Theorists ... Who, why and how?

Jacques Derrida: recognised how binary pairs were not always equal.

*APOLOGIES FOR THE BLUNTNESS*

According to Jacques Derrida, meaning in the West is defined in terms of binary oppositions, “a violent hierarchy” where “one of the two terms governs the other.” Within the white/ black binary opposition in the United States, the African American is defined as a devalued other.

An example of a binary opposition is the male-female dichotomy. A post-structuralist view is that male can be seen, according to traditional Western thought, as dominant over female because male is the presence of a phallus, while the vagina is an absence or loss. John Searle has suggested that the concept of binary oppositions—as taught and practised by postmodernists and poststructuralist—is specious and lacking in rigour.

Within my music video I want to show that females are equal to the male population and I want to show that females are not always the weak and vulnerable and that vulnerability can also affect men as they too are only human and are subject to emotions and all of life's other mysteries that may not be so easy to deal with.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-structuralism

"A major theme of post structuralism is instability in the human sciences, due to the complexity of humans themselves and the impossibility of fully escaping structures in order to study them."

Personally I think this quote is really important as it shows how theory and the implication of ideas and theories has an impact upon  the audience and the type of audience and how each person is different.

Pre-production lighting

During the filming of our music videos one of the most vital aspect (and possibly most difficult to master) is getting the rights sort of lighting. As an experimentation we grouped together to try to recreate some iconic lighting scenes from famous movies. My group decided to do the iconic lighting from terminator with the cross over of a red and blue filter (also known as the Hasta La Vista Baby scene).







Here you can see the finished product of Ella with two light rigs set up either side of her with two different coloured filters. Personally I doubt I will use this sort of colour contrast in my video but in doing this little experiment it helped me a lot in realising how shadows work and how the colour intensity can change the mood of a scene, actually being the one taking the photograph here made me realise that when I am filming for my own music video and need to do close ups/ extreme close ups I must be able to trust my actor and I myself must be comfortable enough with the actor to be in such close proximity to them.

 

Interview with 20yr old male

I asked the interviewee what he thought makes a good music video and this was his response with some examples: *apologies I've tried to keep it as true to the responses that were given however for censorship reasons I have toned down the excitement that I was given*

There is a good build up, where it gradually gets faster and faster until the break down which makes a bigger impact on the audience or viewer.

When band and everyone else (everyone within the video) 'goes crazy'; when they're absorbed by the music, you can see that they are not caring about anything else, when they're in the moment, there and then just with the music.

Example of a good build up:

This slipknot video is really good because they say a few lyrics from the actual song (" if you're five five five then I'm six six six), and because its such a famous song everyone knows the lyrics which then leaves everyone to thinking "OMG ITS THIS SONG WE KNOWS WHAT'S COMING NEXT" so everyone has hearts pumping and fists at the ready to ROCK OUT.
00.43 ( getting ready/build up) - 00.46 (explosion, flashing lights & fire BOOM) From this I gather that the pyrotechnics and the visual aspect of the live performance enhances the experience of listening to the song making it more powerful and almost to the point where it is a firework show to make everyone hypnotised and in awe of the band.

With this video you can tell the depth of field by the focus on the lead singer and the blurry audience in the background.
From a personal point of view I think this video is really good because it has loads of lights flashing to insinuate a massive party

Clearly all female audience, shows sex divide in this genre of music from a personal point of view I do not like the depiction of the females within this video as it shows that the male is better. However works very well with codes and conventions and the amplification of  binary opposition theorist Jacques Derrida theory - the male is always more dominant.

Extreme close up at the end of the music video works really well to create a connection between the audience and the lead singer.

The Lyrics at the beginning of the video : "this radio station was named audioslave in honor of the last American heroes to whom speed means freedom of the soul the question is not is when its gonna' stop but who is gonna' stop 'em" comes across as  very powerful and it relates to how music is and always has been interpreted within this genre.
This extract and entire style of this music film is taken from and inspired by the film Vanishing point and the lead singer of the band acts as the main protagonist of the film - Kowalski.

Up until 2.56 the band themselves sing nothing at all which is odd once you notice it but you can appreciate the music video itself more without the distraction of them miming along to the song, however it works well once they do start to mime on the stage at 3.55 as it incorporated the classic convention of music videos where you can see the band 'act' as they are performing. 

During the entire music video there are masses of wide shots and mid shots along with insane bright colour pallet which works well as it the video is set in the desert which is iconic of the USA.

When the chorus is sang ('show me how to live') always happens when the car in the music video accelerates this is clearly an action code which gives audience feeling of adrenaline, as when the car goes faster as song gets faster insinuating that there is a big commotion about to start.

Very vintage in voice and being able to do alter the voice naturally rather than using auto tune is a really good attribute of the band themselves not just the music video.

Set on beach - reminds of summer time when you always have a beer as they do in the video, chilling out to the music on the beach and living in the moment, partying it up which is why is it such an appealing music video.

Shadow shots at the beginning give a sense of time during the day.

There is a sense of vibration through the use of props and showing their movement showing that the music they're creating is at am amplitude that can cause destruction.

The music video has classic mise-en-scene which amplifies the feeling of deserted-ness within the 'past relationship (which is what the lyrics are talking about) and using abandoned / breaking down house can reflect the feelings and emotions being experienced.

