Planning: Beat Script - Changing Idea

After the focus group reserach, the concept of the video has had to change, therefore we're going to use some of our original ideas however have them reminiscing instead.

Beat Script


Ben Austin will be sat at a piano and reminiscing about the good times he has with his girlfriend whilst singing directly into camera.

Will show him running her a bath, them walking together in the park, them sat on a beach, them playing consoles in a home, and drinking cups of tea whilst watching Shrek.

There will be intertextuality of him finding her on tinder with an over the shoulder shot.

Ben Austin will then see his girlfriend walking away with another boy, and a slow motion shot of him dropping the heart pendant necklace.

Planning: Star Image

Star image is called Ben Austin.

This is a picture of my model. His actual name is Julian Plunkett and is involved with lots of drama performances, that being one of the main reasons we chose him as he has brilliant acting skills.

Our star image "Ben Austin" also has a similar look to other Pop acoustic artist that inspire us, such as James Arthur and George Ezra. As Julian also has a very friendly casual look about him.

PLANNING: lyric annotation

Target Audience Research - Focus Group

 

After having our chosen song, we sat around a table of our peers and played it through my phone and paused after every few lines to give our ideas on what we had planned to do for these lines.

TA Focus Group - analysis of findings

They were all a fan of our ideas and said they thought they were very "creative" and "romantic" however, each individual stated that they had interpreted it as a heartbreak song rather than a romantic song, so this completely made me and Lauren change the story line for the song. 

We then asked questions such as how they vision the female star image in the music video acting, and if they liked the idea of challenging stereotypes with the male being more interested than the female.

After asking questions to a small focus group of my peers, they all had a completely oppositional readings, which is a great example of Hall and Morleys theory.

They understood the relationship completely different to how me and Lauren did, and how the relationship feels about one another.

We had planned our narrative as them being in love and admiring one another.

But they heard the song differently, and understood it as the male being more interested than the female, and the man being completely head over heels in love with her while she is not that interested.

This point of view is un stereotypical as it is typically the woman more interested than the male.

Research: TA Research USING Soundcloud

The questions we asked were:

What did you imagine for each verse? - bubbles, piano, close ups
What ideas do you have for the second verse? - parks, SRS, handheld camera
Do you like the use of handheld camera?
We're not sure on the next part, what do you guys think? - shrek intertextuality, nostalgia VCR, links to visual tea.
What do you think the song means?
How do you imagine their relationship?
(me and my partner worry laugh)
Do you like the use of computer games- social comment- capitalism- chucking money away?
Do you like the use of flashbacks?
Do you all prefer narrative music video for this music video?
Are you all hearing it negatively?
Do you like being an active audience and spotting social comment?
What representations would you like to see of female and male in music video?
Do you imagine black and white, colour or both?
Equal shots of the female and the male or more of a certain one?
What outfits do you imagine them wearing?

Research: Music Video analysis 8 - Post modernism and Social Comment - Britney Spears

Britney Spears - Hold it against me

Narcissistic 

Britney Spears is re-launching and having a re birth of her new identity after the media destroyed her. This is her establishing shot for the music video. Britney is voyeuristic and still follows Goodwins theory of singing directly into the camera and being the star image.
 However the men around her are all actually dressing themselves.

An Active Audience

The men in this shot of the music video have no eyes, which links to Laura Mulvey's male gaze as she's not letting them see her and be a victim to this anymore. 

Hyper Conscious

The music video has the set up of lights and camera which makes it aware of itself as a media text.

Britney is also very aware of the product placement of make up forever, her own perfume and the sony tv and laptop.

Acts against modernism

 Britney Spears is fighting her bipolar self in this shot and her manic episode is fighting her depressive episode. This is representing how she has fought that mental illness and overcome it and now is stronger. 

This is challenging the grand narrative of the wedding and the big white wedding dress, and after her divorce she is showing this does not work for everyone. 

Nostalgic

This shot shows how she has her previous music videos playing in the background of her singing with her wedding dress on, showing her past younger star image. 

Eclecticism

All the past music videos playing and represents all surface reflections and signifies the loss of the truth in her identity and what the media has done to her, this also reflects Strinati as mirrors are being held in her previous media identities in the form of her past music vidoes. Additionally, she challenges traditionality by destroying the wedding dress.

Intertextuality 

This links to plenty of fish, the dating website being shown.

Similarly, there is product placement of her other brands, such as her perfume she launched as merchandise, and also other brands such as SONY and makeup forever, Rocky horror, and Tekken.

How this research has influenced my planning and creativity
Post modernism will definitely have a feature in our music video and have a social comment, I like the idea of using nostalgia and having an active audience.