I knew from the very start of this project that I wanted my music video to be related to the 'teenage experience', so it was only natural that the inspiration for what footage to include in my music video would stem from my personal experience.
For example, the concert footage was acquired from a rock show I attended, and while I have changed the specifics of that night, what I want to portray are the feelings - the excitement of concerts, the emotions of being a teenager, and the experience of having an intimate connection with someone.
The 'River Scene' is meant to symbolise the subject's appreciation of these memories and her acceptance in moving forwards in life (which is represented by the river), with the stick figure in the paper boat being a simplistic and innocently childish representation of her doing so.
In terms of the actual style of the video, part of my inspiration came from the music video for Wild Belle's song "Backslider"
I admired the way in which the lighting was used, making it more of an art piece than a music video; I became excited by the idea of being able to use projections to make a more abstract, artistically free video.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkUXM1kky7LAf0QEiQ0Orrv8av3jzl__ahnrIc4ovwI_1w2ouf4W_i2J-PXQ55bXDBpQLqH7Kir0hrAshSzSiA5TY0XRiq9tJuwplXcfPPwSNbH1tDSeC_x0UqmNYJs9e_EBXJAQ2th_s/s320/Screen+Shot+2017-01-17+at+2.08.30+pm.png)
(Above and to the left: screenshots from Wild Belle's music video "Our Love Will Survive". These screenshots demonstrate the filter effect.)
Another idea with which I had played since the beginning was creating obscurity over the artist's identity, which performers such as Deadmau5, Sia, and Daft Punk are known to do.
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DeadMau5 |
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Sia |
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Daft Punk |
This lead me to consider ways in which I could obscure the identity of my performer. I knew I didn't want to present my performer as futuristic - the genre of the music is wrong for that - so initially, I considered plain, white plastic masks with humanoid features. I liked the idea of plain coloured masks because it left me open to the possibility of changing their colours within the video, (for example, with spray paint or glitter etc.)
However, one reservation that I hold towards a humanoid mask is that they show no emotion. While this can be beneficial for anonymity and generalising the subject to present her as 'anybody' (making it easier for the audience to connect with her, by allowing them to see themselves in her,) I feared the lack of emotion may send the wrong message to my audience. This lead me to consider the possibility of making her mask animalistic, as it is primal emotions that the music and my video explore, and an animal mask would create this raw, primal sense.
I was encouraged with my idea of using an animal mask by the Orphan Black (the BBC America fiction-drama about clones) character known as M.K.
In the show, M.K. is a social outcast living off the grid, who wears a sheep mask (which is a nod to Dolly the Sheep) to obscure her identity during her cryptic video posts and while she's on the run. As a character, she's isolated and scared of the world - I want to address these themes within my music video, as they're common things that all young people will feel at some point or other within their lives. I'm not certain yet as to what type of animal mask I'll use, but I would happily use a sheep mask in my music video, as an intertextual nod towards M.K. and her struggle.
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M.K. as seen in her mask |
In summary, my video has been influenced by various modern media products, both in terms of style and concept. There is also a significant influence by the genre of the song; after all, creating a music video that doesn't match the musical genre would be ineffective and most definitely disliked by audiences.
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