How my Music Video uses real videos related to Narrative

My video supports the restricted narration theory. This states that the narrative is kept minimal, with parts of the story unclear and the audience are kept in the dark. The ending of my piece has a twist that the audience wouldn’t have been expecting. Throughout, my performer is dancing and singing to lyrics about a homeless woman in second person tense, referring to the homeless individual as her and she. During the video, we do see her leaning against a wall or fence looking into the distance, but we do not know why she is waiting there. This creates a sense of mystery as the audience begins to wonder why she is standing there and what she is waiting for. However, at the end, she is seen sitting at the edge of the pavement begging for money as she, herself, is the homeless woman she has been singing about. This is a narrative enigma, as this ending contradicts the happy performer we see previously. This element adds more depth into the video, and gives it more of a storyline rather than a simple performance based music video.

The enigma that features in my music video fits with Andrew Goodwin’s narrative theory.  He states that narratives link to the lyrics and tempo of the music. A repeated lyric in the song is ‘she’s just like you and me but she’s homeless’ and this is a strong message that you wouldn’t be able to tell this woman was homeless, as she gets up and acts the same as an ordinary person. Throughout the video, the audience wouldn’t have been able to tell the performer was homeless as she looks just like an audience person, however we soon find out that she does live on the streets and like the lyrics say, she has to beg for money. Although the visuals don’t act out the lyrics of the song, the narrative of not being able to tell this woman is homeless does link with the lyrics.  

A theory that applies to most media texts is Todorov’s theory. He believes that there are five main stages to a complete narrative. First there is an equilibrium, and there is a happy and settled scenario. Then this equilibrium is disrupted, and in the next stage people realise the disruption. Afterwards there is an attempt to repair the disruption, and in the end the original equilibrium has been restored or there is a new one.  However, my video doesn’t have these five stages. It begins with my performer dancing at a train station, then miming along to lyrics. She dances again on the chorus and mimes to the second verse. I decided to have her sing to any lyrics, as there are very few in the song. After, there is then a long instrumental section where we see her dancing, and it finishes with her begging on the streets. There is a happy equilibrium throughout; with no disruptions until the end a new equilibrium is made. We now know she is homeless, but it is still an equilibrium as she is settled and has always been like this, although this was just unknown to the audience. I chose to not follow Todorov’s theory as I wanted more of a performance based music video with lots of dancing as it is a dance song. Also, my song doesn’t have five main stages in its lyrics. There are very limited words, so a strong story couldn’t have been made from the lyrics.

Levi Strauss argued that binary opposites are important in narratives; however this doesn’t apply to my work, or many music videos. I only have one performer in my music video, so there is no opposite of her, whether it would be a man, or someone evil. I don’t believe that my music video needs another person as the song is about one person rather than a group. Other music videos that I have researched neither have binary opposites. Music videos by the boy band One Direction, artists such as Rihanna or Justin Bieber, or the Spice Girl video that inspired part of my work, all have produced videos that do not include a binary opposite. These aren’t compulsory and a narrative can work without them.  

Two theories that do apply to my music video are Andrew Goodwin’s and the restricted narration theory. These two fit my work best as my video is a performance based music video rather than a narrative based music video, so I don’t have a clear story throughout. However, this was the best approach as the song fits the dance genre, so it has a dance filled music video to match. 

How my Music Video uses real conventions related to Genre

One way my music video fits into the pop genre is by featuring dance routines. Choreography is a strong convention of pop videos, as they are usually very upbeat and cheerful, so they have equally upbeat routines. I discovered this by watching existing pop music videos, like those by the boy band One Direction. I watched their video for One Thing, which is very pop music, and throughout it had silly dance routines that they audience can dance along to.

I filmed my performer bopping, bouncing around, and doing a cheery footwork dance sequence. She dances on the train, in the middle of London and on stairs. 
Rick Altman believes that texts belong to a particular genre and choreography makes my video clearly belong to the pop genre rather than any other genre. Videos that fit into the Rock genre or Rap genre wouldn’t feature such happy choreography. 

A convention of the pop genre would be the artist featuring in the video. Videos can either be narrative, performance, concept or animation based. A young target audience is more likely to be the main target audience for pop music, so most videos are performance based, which is when the artists perform their song to the camera. As the younger generation often idolise or look up to music artists, such as Cheryl Cole or Chris Brown, or girls have crushes over boy bands, by having performance based music videos, they get to watch these people more. My performer sings to the lyrics and dances when there are no lyrics. As she is a young artist, girls would look up to her and boys would have a crush on her, so by having her in the video, audiences can watch her more and copy her clothing and dance moves. The use of close up camera shots it sells the video more to the audience. This would be because the audience can feel clearly see the artists face, and therefore closer the artist. Boyband such as JLS or The Wanted would often use close ups so girls can drool over every part of their face. This influenced me to use some close-ups in the video, so the audience can connect more to the artist.

