EVALUATIONQUESTION 1

BRIEF

• The production of our campaign attempted to conform to conventions of music videos, by using theories, such as Barthes’ binary oppositions and Goodwin’s arguments concerning the relationship between visuals and lyrics. while challenging other music videos conventions, like the use of lip syncing to create intimacy between artist and audience through meat shots, such as the introduction of characters in Taylor Swift’s ‘Bad Blood’. This was achieved by the creation of a purely narrative based music video creating clear artistic continuity with magazine advertisement and Digi Pack.

GOODWIN’S CRITICAL FRAMEWORK

• Goodwin’s critical framework can be clearly applied to our music video and is evident as we have executed our video to utilise his theory. We produced an amplifying relationship between lyrics and visuals, while at points the visuals were directly relatable to the lyrics. An example of such an event is during the first scene where the protagonist can be seen to take a pill, directly referencing the line, ‘Take an Adderall to take the edge of the crazy’ this line becomes increasingly important as the video becomes a display of events of the apparent effects of drug taking.

At the point the pill is taken the visual colour saturation changes reinforcing this amplifying relationship.

• The use of colour grading strengthens the relationship between lyrics and visuals. However, our video largely consists of amplifying relationships, as evidenced through the use of camera work such as to reflect the lyrics, an example of this is the use of a pan up until the camera reaches our protagonists face to create an audience affiliation with the character through the desire to be positioned with her, before a cut to the shot of the fire to reinforce the lyrics ‘don’t look back, in case of fire’. This is a lyric we have utilised throughout the music video as well as using clips of the protagonist running away.

• Goodwin's reference to voyeuristic media texts link into our attempt to portray gender in a way which causes ideological discourse. I believe the use of POV shots was particularly voyeuristic as it directly positions the audience with the character. Thus creating a binary opposition with the fetishistic shots we could’ve use

• Looking into the form of our music video the structure of a purely narrative video is unconventional as the vast majority of videos have an element of performance, to give the opportunity for the director to add meat shots to create intimacy between characters and audience, thus adding to the artists star image, such as the shots in Sharron Jones’ ‘I learnt the hard way’

• Our Use of text illustrates the narrative nature of our video, drawing parallels with Kendrick Lamar’s ‘These Walls’, another narrative based video, it adds to the narrative video, to create the effect of a small film, as music videos tend not to have titles, or credits.

• Our promotional campaign as a whole largely conforms to the conventions of the genre, through the use of visual motifs and iconography

• Intertextual references were made within the video, to the funk genre, such as the ‘UP12 FNK’ (uptown funk) number-plate, this helped create cohesiveness through our products with the original album.

• We also challenged the conventions of the genre, as the video we produced was purely narrative, this is something the artist, Mark Ronson has never done before, thus adding to the initial aim of rebranding, as this new video format adds to his meta-narrative.

• The integrated title on the digipack is also unconventional, as usually a stand alone title is created alongside the image.

• Our Texts are polysemic. Thus allowing us to tap into Barthes death of the artist book, which states that the auther or director of the video is no longer solely responsible with making the video, but the audience is. Introducing the concept of an open media text.

• Our Text is open because there are varying connotations which can be drawn from the girl and her actions.

• Despite our text being open, our video does have some form of narrative closure, Utilising Pam Cook’s theory, the Enigmatic Ark, as the text is resolved with the intercutting of the fire during the final sequence, highlighting the isolation of the character, and referencing the events in the rest of the video, suggesting there is a consequence to the protagonist’s actions.

• The pills also link the first and last scenes, linking cause and effect.

• We wanted to introduce narrative fuzz to increase the repeatability of the video, intimacy between audience and character is created through the characters frequent looking through the camera lens. The final scene does offer some closure, however we do not know the cause of the house fire.

• To contribute to Dyer’s star image theory we drew inspiration from the cinematic techniques pioneered by historical directors, thus adding to Mark Ronson’s meta narrative, making him look like a music video pioneer, an example of this is the use of jump cuts.

• Semiotics can be used to deconstruct text. Our use of semiotics predominant purpose was to fulfil Dyer’s star qualities.

• An example of this is the fire, being an iconic sign of anger and rebellion. This metaphor continues throughout the video, and the whole campaign, supposedly showing the volatile nature of the girl, and simultaneously showing the volatile nature of youth.

• We wanted to create ideological discourse in our campaign. Our products challenge the dominant ideology towards gender in music videos.

• This was achieved by challenging the ideology of women in music videos simply being half of a relationship, as seen in Sharron Jones’ ‘I learnt the hard way’ whereas in our video the girl is a standalone protagonist.

• This Ideological discourse is displayed throughout the campaign, with the fire on the digipack relating to the damage a girl can do through the metaphors of rebellion and youth.