A2 Media Studies

SOBER, LORDE Play the song as you read the lyrics and my interpretation of their meaning.  Limelight Lose my mind Limelight Lose my mind Limelight Lose my mind Limelight The lines above are referencing Lorde's struggle with her rise to fame and the constant attention that comes with being an artist of her status. The repetition of this is representative of her state of mind-- her confusion and unhappiness as all of her thoughts come spilling out.  Oh god, I'm clean out of air in my lungs It's all gone Played it so nonchalant Here Lorde alludes to her anxiety-- her struggle with a panic attack in the middle of a party as she has mentioned in interviews when promoting her album. However, because of the social expectations of a party, she pretended that she was okay despite the fact that she felt as though she couldn't breathe.  It's time we danced with the truth Move along with the truth Ooh (hey) This could be a reference to a line in her ear...

TARGET AUDIENCE PROFILE CLASS: working-middle class AGE: 15-21 GENDER: Female ETHNICITY: Any We are targeting young female reformers for our music video. We have chosen to target working-middle class people as this is the most widely appealing genre of music for these classes. Furthermore, these groups of people are the ones that we conducted our initial audience research on, as when we shared the survey on Facebook it was our peers and possibly their parents that completed it, who are all middle or working class. We have chosen to target teenagers for a number of reasons. Firstly, upon researching out two primary artists (Lorde and Lana Del Rey) we found that their primary target audience was also within this age group. When we did further research across more single female indie artists, we discovered that this was the case across most of them. Even broadening this into the indie genre, teenage girls were the most popular target age range. In addition, in my opinion teenagers...

MUSIC TO WATCH BOYS TO As we have chosen to base our music video on videos made by Lana Del Rey, I am going to analyse some in order to choose some elements to incorporate into my own music video. The video opens with an establishing shot of very blue water, and there is a crossfade of two girls underwater who appear as if they are about to kiss. The use of the water reflects the sound of the song at this point, with a lot of reverb and echo (referred to in music as a 'wet' sound) being added to her voice to give the impression of rolling waves. The lighting is high key, which could imply that although she is underwater implying that she has secrets, she has nothing to hide. The image of her beneath the surface maybe suggests that she us lurking there like a predator (i.e. a shark, or an alligator) because of the theme of the music video itself. She is watching boys, unseen by them. The sexuality of the two girls in the opening shot is negatively represented because the ly...

We have chosen to make a music video for the song Sober by Lorde. This song falls under the genre of indie pop. We chose this song because we like the potential that the lyrics have to create an interesting narrative, and also the overall mood and tone of the song is something that we think could be interesting to create a video for.

When we shared the link to our survey, we specified that it should only be completed if indie was their favourite genre. From the amount of girls who took the quiz compared to the amount of boys, it's clear that we should target females over males as they enjoy the indie genre more. The next question asked the age range that the participants were in. Most people who liked the indie genre were between the age of 16-21, so this will be the age range of our target audience. We then asked who the particpant's favourite indie artist was. Several people answered Lorde and Lana Del Rey, however a few mentioned artists like Bjork and The 1975. Because of the previous results, we decided that Bjork was too old for our target audience, and as we were targeting females, we wanted a female artist, ruling out groups like The 1975. The next question asked for the favourite indie sub-genre. The most popular choice was indie pop, meaning that we will choose a song with ...

I have added a link to the Piktochart to view it in a higher resolution.  https://magic.piktochart.com/output/24613330-new-piktochart Completing this task has made me aware of negative stereotypes to avoid when making my own music video.

From looking at these narrative codes, we have decided that we want to include a lot of enigma and also symbolism that implies the ending, perhaps a black widow, a shattering glass or a wilting rose-- something that connotes danger, the death of love. We are also going to use a dark colour palette in our music video.

The music video opens with a wideshot zoom out of Lana and A$AP Rocky living the American Dream. This correlates to the title of the song National Anthem and sets the scene for a patriotic music video. Lana Del Rey plays both Marilyn Monroe and Jackie O in the music with A$AP playing JFK. The next shot is a wide shot of Lana. The setting and costume create a feeling of 60s opulence and Hollywood glamour. The costume is the first indication that it is set in the 60s. The semiotic code of the lion rug is that Lana is a predator or is dangerous. It is also a display of wealth.The low-key lighting in the room connotes her sadness, which is presumably because her 'husband' is not with her. Throughout the video, the shots use high-key lighting and she wears pale or white colours to connote her happiness. However, when A$AP Rocky is no longer present, the low-key lighting returns and the blue of her clothing connotes her sadness. Her presentation here represents women...