Andrew Goodwin also believes the use of close ups create a star Persona. By using close-ups, audiences are more familiar with the stars appearance, therefore becoming more recognisable and popular. The more they are seen, the more chance they have of creating an identity for themselves. Taylor Swift has created an innocent country girl identity for herself, where as Rihanna has created a ‘bad girl’ image and likes to push boundaries with her music and style, therefore allowing audiences to form opinions about these two female artists and possibly become fans. If they didn’t feature in their videos, they may not be as successful, as fans choose to watch their videos and listen to them because they like the artist. By using close-ups of my performer, I hope to associate the identity for her that she is a young girl, who is full of attitude and personality, and I think I achieved this through the dance, sultry poses and body language full of attitude such as legs against walls and hands on hips. Although she does appear to have fun through the dance routines, the seriousness of her face, also suggests that she has a secret to hide.

Dramatic styling is common in pop genre. Outrageous clothing is often featured that most people wouldn’t in public on a normal day out is featured. For women, artists such as Jessie J are seen wearing bright colours in cat suits and lots of accessories, with exaggerated make up. 

Whereas males often wear very up to date and fashionable clothing. This matches the cheerfulness of pop music. I decided that my performer needed careful styling to fit in with the video rather than casual clothing that aren’t interesting or eye catching. As my song is a 90’s song, I wanted 90’s styling. I dressed my performer is baggy trousers, a crop top, checked shirt and big denim jacket, with a high ponytail and scrunchie. Even though this was the style of the 90’s, it is quite uncommon that people would dress like this now when going out., so in modern times this would be seen as dramatic styling.

Laura Mulvey and Andrew Goodwin both believe that women are seen as objects in music videos and seen in Voyeuristic ways, and Mulvey even suggests that they are either categorised for being a ‘whore’ or a ‘virgin’. Artists such as Rihanna and Lady Gaga, who are pop artists, often produce very inappropriate videos where they play up to the camera for her male admirers in little clothing. In Lady Gaga's Telpehone video, she is seen sprawled in a prison cell wrapped in police tape, creating that 'bad girl' and 'whore' image that men seem to like. 

They are shown how men would want to see them, which is the known as the male gaze. By dressing my performer in a small crop top, it shows a lot of her stomach. By doing this, I was hoping it would appeal to males as they would watch the music video to admire her slim body. When she dances she wiggles her hips, and when standing against the fence waiting, she has one hand on her hip and one leg propped against the wall, all of this showing attitude and being fun and flirtatious, which would again appeal to males. A used a pan camera movement during this shot, which circles her. However she isn’t looking at the camera, so gives the impression that she doesn’t know we are watching her. It feels as if we are spying on her, like how a male would spy on a female and judge her, before they approach her

Rick Altman believes that genres are ideological and not specifically located in history, meaning that the pop genre and pop videos will always look the same. Videos from the 60’s boy band - The Beatles have the same conventions, such as close up camera shots, a performance based video, and fashionable clothes, as the current boy band - One Direction. My final piece does fit well into this continuous pop genre. Although it doesn’t feature the male gazes, which most pop videos featuring young woman do, it does have most of the other conventions – star persona, exaggerated styling, cheesy choreography, and an upbeat pop feel.

Gypsy Woman Final Cut

After a lot of idea changes, and re-shooting footage many times due to location problems and camera problems, I finally finished my music video. Overall I am happy with my finished product, more so the end half of my video, as this section is when I have had more experience with the camera and knew more what I wanted my video to look like. Therefore, I think this section is stronger in terms of camera shots and I varied what I was filming, as here I included different train sections to link back to the beginning and locations of my performer dancing. I particularly like the footage of my performer dancing against the red brick wall, for example between 1.30 to 1.35 as I think this looks very 90's. The idea from my feedback session about adding my performer as the homeless person as an ending also works really well, and I think this gives my video more meaning.

Parts of my video I would improve was to add another performer. I think by adding another person for my audience to watch would make it more interesting and keep them entertained.

Digipack Sixth Page

For my last page, I used an action shot of my performer dancing on a train. However, I didn't want to just have a picture as all my pages featured a picture taking up the whole page. I then had the idea of adding the song lyrics which worked well, as I only featured the one song and made my background picture more transparent.