(mise-en-scene relates to lyrics = amplification = Andrew Goodwin - his relationship is breaking down/apart and so is 'his flat' as the audience presumes.)

Within this video there is good use of visual binary opposition through the flashes within the strobe lighting, the white and black kit of the football players and the white and black outfits of the different cheerleaders. The lead singer Marilyn Manson personally is crazy and because he's a very eccentric person along with the angry song enables the aggression and anger to be shown within body language and physical acts upon the stage such as kicking over pieces of technical equipment.
From a personal point of view I really like it when it starts to rain as it adds another element of a natural form or release from pressure and that's when the band members themselves starts to 'power head bang' despite the weather and makes the scene more powerful as it makes it slightly and angry / romantic feeling to it.

really powerful and angry song and shows his true mentality as its one of his heaviest songs and shows his true metal power by throwing himself (mind body & soul) into the song

"I'm not a slave to a god that doesn't exist" = video shows him rebelling therefore illustrating the lyrics being sang. = A.Goodwin

Mood board and thought process

Here is a photo of the mood board I have created for my music video and ancillary tasks, alongside a brief synopsis of my reasons of why I have created and to what purpose I hope it serves.

"I have chosen to use and layout the images for my mood board for a reason, firstly I chose to use a black and white colour scheme to quite literally show the binary opposition that I hope to capture within my music video. A large percentage of my mood board is made up with images and references back to the band of the song I wish to use. I have structured my mood board to be centred around the lyrics of the song as I personally feel the amplification and illustration of the lyrics can add another layer of meaning to the audience from the music video. I have used images of locations to aid the development of ideas of how these areas can reflect the emotions of the music video and the narrative that continues throughout. A rough basis for my narrative is a young male dealing with the troubles of substance addiction, this is where my decision to use binary opposition comes into play; the thought of substance abuse/dependency is bad enough along with what the effects actually are, however there must be deeper reasons as to why there is a dependency, clearly it enables him to run and hide from it; as everything in this world has a good and bad side, its just both sides are not always visible at the same time.

Inspirations and ideas alongside similar issues that I would like to address

Bring Me The Horizon - Sleepwalking;

Within sleepwalking the story and visual narrative is unclear to start, however once the music video progresses it relates to a dream-like state with parts directly being illustrated/amplified by the lyrics, or vice versa. I believe this song is about being stuck within the cycle of depression. At first he's so emotionally troubled, his body starts physically reacting to his stress (i.e. 'bones catch a fever). And if I am not mistaken I believe that most of Bring me the horizon's (BMTH) work is centred around health issues and difficulties in life.

Bring Me The Horizon - Shadow Moses;
Once again, here's another song about a mysterious character that shared a rather "cold romance" with Oli (the lead singer of the band). Unlike many songs about convincing people to let go of her, "shadow Moses" contains abstract impressions of anguish and resentment. "I thought I buried you covered the tracks" states the metaphorical terms of forgetting or letting her go. Oli claims "she has cold-dead hands", "she clamped to his shirt when slipping through the cracks" and that method or place he buried her was where "sin could never die", or the pain she gave him was unforgivable. He further exclaims that he doesn't "want to rise from the dead", he doesn't want to deal with her ever again; it seems there is no peace in his life with her' it's just sempiternal.

Bring Me The Horizon - Go To Hell For Heaven's Sake;
Personally my interpretation of this song (although there could be many more reasons) is that Oli is talking about a person he once may have loved yet had his heart broken by them. For example: " I'm burning down every bridge we made" = the memories they have he's going to forget them. "I'll watch you choke on the hearts you break" - saying that its the first time said person has broken his heart. "I'm bleeding out every word you said" = Which could imply that he's self harming every word they have said because it felt like a lie, and he felt lied to. "So desperate and pathetic" = could relate to said person who hurt him. "Go to hell for heaven's sake" = he's broken and mad until the point where he wishes said person to go to hell. However I looked up the meaning of this song and read an article on how Oli wrote this himself, trying to distance himself from the other sides of his personality/self. The line "its moments like this where silence is golden, and then you speak" is about how Oli had been argumentative and outspoken, then later voicing those issues when all it will do is make things worse. "I'm burning down every bridge we made" could correlate or translate as Oli saying everything good that he has accomplished or worked hard to make progress on, just gets destroyed.

Although all three music videos are made by bring me the horizon they have a similar emotional story of which i would like to replicate within my own music video.

RCA records (child company of Sony Music Entertainment)

RCA Records is an American flagship recording label (alongside Columbia Records and Epic Record) of Sony Music Entertainment (SME).

RCA Records is the second-oldest recording company in US history. RCA's Canadian unit (formerly Berliner GramophoneCanada) is Sony's oldest label in Canada, as it was only one of two Canadian record companies (Compo Company, now Universal Music Canada, is the other) to survive the Great Depression

The main reason for researching RCA Records is that Bring Me The Horizon is signed to their company therefore I have to write a Copyright permission letter to ensure that there are no legal implications through me using Bring Me The Horizons track, Can You Feel My Heart, here are screen shots to provide evidence that I have in fact asked permission to use the track.

Song meaning and emotional background