Evaluation 1

Transcript:

Music videos usually fit into the category of narrative or performance. When I researched the indie genre I found that most videos are a combination of both, with about 70% narrative and 30% performance. The performance element is usually the artist lipsyncing to the lyrics alone, as shown in dodie’s Sick of Losing Soulmates. However, I challenged the convention with this as my music video is entirely narrative. I felt that any lipsyncing would detract from the narrative of the song and so did not adhere to that convention.

I used Levi Strauss' Binary Opposition Theory to contrast rural and urban. This is a technique that music videos often use to make the conflicts of the central characters clear as they cannot use dialogue and so I used it to make the two narratives and their similar themes obvious to the audience.

Another convention of the indie genre is a shallow depth of field that allows the audience to feel close to the characters, often used because indie artists tend to write personal lyrics that they want the audience to connect with. So I used this convention in my indie music video, particularly when the character is being confronted by her parents, as this is the moment I would want the audience to feel the most sympathy.

There are quite a few conventions within editing for music videos. One of these is that the editing of a video fits to the beat of the song, with quick cuts, which makes the video easier to watch. I used this convention to partial extent, as whilst the cuts of my music video do align to the beats of the song, they are a lot slower than in a typical indie music video. This is because the song was a slow and thoughtful one and I wanted the editing of the video to fit that tone.

The convention of colour grading in indie music video is that the colours are desaturated to reflect the mood of the lyrics and this was a convention that I built on for my media product. However, I also developed this further by slightly increasing the contrast on key emotional shots in order to make the contrast and conflict in the two character’s lives clear to the audience.