on the floor, as this visual paired within the sudden loud sound of the drum gave her frustration and anger more recognisable impact. Slower paced cutting to performance increases to faster pace as narrative and music gets more frantic
- 15. Editing (continued) Cross-cutting Within my editing, I used cross-cutting, particularly within the argument scene (2.10secs). I cross cutted from two sequences (not including performance) of the narrative – the present day argument between the two characters, and the past image of happiness they had shared. This contrast of past and present, as well as a positive to negative image of a relationship, enforces the impact of the argument, and shows that although in an unhappy place, the two characters have treasured memories which makes the present sadder as it presents a loss of love. Cross-cutting is also used in Bruno Mars “It Will Rain” – a contrast shown between his negative present state, and the happy past he yearns for.
- 16. Composition Rule of thirds For the majority of shots with our protagonist, the rule of thirds has been used, her eyeline and features falling on the third. This intentional use of composition creates an empty space next to her – emphasising her loneliness, and also creates a professional look to the shots. In this shot the rule of thirds has been broken, placing the protagonist in the centre. This creates an empty space on all sides of the character, further emphasising her isolation from her environment and her loneliness.
- 17. Representation In the video I have portrayed representations of young people being heartbroken – with a focus on a female. This enforces the stereotype that teenage girls only care about love, as the focus on a girl could suggest her side to a break-up is more important and emotional. This is perhaps a regressive representation of women, as it could be seen to suggest they are emotionally unstable and fragile. This representation can also be found in Taylor Swift music videos such as “Blank Space” and “Never Getting Back Together” both of which enforce an idea of women being highly emotional and frantic after a break-up. Men are perhaps represented as disloyal and cruel – also a negative representation. This is shown through the male character, who has evidently done something to break the female characters heart. This reinforces stereotypes as men are stereotypically the reason for the representation of women shown in the video, as their disloyalty is stereotypically why women act out against them (an idea also shown within Taylor Swifts Blank Space). The message this video and its narrative perhaps gives is the idea that young love will only end in heartbreak – ultimately giving a negative portrayal of youth relationships. The audience are likely to be able to sympathise with this representation, specifically women as the narrative sides the audience with a female perspective. Furthermore, seeing the happiness of the past protagonists adds context to her present sadness, reinforcing the idea of a dramatic female behavioural change after a break-up.
- 18. Goodwins Theory My video overall uses Goodwins theory in multiple ways. For example it heavily conforms to genre characteristics (indie-pop), the theme of love and heartbreak often found within this genre. The lyrics of the song also discuss a heartbreak and inability to move on from the past, presenting use of Goodwins theory of lyrics matching visuals - as our narrative looks at the past and present and the effects of heartbreak of which the artist - Finn Doherty - sings about. This link to the vulnerability and heartbreak presented in the lyrics of the video – particularly the performance aspect – allows the audience to understand further the expression of his emotions, this theme creating a brand identity for the artist that perhaps the audience can relate to. A brand identity is further created through the use of Finns performance as it allows his audience to recognise his face, and also perhaps adds a personal touch to the video as his presence in it enforces his part of the narrative and his own experience.