Our Music Video
Many people would class the artist we have chosen Avril Lavigne as Alternative Rock a.k.a. Rock-Pop/Pop-Punk. Lavigne is known for her rebellious personality and care-free attitude, behaviour often seen within this genre. When exploring the rock-pop/pop-punk world it would seem that products generated from this genre usually reflect this edgy style. Artists are usually seen to be in possession of instruments such as electric guitars and drums and their appearance usually makes a statement e.g. big hair, bold make-up, shocking clothing. Rock-pop/pop-punk has been described as an "upbeat variety of Rock", this is usually seen in the performance element of many music videos from this genre. I believe performance teamed with this rebellion is used in order to help the artist express emotions and themselves as the performance element of many rock-pop/pop-punk videos usually holds a sense of aggression or upset.
While creating our music video and other products such as our digipak and magazine advertisement we have kept in mind the conventions of this genre. Research has been essential in ensuring we understand the conventions of our genre and that we make a product suitable for the rock-pop/pop-punk genre.
Therefore, coming back to the performance element of our music video and the fact it is often seen within this genre, I believe this video from "Evanescence", "What You Want" amplifies the performance element as the video is mainly performance based and is one of the first things we see creating establishment. This can also be seen in the video by "Halestorm", "Love/Hate Heartbreak", whose lead singer is also Female. Unfortunately Halestorm's video has been disabled for sharing. Therefore, this link will take you to it, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7n0iizglK0&ob=av2e
We also see many shots of the lead singer who is female which relates back to our video as we have chosen to use a female artist. The camera then does move on to other scenes and we occasionally see what appears to be a "gig" where the rest of the band feature playing their conventional instruments of guitars and drums. However, the focus always seems to go back on to the lead singer Amy Lee. It could be said that we challenged the performance element of rock-pop/pop punk music videos as our video does not feature a backing band like many videos from this genre do. However, we did use an electric guitar and piano which our actor Kate played herself as we noted that Avril Lavigne used a electric guitar and piano in the original music video, we also took inspiration from technical choices, hence the arch shot towards the end of our video as Avril uses a similar shot in her video. Artists playing their own instruments is sometimes seen in rock pop videos as a sense that the artist is multi-talented. Avril`s video can be seen below to demonstrate what I mean, and I believe we used this convention in our own production, images from our own production are seen below also.
Therefore, this could be interpreted as Laura Mulvey's "Male Gaze" theory, the theory that women are viewed from the perspective of a heterosexual male. In many music videos women appear to presented in a sexual, attractive way, this is mostly interpreted as beneficial for males. The video by Evanescence could be interpreted as taking the male gaze in to consideration as Amy Lee appears very immersed in the camera like she is trying to please. However, others may view this as confidence typically known within the rock-pop/pop-punk genre, many female artists within this genre represent the rebellious attitude stereotypically known. Therefore, this presentation of Amy Lee could just be her conforming to the genre she is part of.
In terms of our work we have developed but also challenged the conventions associated with women in this genre. Kate who plays our Avril Lavigne figure plays to the camera in some of our video especially towards the end where it becomes more upbeat and a sense of aggression is created through the lyrics but she does not perform in a sexual manner, she performs in a way suitable for the song, reflective and upset at the beginning when the song is slow and as the song progresses her performance fits the beat and mood as mentioned earlier. The song becomes more aggressive towards the end, a perfect example to demonstrate this is seen below where Kate shouts in to the camera to amplify the aggressive lyrics being sung, the low angle we used gives Kate a sense of dominance and reminds the viewer of the rebellious feel usually felt within the rock-pop/pop-punk genre.
We also used a high angle shot from the top of an outside stair case, filming Kate stood on the ground below. This was to give a more visually interesting shot to our piece and give Kate a sense of vulnerability portraying the idea that the person she is singing about is of higher status due to the high angle used. However, Kate's actions do not present a feeling of vulnerability as she spins around in a circle with a sense of freedom and almost aggression. Therefore, by using this shot we have challenged the shots conventionally seen in the rock-pop/pop-punk genre.
Like many Females associated with the rock-pop/pop-punk genre Amy Lee from Evanescence is presented as very Gothic - black hair, plenty of eye-liner and dark clothing. I believe we developed but slightly challenged this appearance commonly associated with this genre because as you can see from the images below Kate, our Avril figure wore more casual clothing such as Jeans and brighter colours. However, we still tried to make sure there were punk elements within her outfits such as conventional stripes, skulls and studs etc.. Although, some may say by dressing Kate in a less sexual manner and more casual we are still working within the rock-pop/pop punk genre as some, if not many females within this genre dress more casually as it is more about the music and not the appearance within the rock-pop/pop punk genre. A good example of this more casual look is Gwen Stefani in No Doubt's "Don't Speak" video.Overall, I would say we have developed this convention.
Mulvey`s "Male Gaze" because the camera shots and movement creates focus on the artist`s body such as her breasts. We have challenged this in our video as we have not exposed our artist`s body we have kept her mostly covered up and we do not have vigorous camera movement in our video, it is mostly of a still nature. Another good example of vigorous camera movement is Paramore`s "Ignorance". The movement emphasises the beat and pace of the song and as our song changes in pace quite a lot we thought it best to edit our video to match the changing tempo of our song, the speed of editing at different points throughout our production changes to maintain the viewer`s focus and keep them interested. Focus is essential in our video as it tells a story of love and heartbreak. Many songs within the rock-pop/pop punk genre express emotion, usually related to love or some form of heartbreak - the visuals usually relate to the lyrics, we have tried to conform to this in our music video as does Pink in "Just Like A Pill" - e.g. "Lying here on the floor where you left me".
Paramore`s "The Only Exception" presents a sense of expressing emotion conventionally seen within the rock-pop/pop punk genre. Featuring yet another lead female artist. The viewer from the very beginning of the video establishes a sense of a relationship due the location and the shot. The first shot is of a couple laid in a domestic setting on a sofa, which is also seen at the end of the video. We have conformed to this as our video shows a photo of a couple next to some roses to imply a sense of love which is also seen at the end of our video but torn suggesting like the photo, the couple`s relationship is broken. We also used a variety of locations in our video - some domestic with a sofa and wallpapered background giving the video a home setting.
Locations are key when creating a visual piece. We tried to use a variety of locations, some which may be challenging the usual conventions as most rock-pop/pop punk videos feature inside while most of our locations are outside. Our video could be compared to many locations seen in videos from our genre as they try to suggest a sense of emotion and create a bleak mood, we have tried to conform to this by using low key lighting, particularly seen in the puppet scene to emphasise a sense of lack of control and dominance by the 'dark/bad' male controlling the female.
Paramore`s "Ignorance" is a good video to compare. The female lead Hayley Williams dominates the band, this is emphasised through the one light bulb used which constantly puts the attention on her and lacks on her band mates. Due to this the location is dark which meets conventional forms for the rock-pop/pop punk genre. This video seems to fit generic conventions also as it is very rebellious in its presentation, fast cuts and eye-catching shots to catch the viewers attention. Although our video is slower in pace we have tried to create a sense of rebellion in our video through facial expressions, dominating shots used and lighting but we have tried to develop this and not have our artist completely rebellious as seen in Pink`s "Just Like A Pill" because we felt although rebellion is a key factor within the rock-pop/pop punk genre too much rebellion within our video would result in a lack of focus on the narrative of a love/heartbreak story within our video and might not fit the pace of the song.
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