How research has helped me with my planning

    From Carlsson to Todorov and Barthes to Neale, all of these theorists have had a huge impact on understanding the world of media; how it works, what's the key to it all, and what makes a good piece of art. But does research really need to be taken to such an extensive level?

    Research and inspiration I believe is an immensely influential element that needs to be taken very serious when you are setting out to produce something you can be proud of. In the modern day, it is even more important to explore the already-existing media texts on the market already, because there is so much due to the developments in the internet and online sharing, that originality is becoming less and less easy to come by. This is even more emphasised by the paths we take as individuals and the similarities in media consumption across the globe due to distribution of media from 90% of the world's media from six different companies being so excessive.

   As a partnership, my friend and I knew from the start what we wanted the end product to look and feel like, through years of inspiration behind us, but it was the research we did that helped us vastly in attempting to construct that product to a fathomable and enjoyable state. As the video itself would be composed around not just a performance, but most-importantly a narrative also, Barthe's and Todorov's  theories were vitally significant to us.

Barthes

In the music video 'Breezeblocks' by Alt-J, ominous, dark and
cold lighting is used to set the mood of the video and to
foreshadow the events that the audience will witness and
experience.

    The five codes that Barthes explains in his theory are very hard to understand completely and was something that we thoroughly had to think about when it came to creating the storyline for our music video. When it comes to producing the video we want to exploit the semantic code most of all, and this is because of many reasons. A lot of indie films/music videos at this time are all about the implicit references and uses of connotations within objects or speech etc. and are an essential part to the end result. That is why we wanted to create something with a very evident meaning to it and not something that could be analysed sufficiently through denotations but something that could be anticipated in many different and wonderful ways.

    For the planning of this video, we are going to try and represent the 'cultural code' being used sufficiently throughout with our general theme being the urban to country transfer. This will be created through the journey of the protagonist though different settings and it is an activation of the cultural code because a social viewpoint that is expressed a lot in the modern day is how people may feel entrapped within a city and have the urge to escape to the countryside. We believe that a theme such as this will help with the audience's sympathy for the character, but more importantly, to empathise with him and consequently this will cause a much greater significant impact on the audience.

Director Stanley Kubrick uses effects, such as slow motion,
and overlays video with classical music to show themes such
 as authority in A Clockwork Orange.

    The enigma code will be activated at the start of the music video with our main character entrance into the 'dream world'. This venture won;t give any clear indication of the direction of travel for the character but instead will give the audience puzzles to work out. The reason why there won't be many clues or hints dropped throughout this bit is to hopefully put across the character's story/journey and show how he feels. We want our character to be solely optimistic and yet have no idea himself where he is going to end up. The reason for this is because the conclusion isn't important but it is the emotion he feels and how he deals with the circumstances of losing his job that is most significant to us.

Todorov

    The opening equilibrium for our story I believe is only present for a few seconds at the start of the video. The 'firing' of our protagonist is the fundamental aspect that starts him on his journey and as this is the 'disruption' the few seconds before hand must be classed as the 'opening equilibrium'. There is yet again another disruption when the P enters the 'Dream World' through the puddle as the story's progression isn't clear. Clarity isn't what we wanted straight off because if the audience is able to emphasise with the main character then the emotion of 'optimism' will be expressed and felt a lot more powerfully.

    An attempt to resolve the disrupted equilibrium is then produced when our P exits through another puddle to what seems to be real-life again. I would see this as an 'attempt' because for the audience,

the music video's outcome starts to become a lot more clear due to the now recognisable urban-country theme.

    The end equilibrium is then finally met after the intense journey, and there is an ascending aerial shot to show it. The now-lying-down character  has finally reached a place of serenity, whereby he can live is solitude, peace, and happiness.

Steve Neale

   In many ways genre doesn't apply to our music video as much as another genre would, and this is exactly how we wanted it. 'Indie' is a new genre that is on the rise incredibly throughout many countries, and is most centred around media production. Indie games, films, music is all starting to emerge on the internet, and starting to be truly recognised for what it is, and what's so brilliant about the genre is the amount of creativity and uniqueness you can show with it. If something is indie, then it is most likely to be centred hugely around the 'artistic' form of the product, and this is self-evident in films and games.  


    Neale says that, "Genres are instances of repetition and difference." and our video will definitely have both of these elements. Repetition with the quirk-y elements that the genre Indie inhibits, will be existing throughout. This will be to emphasise and exaggerate points - some more than others will be exaggerated even further. Indie is all about difference and originality and this is what we aspire to achieve with the music video, but to make it still at the level of perceivable normality we are going to place shots in that would conflict with the 'dream world' as they will show what's really occurring in 'real-life'.

Michel Maffesoli

    Maffesoli's theories on tribes can relate to and corroborate with many strong points that Neale makes about genre, and so when we discussed our target audience these two pioneers came up in conversation multiple amount of times. 

     Different Tribes normally represent different genres of music and therefore our tribe for our target audience is going to be centred around the 'Leading Edge'. Our music video will have a very similar style to the two music videos that I linked to in the 'Maffesoli' post under 'Leading Edge. We want the video to be of dull, yet prominent colours, to have creative and unique camera shots/angles/movements, the lighting to be strange but intelligent and the costumes to be subtle but powerfully implicative.

Laura Mulvey

    Our video won't be accustom to any type of voyeuristic attributes with the characters so the theory here doesn't apply to us. However it was interesting to note the points given in her theories because it became clear to us what voyeurism is used for, and if that element wasn't existent in our video, what would we do to make up for it? I believe that this can be partly explained by the previous point about the detailed storyline that we are so eager to create. However, the USP for this video is definitely going to be the quirk factor about it and the feeling that accentuates and the meaning it possesses.