TLC's digipack included song lyrics, but as an insert. However, as I had a spare page that would fold inside, I though this was the perfect space to include my song lyrics. I kept the title within the house style - a brown colour to match the sepia tint and Accent font. Although, I decided on the font Arial for the lyrics as these had to be small and Arial is easier to read.

Digipack Inside Panes

The two inside panes either side of the middle pane where my CD fits, I wanted to keep simple and include just pictures. I used two pictures I had taken down an alley way and changed them to Sepia.

An idea I wanted to use from the start was including the repeated chorus lyrics, however keeping them very faint and transparent. I included the first three words 'La Da De' on the left pane, and the last three words 'La Da Da' on the right pane, so even though these two pages aren't next to one another, they link together. 

Digipack CD Space

The space where the CD would fit would be the middle pane of my digipack. I wanted an image of a CD here so the customer knows this is where the CD should be placed. As my whole theme is the nineties, I researched old vinyls to use as an image rather than a CD. I found this image of a vinyl which I liked.

In Serif PagePlus edited out the middle so its just a disc with a large centre hole. I then changed this image to Sepia to fit within the colour scheme.

Digipack Contents

As this is only a single, I only featured three songs. From all the previous singles I have brought, I noticed that they include the original song, and then either a remix, an instrumental version, or a new unheard of song that isn't a hit. I decided to include the first three on my digipack cover.

I chose a shot of my performer sitting on the floor. When I had planned this shot, I knew I wanted it to be for the back of my digipack so knew it had to feature words somewhere on the page. I purposely positioned her to sit to one side leaning against a Garage on the right, so I could place my song titles to the left.

For the song titles, I used the same font as what I had used throughout for my digipack front over and magazine advertisement - Accent. I positioned these at an angle so they fit between the lines on the garage.

After looking at TLC's digipack I noticed that mine looked very plain.   


I began looking at more digipack's that I had researched including Katy Perry's and Britney Spears, and noticed that all these had small print about the producers of distributors of the digipack and a barcode. So I created a barcode in Serif PagePlus using a white square, lots of black lines of different thicknesses and a random selection of 10 numbers, as I noticed there were 10 on TLC's barcode. I put this barcode to the right of my performer. I too included similar small print to TLC's. I included two pretend names and Crystal Watts as executive producers, a website called www.crystalwattsmusic.co.uk, stated that it was made in the UK, all trademark and logos were protected, and was distributed by MUS. I also made a logo to represent a music company, and altered the transparency so this was very faint. Overall, this made my contents look more professional and like existing products.

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My Digipack Front Cover

Overall I wanted my digipack to fit in with my magazine and Music Video, so kept with the same colouring, which is Sepia. For my front cover my initial idea was to have my performer during an action shot on the stairs or leaning over a stair rail. However, my initial idea of using stairs in London wasn't as succesful as I had hoped they would be. So instead, I used a shot of my performer in my new locations - old, rundown areas.

Another first idea I had for the front cover was having the repeated chorus lyrics - La Da De La Da Da, however I decided to use these just on my inside pages either side of the middle pane where my CD is placed, which I had orginally planned to do anyway.

The picture I chose for my front cover was one of my performer leaning against a fence. I chose a close up head shot to fit in with Andrew Goodwins idea of a star persona. This is the idea that close up shots are used, so the artist becomes more recognised by the public, therefore more popular. You can also clearly see the carefully styling, such as the dark lipstick, high ponytail and little hoop earrings.

I added a sepia effect to my picture so it ties in with the digipack and music video. I used the same lettering as my advertisement, but changed the colour so it was readable against the background. I aslo used the warp tool, so change the shape so it fitted around my artist's shoulder. I like this bubbly wavy effect, as I think its very hippie and reminds me of a tye dye feel, which was very 90's.

 

Original Image

 

 

 

 



 

My Digipack

When I was creating my digipack I wanted to use the same program that I had used to create my magazine advertisement - Serif Pageplus. I prefer using this program as you can edit your pictures within the program rather than having to insert them in.

Where as Adobe Indesign has an option to set your page size as a compact disc, Serif PagePlus does not. However to solve this problem, I took note of the page dimensions of a compact disc which were 120mm/12cm, as set these as the dimensions of my page in Serif.

Music Video Changes

My final product is very different to my first idea and plans

1) Location

I stuck with my first idea of using train stations as one of my Locations to film my music video. However, the idea of filming on the platform didn't work as well as it was in an open space and it was difficult to not capture train signs. However, before reaching the platform I noticed a small, dark and dingy alley way in South Ruislip Station, which was perfect. Here I filmed a lot of my music video.

