Kayla Lockington A2 Media Studies : April 2021

CCR Notes Draft

1. How does your video represent social groups or issues?

We chose to use a vulnerable storyline where it shows and represents a lot of emotion, we thought that because of this it would be best to use a female actor as our main character as society sees them as more in touch with their feelings and sensitivity. Our male character is seen as a companion to the girl who is going through this hardship. He is almost used as a type of symbol, representing the fact that not only, females/teens/pale-skinned people go through this but that in fact, all people of every nation and ethnicity face the same challenges.

Use of a typical caucasian female with blonde hair, a typically seen character portrayed as the ‘perfect’/’ideal’ female.

The main storyline of our narrative music video is the fact that we are targeting a younger demographics issue, where a lot of young people in the 21st century are struggling against depression and anxiety, so by targeting a topic that we feel is a common occurrence in this day-in-age, we are grabbing our target audiences attention as they may be able to relate to the video or know someone who may be going through the same thing.

At first, we were discussing using different ethnicities so that there would be a differentiation between the characters, but unfortunately, we weren't able to find anyone that could act for us. This was because usually in most films or videos, whenever there are opposite gender roles they are both most times the same skin colour or ethnicity. We wanted to challenge this but because of circumstances were not able to achieve our original idea but were still able to utilise the people in our group, using one of our team members as our male role.

The idea of ‘growing up’ is a key theme that remains constant throughout our video. It is something everything goes through, but obviously, as our music video tries to portray not everyone has the same upbringing or outcome and that the fact is that life can change in the blink of an eye no matter how good life may have been previously.

3. How does your music video engage with the audience?

At the beginning of my music video, I have tried adding a scenic video downloaded from youtube in order to create an intro type start that introduces the song title and engages with the audience as they are left in the dark about what actually is to come but get the sense of something slow or calming, possibly a false sense of security as later on in the video we are able to see what really happens and the death of the girls' mother after having built up the relationship (a rapid climax in the music video)

After having done previous research from our focus group and having gained other information I tried to adapt my video in order to satisfy my target audience's wants. A lot of what was said that possibly needed improvement was the soundtrack to my music. I was able to find the original song and add it so now when audience members watch the music video and then hear the song on the radio or in public they automatically subconsciously think of my music video because it has that relational connection. This means it has the potential to play an everyday part in people's lives.

The video contains both stage (theatrical) performances as well as shots from everyday life. The memories of the little girl and the mum almost act as flashbacks within the mind of our main character like we can see what she sees and have that prior knowledge for why she is now in so much pain. This can help to connect with our audience on a deeper level as if they are going through what she is going through.

Because we have chosen to target a younger audience we have made our music video available on different platforms such as Youtube and Vimeo, which a lot of young people in this generation know how to use, making it easier for them to access and engage with for example, like, share or leave a comment.

I have used editing techniques that make it an ‘easier viewing experience’ for audience members. Certain shots have been aligned with the beats in order to create a satisfying yet immersive viewing experience

4. How did your research inform your video and the way it uses or challenges conventions?

Because we chose to do a narrative-based music video, we included the main story that was not too hard to follow as explained in our focus group. This is a typically seen thing in a lot of current music videos as it gives the audience something to watch and take interest in. It is also in my opinion the easiest theme to cover when filming your own music video.

A common convention in pop music videos is that they use a lot of theatrics for example excessive lighting rather than creating a natural look they go over the top with brightly shone lights that are often coloured in some way. There is often a stage or some type of performance that is seen intermingled with the other footage of the music video, hence why, since our song is from the mid-tempo pop genre, we chose to adhere to these conventions in creating our storyboard and shot list. We were able to make use of the resources around us to make our video look less amateur.

Pop music videos often have a lot of close-ups and mid-shots when filming. Our footage consisted of a lot of close-ups because of the fact that we wanted to see a lot of our characters' emotions and we thought that is best portrayed if you are close to their face and can see the picture of how they feel. This only added to the music video as it became more clear of what type of music video this was and instead of focusing on the external we wanted to draw more attention to the internal.