We have chosen Lana Del Rey as the main artist to draw inspiration from when creating our music video. We like her style of editing and how her videos are mainly set or call back to the past (usually the 50s or 60s but sometimes later than this) and her montage editing style is something we would like to try for ourselves as we think it is a unique way of conveying information effectively to the audience. It also requires some technical skill which I personally would like to broaden my understanding of by attempting to recreate it myself. Her persona comes through the clearest of all the artists we have considered and we would like to attempt to imitate this creation of a persona for our own artist as well using Dyer's Star Theory.  

We have chosen to go with the indie genre as indie music videos often feature a strong narrative and we are interested in including a story in our music video. We also like the style of independent music videos as the low-budget, nostalgic feeling is simple but effective, especially because we have no budget and therefore it will be easy to recreate. We are looking to create a music video for a solo female artist, as we like this style best, although at this point we are unsure of our narrative. We do know that we want to include a colour palette and a theme in our music video though, as these are our some of our favourite aspects of indie music videos.

After doing the moodboards, I decided that I liked the indie style the best and wanted to look into it more. Once I had researched the codes and conventions of this genre I decided that it was still my favourite and wanted to look into the lyrics of songs from this genre. Doing this task will help me decide which genre I want to choose, and the overall mood for my video, as the lyrics will have an impact on the narrative.  "Liability" One, two Baby really hurt me Crying in the taxi He don't wanna know me Says he made the big mistake of dancing in my storm Says it was poison Here, Lorde denotes her boyfriend breaking up with her. He sees their relationship as toxic, made obvious by the use of 'poison'. The fact that she refers to herself as a 'storm' connotes her turbulent emotions and perhaps unpredictable mood swings, just as a storm is unpredictable and dangerous. It sets up the narrative of Lorde breaking up with her boy...

4. SHOT TYPES The most common shot type used in indie music videos is the close up-- it creates an emotional connection with the characters (necessary as the music videos often follow a narrative) and also helps the audience to recognise each character. Another commonly used shot type is a long wideshot to establish setting, era, and tone, as the videos follow a narrative. EXAMPLE: BORN TO DIE, LANA DEL REY This music video features many wide shots, slow zooms and establishing shots because of the contrast in location between Lana's performance and the narrative. This is another convention of indie music videos. 5. MAKEUP Makeup plays an important role in music videos, especially for female artists, as it not only conveys the era as in the mise en scene section, for example a large cat-eye and lashes to convey to the audience that it is set in the 60s. Additionally, a unique makeup style to that artist (like Amy Winehouse's iconic eyeliner) promotes brand recognition an...

1. NARRATIVE Indie music videos often follow a clear narrative. This method of storytelling is used to convey emotion to the audience. Often, the narrative follows the lyrics. The artist or band are included in the music video, either in live performance or included in the narrative. Usually, stories follow a typical Todorov narrative, however most music videos often withhold information from the viewer until the end to provide variation and create enigma. EXAMPLE: DROP THE GUILLOTINE, PEACH PIT This music video follows the narrative of a high school play, in which the main character/lead singer plays the role of King Louis XVI. The guillotine is literally dropped in terms of the narrative within the play, but the overarching narrative of the main character's friend 'stealing his crushes' is metaphorically dropping the guillotine on the main character's head. This is an example of a music video where the lyrics influence the narrative, but also a good example of...

This weekend I had some free time, so I decided to record a cover of a song and make my own music video to practice for our coursework this year. The main skill I focused on was lip-syncing, but I think I will need to practice this more before I attempt it in the final product because the results weren't as smooth as I wanted. Because we are choosing to do a music video influenced by the style of Lana Del Rey, I took a lot of inspiration from the Ultraviolence and Video Games music videos because Ultraviolence has the same theme of marriage, and I like the usage of vintage clips in the Video Games music video. The Ultraviolence video has a lot of references to Marilyn Monroe in terms of visuals (see images below), so I was sure to include her in the vintage clips I chose. I used footage of Nancy Sinatra and Tommy Sands' wedding, home videos filmed using vintage 35mm cameras, advertisements from the 50s, 60s, old films shot in the 40s, and some clips from more modern films: Lo...

Richard Dyer's Star Theory states that icons and celebrities are manufactured by institutions for financial gain. He believes that they are carefully constructed in order to generate the most money by giving the impression of 'real people' with certain personality traits that fans can relate to and therefore become fans of. These fans will then buy the media texts associated with the star. His theory is split into three sections: 1. Audiences and institutions 2. Ideology and Culture 3. Character and Personality 1. AUDIENCES AND INSTITUTIONS 'Stars' are manufactured by institutions to make money from record sales. They are often very similar, because the industry 'mass produces' what they think audiences want to see, listen to, or buy. However, there is a market for those who want something different-- institutions also have to cater to these groups of people in order to generate the most profit. 2.IDEOLOGY AND CULTURE These 'stars' often d...