Another original idea was using London. I didn't use this location as much as I planned, but did film my performer dancing in the middle of the busy street and in a small London Corner. I decided not to use London as much, as in the end I preferred the rougher areas such as South Ruislip Station's alley way and against fences and brick walls. This idea still fitted in with the idea of a homeless person as they beg in these types of areas.

2) Stairs

A big idea I wanted to include was my performer dancing on the stairs in Piccadilly Circus and on New Look in Oxford Street. This was to be a homage to the Spice Girls routine in their Wannabe video. I did film this on New Look stairs, however because I was wary about being caught as I was filming on private property, I wanted to film this footage as quick as possible. This means that video didn't end up as good as I had hoped. Instead I used the stairs in the train station, which still fitted in well with the idea of a rough location. It wasn't the full Spice Girls routine like I had hoped, but I did take ideas and dance moves from it.

3) Fish Eye Lens

I wanted to use a fish eye lens, as I thought this was very 90's. However, I trialled this lens on a train station platform which was a very open location, however I decided I did not want to use this effect throughout as I wasn't impressed with the look it created. Instead I preferred just a normal lens. Although, I did include one piece of footage using the fish eye when my performer was miming in a small and confined area, and that is why I think it worked better.

4) Ending

To add more depth to my video , I added a short piece of footage of my performer begging on the streets. Throughout the video, the audience believes my performer is singing about a homeless person she knows as she refers to the homeless woman as 'her' and 'she'. However, we realise that she has been singing about herself. This is a RESTRICTED NARRATIVE as the audience doesn't find out all the information at first, and the narrative of the video is very mysterious.

Feedback Changes

The Ending

After the feedback, I went away to film an ending for my video to give it more of an narrative. One of the suggestions was to have my performer the homeless woman.

I used a alleyway to film Vicky begging on the streets. I styled her the same, as homeless people do not have the option of a change of clothes, however we decided on using a blanket to cover her shoulders to keep her warm. We also used a tin can as a prop to be the money box where people drop change into.

This is the first time I used another person in my video. I wanted to film someone dropping money into the tin can, however I just wanted to from the waist down. I styled Vickys sister to look very smart in smart shoes, trousers and a fitted coat, and then she walked past Vicky who was sitting on the ground leaning against a brick wall and dropped change into her can.

I am really happy with these shots, as I now think it adds a twist to my video rather than it being just a performance video.

Train Locations

I also filmed shots of a moving train from both inside the carriage and while standing on the platform. This idea was inspired too by a suggestion made in the feedback session of being reminded about previous locations that I had used.

Quick cut editing was also mentioned which I tried to include near the end of footage from the train, my performer against a fence, the brick wall dancing , in the underground walk way and then against the brick wall waiting.

Peer Review

Although my video still wasn't complete, I decided to show what I had produced to my class mates to receive feedback. This was the first time most of them had seen what I've been working on in the previous weeks, which was useful as there's more chance of them spotting any mistakes I've made and where as I know the main message and narrative of my music video, it was interesting to see what they thought it was. 

 

 

 

Overall the feedback was very encouraging. People commented on the styling, location and good directing of my performer. They thought it was clear on what my performer was told to do rather than free styling. 

One piece of advice that I will definitely work on and use was to include a twist in my video to give it more of a narrative and story rather than a simply dance based performance video. An idea that was mentioned was to have a shot at the end of my performer begging on the streets. This would shock the audience as originally you believe my performer is singing about a homeless woman she knows and the song is in second person and refers to the homeless woman as 'her' and 'she'. However, at the end we find out she is singing about herself. I believe this idea works really well and fits in with my video, as I have already included footage of my performer waiting against a wall or fence. At first we don't know what or who she is waiting for and this adds some tension and questions, however by including this ending, we know that she is begging.

This idea too fits in with Andrew Goodwin's narrative theory. He states that narratives link to the lyrics and tempo of the music. A repeated lyric in the song is ‘she’s just like you and me but she’s homeless’ and this is a strong message that you wouldn’t be able to tell this woman was homeless, as she gets up and acts the same as an ordinary person. Throughout the video, the audience wouldn’t have been able to tell the performer was homeless as she looks just like an audience person, however we soon find out that she does live on the streets and like the lyrics say, she has to beg for money. Although the visuals don’t act out the lyrics of the song, the narrative of not being able to tell this woman is homeless does link with the lyrics. 

Another piece of feedback was to feature locations I had use at the beginning of my video again near the end. I had use a shot of my performer dancing on the train, however haven't used it again. Therefore I am planning to film some more shots on the train. I don't think I will include my performer in these, as like I said in my answer, she features throughout, so it will make a change to have some footage without her in it.