Tuesday 17 July 2012

My Music Video Idea - Narrative and Genre

The idea that I will be doing for my music video will be of the Romance genre. The basic story line is that our protagonist, a boy suffering from a break up, will be walking around to different locations ( looking sad ) where he has memories of being with his now ex-girlfriend. As he looks at the locations E.G. Park bench, he will have a flashback memory of him and his ex girlfriend when they were still together, showing them being happy/ loved up and having a good time, then it will cut back to real time, and he will continue to walk around. Eventually he will  have the chance to get back together with his ex girlfriend but in a tiwst he will turn her down and will then end up getting together with a new girl with the girl in a slightly subverted-stereotypical love story manner.


The Genre of the music video is a stereotypical boy/ girl romance told in a less stereotypical manner. The story will focus on a couple/ ex couple and will be a classic love story being interfered with some problem, but by using a fragmented narrative, the love story will be told in a different way.


The Narrative of the Music Video Will be fragmented as while the Protagonist walks around looking at old locations where he has memories of him and the antagonist (ex-girlfriend), he will be having flash backs of that memory and we will then show him spending time with her in the past. So as opposed to a classic Linear narrative we will tell the story in a fragmented manner using memories.



Monday 16 July 2012

Carly Rae Jepsen - Call Me Maybe.


I am looking at this video From Carly Rae Jepsen's 'Call Me Maybe' and breaking it down into Genre, Narrative, Representation, audience and Media Language. The video clearly comes under the Love/Romance Genre. You can tell this right from the very start as it evident that Carly Rae has a crush on the boy she is looking through the window at. Also in the same scene there is a close-up shot of some books on a table which are romantic novels, the front cover of one of them is later represented by Carly Rae and the man in the video when she falls off the car and starts dreaming.

The representations of this video at first glance are rather stereotypically of a girl falling for a boy, which one would assume would lead to them eventually getting together by the end. However, this video hits us with a plot twist right at the end where it then becomes clear that the video is actually representing the 'romance' in a subverted stereotypical way by revealing to us as viewers that the man in the video is actually gay and has no love interest in Carly Rae, Thus showing to us why he showed no real attention to her antics.

The Narrative of the video largely is just a case of seeing her lusting over / trying to get the attention of a man that doesn't seem to show any interest in her in return so the video is being narrated by her in a fairly Linear sense by the way she tries to win him over. This changes however when she falls off the car and starts dreaming, as in her dream she is with the man and they are about to start kissing, much like the cover of the romantic novel seen previously, so the narrative takes a turn towards fantasy and we see what it coud be like if they were together.

The audience for a video such as this would most likely be for fans of pop music, as it is clearly a pop music video. you can tell this from the bright colours/clothing and Carly Rae's bright Make-up. The slightly generic beat of the song is also a give-away as it (or something similar) is present in many a pop song. One final reason for this would be that it plays out a fairly stereotypical 'romance' which would also be associated with pop music perhaps due to the upbeat nature of the Genre.






Tuesday 3 July 2012

M.I.A Music Video - Representations.

This is a good video to look at when talking about representation as it challenges the main stereotypes that you would normally associate with the culture portrayed in the video. The people in the video are mainly Arabs or people of Asian ethnicity, a culture known for it's strict rules and conservative way of life. This video challenges this stereotype in such a way that the people in the video seem the complete opposite of strict and conservative. Throughout the video, you see the people dancing, wearing bright colours and doing crazy things like Driving cars at high speeds on two wheels while people balance on them. This is all a Subverted stereotype as in some places in Asia is is illegal to even own things such as music CDs and other things like it, so the fact that everyone is dancing, singing and having a wild time shows that they are breaking from the Norms of the culture as it definitely something that would never normally occur In many countries across Asia. So to conclude it can be said that the people being represented in this music video are people of Asian ethnicity and are being positively represented in a way that is a subverted stereotype and shows to us that their culture is not as strict and conservative as the stereotype of them might lead us to believe.