SCRIPT
HAFSAH
1. There is a relationship with the music and visuals – the clips cut to the beat of the guitar
There is a particular moment of illustration in our music video where the lyrics of our chosen track and the visuals in our music video correspond with each other. The words “bigmouth” and “strikes again” are used in our video to help exemplify the meaning of our chosen themes of childhood and isolation. However throughout the rest of music video, the lyrics and the visuals of our music video do not bear a resemblance with each other and so there is a disjuncture. In which we have disregarded most of the lyrical content of the song and generated our own new meaning to the track in order to establish our chosen themes of childhood and awkwardness with the use of abstract visuals.
2. Live performance - authenticity, lip-synching
3. Shaky camerawork – make it dynamic
The use of shaky camerawork to film different movement and angle shots throughout the performance helps create a dynamic feel towards the audience as it seems as if the viewer is following the performer’s movements thus building a connection with the audience and creating a sense of intimacy for the viewer thus developing a relationship between fan and artist. In relation to Andrew Goodwin’s theory that although the use of many CU shots is shown through the shaky camerawork, her face isn’t being shown to the audience as she is hiding her identity through the mask, therefore we are challenging the conventions of real media products. This is because women are usually portrayed for their looks and image whereas in our music video the viewers have to pay more attention on her talents of singing and the visuals around her which are being used to create her own dream world.
4. Jump cut – inspired by the title sequence of Ameile
5. Mise-en-scene – background – inspired by Ameile, seventies look, developed idea from ameile, bright colours
We had chosen a large sheet containing bright colours of red, yellow and orange for our background as part of our mise-en-scene. This is illustrative as it connotes a seventies look and assembles a comparable representation to the title sequence of Ameile which we were inspired by where the use bright and audacious colours are used to help construct the idea of a young girl who is so alone and feels isolated from society that she creates a world of her own with the use of toys.
6. Costumes – suit – morrisey – awkwardness, oversized suit and the feeling of unease in one’s skin
The suit used for the performance was chosen in comparison to Morrissey. We didn’t copy his exact look but we created a similar representation of the oversized look and feeling of awkwardness and unease of our performer from a range of materials (Richard Dyer).
ESTELLE
8. Our performer dresses in a masculine way, wearing a man’s suit. We wanted her to be ambiguous in sex, make the audience believe she is a male, or at least make them question the performer’s sex. As in the music video she dresses both in a masculine and feminine way, we can bring in Judith Butler’s Gender trouble: gender is not natural, it is learned and performed (as our actress does in the music video). Gender is no longer seen in the terms of fixed identities i.e. male = masculine, female = feminine.
9. our performer touches the camera screen, acknowledging its existence, and breaking the illusion to the audience that the performance is real, happening right at that second, reaffirming the boundary between them and she – the fourth wall. However as the music video carries on, the illusion reappears, the incident forgotten and the fourth wall, as the performer stares into the camera, is yet again broken.
10. The genre of the music is indie rock, but the actress dresses in a sort of gypsy way, with a dress and a scarf lying over her hair. She looks like a fortune teller. This would probably not be expected in a music video by an indie rock band, as the iconography associated with indie rock are instruments, skinny black jeans, waistcoats and Pete Doherty-style indie hats – overall, modern and city-style looks. By using the gypsy costume, we’ve challenged indie rock conventions. Really what we wanted to do was show that music genres are as bendable as genders.
11. We reversed the shot where the actress spins in her dress because we didn’t want to repeat ourselves – we’d already used shots like those, and we were thinking about how music videos need to keep the audience’s attentions engaged.
12. The stop motions link in with our themes – childhood and isolation – as they encourage the audience to enter the child’s mind. The usually inanimate objects come alive, connoting to the child’s dream-world, their imagination. This particular character was isolated as a child, so their fantasy worlds were even more important to them than to regular children. The character seeks friendship and reassurance from the lifeless toys.
13. In Through The Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll, Alice, a seven year old child, plays chess, and we were inspired to use chess pieces in the music video to create a persona for our character. Chess pieces usually connote intelligence and play, and we wanted both these attributes linked with our character.
14. One of the uses of music videos is to promote the artist’s image, and producers are very keen to get lots of close-ups of them, to make the audience feel an intimate connection with them. Our performer however is wearing a mask, which challenges these conventions. The performer is not using their face to create a star image for themselves; they are not using their face to promote their music or themselves. The close-ups and xcu’s, which are meant to help the audience connect with them, instead do the opposite – they alienate the audience from the performer. The mask is a very impersonal object, its purpose to shield the wearer from people’s gaze. In the video the mask also has a certain sinister aspect to it. The only things we see are the performer’s eyes. Many literary people have used eyes as a connection to the soul etc. so it could be said that the audience does not connect with the artist’s image, but with their soul, or their “real selves”.
Although this challenges conventions, the mask could actually become a symbol associated with the band, become an iconography. It could become a simulacrum – people could walk down the streets and see a mask, and instantly associate it with the music video and the band.
REBECCA
7. Ambiguous gender
8. Gender bending – Judith butler
9. Touching camera with fingers – breaking the illusion of reality and performance
10. Dress and scarf symbolic of childhood, feminine
11. Reversed dress shot
12. Stop motion – entering the childs mind, dreamworld
13. Chess pieces – inspired by alice in wonderland
14. Close up of face – relate Andrew Goodwin
15. Breaking fourth wall
16. Creating a connection with the audience – stuart hall
17. Body language – awkward and uncomfortable
18. Letters illustrating lyrics – inspired by ameile
19. Canted/tilted angled shots – performers state of mind
20. On beat on with music various extreme close upshots of masked face – instead of making the audience feel intimate with the performer, the mask alienates them from them as they cannot see the performer’s face.
also the masking of the performer’s face challenges as we are not selling our product by her image.
21. The ending shot is the continuation of the beginning shot, giving the sense of an ending, matching the music.
