Welcome to my blog...
This blog will be updated regularly with new work from my second year as a Media stduent. This blog is for my advanced portfolio in which we have to plan, produce and evaluate a music video. I hope you emjoy the blog and feel free to use it as help for your own.
Contact me here if needed: lukethorntonsidney@gmail.com
Mise-en-Scene. This term is originally a french term which comes from
the theaters. The literal meaning of it is 'Put in the scene', and this
basically includes everything that can be seen on the scene, costumes,
props, lighting and so on. This is very important in the the olden
theater days and is still major part of all movies, adverts, and music
videos; a lot of time, money, and effort has been put into making sure
that the misse-en-scene relates to what they are trying to portray or
symbolize.
This is some of the mise-en-scene that we will be putting into our video....... Costumes:
Black leather jacket
T-shirt
Blue jeans 1
Blue polo
Blue jeans 2
Clown costume
Props
Iphone 5
Book
Lighting:
All the lighting in our videos was natural lighting as we felt that
adding extra lighting will make some of the scenes less realistic and we
wanted to create a music video in a real life scenario as we wanted our
audience to have something to relate to and connect with. Like andrew
goodwin's theory where he talks that people will watch the music videos
if they have some way of connecting and relating to them in some way.
Sound:
We chose not to have any ambient sounds as we did not want to distract
the audience from the music. This will also allow to connect with it a
bit more and will ensure that they like the music video.
We decided we need to get somesecond opinions on our digipak ideas, so
we put them out on Twitter and waited for some responses of people so we
could see what they actually thought.
Representation is how music can represent a certain social groups for example, some artist promote negative behaviour and breaking the law with the lyrics that they use in their music and the content in their videos but others use their music to promote happiness, fun, and freedom, so some artists use representation for different purposes.
So the artists music we chose is Eminem Beautiful, and of course Eminem talks freely about what he wants on his albums. He is notoriously known for his explicit content, talking about raping women, killing, shootings etc. so he is representing a rebellion. Just the way he talks and his different voices and sound effects he uses makes the lyrics seem more realistic and lifelike.
Eminem represents both Men and Women in a very strong negative way, he has had a lot of bad experiences with women and he talks about murdering them because they are cheating etc, which shows his short temper and lack of ability to walk away. One of his songs is extremely explicit and the picture above is a shot taken from the music video of the song Eminem - 3AM. This song talks about coming home at 3AM and killing everyone he sees and then bathing in their blood. This is representing violent behaviour.
The way he represents Men, is that they can be very twisted and inpatient with the opposite sex. When it comes to the ones they love they can very attached and protective over them, sometimes leading to very extreme cases where people get into fights, arguments, and ending badly such as killing them. Other ways he represents this is his fans getting extremely attached to him and writing to him constantly but because he is a busy man, he does not get the chance to write back resulting in the fan killing himself, another story line of one of his songs i.e. Eminem Stan.
Eminem has sold the second largest amount of records in the rap industry making him a very powerful man. He has made songs from talking about death and life, leaving his family, raping women, and his recovery process from Rehab.Eminem beautiful is a song that talks about drug addiction and his recovery process but also how he feels like everywhere he goes everyone is on his case. He talks about not even being able to go to the toilet without someone trying to get a snap of him or security on the door. He says he feels like he is in a cage and typically being famous is a lot of hassle.
Eminem Beautiful is a good song as it represents all men, women, teens and possibly children that may be going through a struggle in life and how if you have the fight in you, you can always come out n top. The fact that he feels he can talk to his fans about his problems is a good way for him o offer his help and advice to them suffering from the same or similar he did. As he suffered and managed to come out on top shows that anyone can do it and with his music he is able to do this and represent relapse and recovery both two of his major selling albums.
His mum was highly addicted to drugs and he had a very tough up bringing after his dad had walked out on him as a child. He was arrested for holding an unloaded gun and assaulting a bouncer and was given two years probation with multiple hours of community service.
How we will represent the following in our music video.
Conventional Representations (Stereotypes) + Positive and negative representations
We will do this by making the characters in the music video wear stereotypical clothing and therefore making them have a stereotypical view from society. As people will look differently on people due to the clothing they are wearing, we can make the artists in the music video wear particular clothing so whilst filming we get a range of different behaviours from people.
As young lads wearing a tracksuit and a hoody, is viewed as a thug in today's society the view we will get may be very negative which will work with the song we are using. He feels like an outcast and everywhere he goes people are looking at him so therefore society's view will work brilliantly with the shot.
Representations that challenge stereotype + Positive and negative representations
In today's society the older generation from upon the ways that the young behave and typically view them all the same but at the same time as times have changes so has the younger generations and face tough challenges of their own, that of what the older generations would have had to face when they are younger.
The youth of today face challenges such as their parents leaving them and being left on their own and problems such as being bullied to the point they self harm and then other generations look at them in the view that they are outcasts to society, when in fact society has pushed them away.
The young are trying to get a long by going to University and apprenticeships but also they are trying to make themselves be seen. In this day in age with 7 billion people on this planet, being seen is one of life hardest challenges, and those that are trying to do so by the way they are working and the things they are doing with their lives shows that the youth of today are just as bright as the youth of yesterday.
How will these representations appeal to your audience or promote the artist?
So what we wantto show in our music video that everyone is equal and those that feel that they are not equal to everyone, despite, colour, race, or whether they come from wealth or not. That everyone who feels down and want an escape, their escape should be happiness, and the only way they are going to find that is with hard work, effort and dedication.
You might not be the most popular, wealthy or the most beautiful, but the fact that you have the fight in you to go and find the life you want, to chase the career you dream of, or even to kiss the girl you love so deeply, do it because you only get one chance at life and what you don't do you will regret, and that is going to be your biggest enemy in life. If you think you should do something, do it because at the end of the day sitting around sobbing, is not going to get you anywhere in life.
These lyrics were taken by Eminem himself and his song beautiful and is exactly the feel we want to have to our music video.
Nobody asked for life to deal us
With these bullshit hands we're dealt
We have to take these cards ourselves
And flip them, don't expect no help
Now I could have either just
Sat on my ass and pissed and moaned
Or take this situation in which I'm placed in
And get up and get my own
Everyone is beautiful in their own, "God gave you them shoes, to fit you, so put 'em on and wear 'em
and be yourself, man, be proud of who you are even if it sounds corny, don't ever let no one tell you, you ain't beautiful
"... Another quote from the all time inspirational Eminem.