LIVE PERFORMANCE

• Live performance in music video to show rawness
• genre was about the passion for music and not success
• more MV’s includes narrative to break it up
• Live brands artist as natural
• Performance conveys that artists make music for themselves and not industry
• Contrasts pop artists who are seen as product for money

EDITING

• Slow motion used to emphasise movement of characters/objects
• Fast/slow paced mimics rhythm and beats
• Filters creates certain mood

CAMERA WORK

• Close-ups demonstrate facial expression, emphasis on emotion and highlight talent
• Create relationship between audience and artists
• Long/Wide shots to show artist as a whole to promote artist as fashion icon
• Tilts and pans are used to show setting
• Extreme close-ups used to amplify what they’re singing about or display emotion
• Lead singer in in the middle of the frame for focus
• Low angles for emphasis on their importance/ dominance

MIS-EN-SCENE

• Musical instruments and microphones for genre
• Genre uses retro style, records are used as props
• Costume makes characters have retro feel, with casual look which gives impression that they’re not trying to impress anyone, audience can also relate
• Heavy makeup for females

LOCATION

• Indie-rock typically has low budgets so normal locations include studios, tunnels, city scape, parks/fields
• Locations are simple so audience can focus on artist, contrasts pop locations which glamorise location and lifestyle

LIGHTING

• Performance has bright studio lights to showcase artists looks and advertise them
• Narrative often has dull lighting to create miserable tone, similar to story line

CHARACTERS AND REPRESENTATIONS

• Male is most dominant character, represented as popular and what people aspire to be to attract the audience
• women do not feature as much as men, represented as love interest but not dominant and wear clothes to attract men

            For my brief, I will create a narrative music video for the indie-rock band beabadoobee to their song ‘I Wish I Was Stephen Malkmus’, which will appeal to an audience of fun-loving 16-25 year olds. The music video will be supported with a website that promotes the fictional artist and song to create a clear brand.           

           The narrative for the music will showcase the struggles that a teenage girl has to face with regards to the standards that society has placed upon her. The girl will be represented by using the aesthetic of a ‘riot grrrl’ that includes boyish clothing and feminist ideals. This aesthetic will also be portrayed by using close ups to emphasise the girls emotional state. These standards will include body image issues, her parent’s standards which she isn’t meeting in their eyes, and the gender discriminating standards of her teacher. The parent and teacher that are involved will be shown to have dominance over the girl through the use low angle shots of them shouting at the girl which will convey the idea of the old generation vs. new generation.          

            The band in question will be represented solely by the girl, and her performance will be included within the narrative as well as a more traditional performance at the end which will be represented as appealing through close ups of an electric guitar so the audience can identify the genre, and performer and cutaways of the teachers trying to take control. This sense of a continuous performance connotes the limits girls have in society and how she is being held back from speaking her mind, and he lyrics ‘I Wish I Was Stephen Malkmus’ will also connote this idea as she is stating that if she was a male, then her life would be easier. However, the performance at the end of the music video will symbolise her ‘breaking the glass ceiling’ and finally speaking out about her anger towards the limits she has had placed on her.            

            For the younger audiences, this music video may be a sense of escapism for them, especially the females, as they are still living through this era of their lives where it feels that the world is against you. However, for the older audiences, this video may just be a sense of nostalgia for them, with references to films like ‘Napoleon Dynamite’ and ‘The Breakfast Club’ that they may have watched when they were younger. Alongside the memories of teenage angst.

              I will have a clear sense of branding between the two products by having photos taken on the day of shooting to upload on the website to link the two products. Furthermore, the video will be uploaded to the website and link the website to the video through the use of colour palette, costume, soundtrack and logo. I will ensure digital convergence and synergy by putting a link to the website within the music video and hosting the video on the website.

Media and technology have confused the barriers between time and space

• Edited footage = 1hr out of 24hrs
• Difference between ‘Outside World’ and ‘Real World’
• Editing distorts order of time – audience perceives it as chronological
• [Truth is relative]

Style over substance

“In the future everybody will have their fifteen minutes of fame”- Andy Warhol

• Jade Goody – working class nurse in debt
• Wasn’t received well by audience [82% voted out]
• Made a living from newspaper and magazine deals – no real talent

Decline of meta-narrative

• No storyline set
• Audience and personalities are unaware of events
• No story = no manipulation by ‘author’ – audience construct own views
• Range of cultures/beliefs – no meta-narrative joins personalities

Codes and conventions of Electro-Pop

• Fast-cut montage – professional feel, leaves audience wanting more
• Unique sets and mis-en-scene
• Concept/narrative based
• Modern/bright
• Relaxed atmosphere
• Bright colours
• Don’t stick to safe – experimental ideas

• Beats reflected in cuts and pacing
• Loose reference to lyrics

M83 – ‘Midnight City’

• Unique sets of forests and mental hospital alongside abandon buildings
• Heavily narrative based – little to no connection or performance of lyrics
• Modernity of powers from kids, bright fluorescent colours from eyes
• Relaxed atmosphere from neutral facial expressions, and playfulness when playing around with powers
• Narrative is experimental – kids who posses powers initially in hospital but then escape and run away
• Elements of beats reflected in editing – crescendo in song when kid blows doors off of hospital

MGMT – ‘Kids’

• Beats reflected at very start in cut edits – when the child is being taken by the monster
• Loose connection of lyrics to music video apart from main character being the title of the song
• More narrative based than performance, but more elements of performance of MGMT than other electro-pop music videos
• Setting choice not as unique as other electro-pop videos, but does include interesting setting of crib and ‘jungle’
• Not so modern + doesn’t use the convention of fluorescent lighting, but does include animations with garish colours
• Not so safe with ideas as it includes the distress of a baby surrounded by monsters + finding peace with presence of band members which conveys relaxed atmosphere

Gorillaz – DARE

• Unique animated set of Noodle’s bedroom with a talking head electronically connected to it
• Lyrics not connected to video but loosely connected in a performances aspect with Noodle and the talking head both singing in a relaxed atmosphere
• No real narrative other than Noodle bringing the head to life (Frankenstein intertextuality), performance heavy
• Very modern in terms of how the head is electronically connected to the room and the bright flashing lights used
• Experimental ideas with the head and the animation of the video which is Gorillaz’ trademark style
• Beats reflected in the edited transitions of Noodle dancing to the rhythm

• Narrative of an alien stuck on earth and tries to blend in
• Elements of astro visuals to match with the astro aesthetic of song

• RnB genre but more contemporary
• visuals of earth colours with gardens
• choreography to pair with contemporary RnB
• abstract makeup for male and female to play on gender for RnB

• genre of song more bedroom pop
• pair visuals with soft pink/ purple colour palette for femininity
• elements of teenage love for coming of age theme