Ways of Seeing - John Berger

John Berger analyses the manner in which men and woman are culturally represented. ‘Men act, women appear. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at.’

Women are usually posed in a way to please the viewer, her gaze is meant to entice the viewer. This is the same in modern day adverts. Women unconsciously act in a way knowing they are being watched.

This theory is an in depth look on art, the way people view it and influences that traditional paintings have had on society and modern day publicity.

Berger states that “women were depicted in a different way to men – because the ‘ideal’ spectator is always assumed to be male and the images of the woman is designed to flatter him.”

Jib Fowles states, "In advertising, males gaze and females are gazed at." (Fowles, 1996)

This theory relates to my work in that the female is dressed in a way that could attract the male. She tries to get attention from the male throughout the video. She is never shown looking bad, with no make up on, messy hair, bad clothes etc. She is only shown looking smart.

Binary Opposites - Levi Strauss

Levi Strauss believed that the way in which we understand certain words depends, not just on the direct meaning of the word, but more by our understanding of the difference between the word and it’s ‘opposite’. E.g. our understanding of the word ‘villain’ depends on our understanding of the difference between that word and the opposing word ‘hero’.

Binary Opposites are used frequently in films, especially the horror genre, for example good and evil, sane and insane, human and supernatural.

This relates to my music video in that the female is quite delusional and not in touch with reality but this can only be seen when compared to the male character who is completely in touch with reality and is ‘normal’.

Male Gaze - Laura Mulvey (1975)

The concept of the male gaze is one that deals with how an audience views the people presented.
This theory can be thought of in three ways:

• How men look at women
• How women look at themselves
• How women look at other women

She believes that audiences have to view people from the perspective of a heterosexual male. Women are objects. The female viewer must experience the narrative secondarily, by identification with the male.

This relates to my work in that the male in my video is dominant and has control over the female. The female wears clothes that a male may want to see her in. The female sees the male with another girl and feels threatened because she doesn’t feel as though there is any comparison with her and the girl, the girl is superior. 

Costume Ideas

Make Up Ideas

The song I have used for my music video uses steel drums throughout which reminded me of traditional music of the Caribbean which reminded me of Caribbean carnivals and Brazilian carnivals. Because of this I want to incorporate the styling of these carnivals into my video onto my main character. I do not want to use a full carnival style outfit as I think it would look out of place being filmed in Hull but I wanted to take elements from it such as the make up and elements of the headdresses such as using headbands and hair chains and using facial studs and gems to create a more simplistic version of a Caribbean carnival costume.

Conventions of Form

Final Idea

Lyrics & Timings

Genre conventions

Genre & Target Audience

Change of Plan..

I realised, after creating my storyboard, that I was not happy with the work that I had done. I didn't think the song, Explosions - Ellie Goulding would be conducive to producing good work and I got to a point in the planning process where I just could not think what else I could do or how I would create the video I wanted to make with little resources so therefore I have decided to change the song I am going to use for my music video. The new I will be using is I Got U - Duke Dumont ft. Jax Jones. I decided I am going to create more of a performance based video with some elements of narrative. The styling in the video will be influenced by tribal styles and/or Brazilian carnival styles using jewellery and make-up to primarily demonstrate this. I believe this will make my music video easier to plan and make but will in turn produce a better result.

Shot List

1. Long Shot - door
2. Slow Zoom In - girl entering room
3. Establishing Shot - house party
4. Long Shot, Slight Low Angle - girl sitting on couch
5. Fast Forward Effect - girl sitting on couch
6. 3D Effect - girl sitting on couch, ephasising deluded
7. 3D Effect, Wide Angle Long Shot - girl walking towards balcony
8. 3D Effect, Wide Angle Long Shot - girl on balcony
9. Mid Shot - boy looking towards the balcony
10. 3D Effect, Wide Angle Long Shot - girl sitting on edge of balcony
11. Close Up - girl looking down
12. Two Shot - boy talking to girl
13. Close Up - boy smiling
14. Medium Close Up - boy holding out his hand
15. Medium Close Up - girl smiling
16. Close Up - boy smiling
17. Extreme Close Up - girl holding boys hand
18. Wide Angle Long Shot - boy helping girl down off balcony edge
19. Mid Shot - boy holding girl
20. Long Shot - boy and girl talking on couch
21. Medium Close Up - boy and girl talking
22. Close Up - Boy smiling
23. Close Up - girl smiling
24. Mid Shot - boy looking away from girl
25. Long Shot, Low Angle - boy and girl walking down street
26. Mid Shot - Girl looking keen, boy looking away
27. Long Shot - girl and boy walking down girl's path
28. Mid Shot - Looks as though boy and girl are about to kiss
29. Mid Shot on Boy, Long Shot on Girl - boy walking away
30. Back Mid Shot - girl opening door
31. Medium Close Up - girl with back against the door, looking upset
32. Close Up - message on phone
33. Extreme Close Up - message off boy on phone
34. Close Up - girl smiling
35. Mid Shot - girl smiling, Slow Zoom In Into Girl Screen Goes Black
36. Screen Black, Zoom Out From Boy - boy knocking on girls door
37. Mid Shot, High Angle - boy waiting at door
38. Two Shot - girl answering door
39. Mid Shot Two Shot - girl and boy talking at door
40. Medium Close Up - girl getting coat off hook
41. Long shot - boy grabbing girls hand
42. Low Angle Long Shot - boy and girl walking down street
43. Two Shot - boy and girl holding hands
44. Medium Close Up - boy with hands over girls eyes
45. Close Up - boy with hands over girls eyes
46. Establishing Shot - boy and girl at picnic
47. Mid Shot, Two Shot - boy and girl smiling at each other
48. Long Shot - boy and girl sat talking
49. Close Up - girl smiling
50. Close Up - boy smiling
51. Close Up - boy kissing girl on cheek
52. Extreme Close Up, Two Shot - boy and girl smiling to each other
53. Long Shot - boy holding girls hands, pulling her along
54. Long Shot - boy and girl stood at door at party
55. Medium Close Up - boy waving at someone, ignoring girl
56. Extreme Long Shot, Low Angle - boy talking to another girl, girl stood in background
57. Close up - girl looking sad
58. Medium Close Up - boy with other girl
59. Close Up - other girl kissing boy
60. Extreme Close Up - girl looking shocked and upset
61. Close Up - girl looking shocked and upset
62. Mid Shot - girl looking shocked and upset
63. Long Shot - girl looking shocked and upset
64. Mid Shot - boy pushing other girl away
65. Close Up - boy looking down
66. Mid Shot - boy looking down at phone
67. Close Up - on phone, girl is calling
68. Close Up - boy on phone
69. Close Up - girl on phone
70. Extreme Close Up - boy on phone looking shocked
71. Long Shot - girl sat on edge of balcony
72. Medium Close Up - boy realising whats going on, looking shocked
73. Mid Shot - boy running through door
74. Low Angle Mid Shot - boy running
75. Medium Close Up - boy running
76. Low Angle Long Shot - boy running
77. Establishing Shot - girl on balcony, boy running
78. Long Shot - girl on edge of balcony with arms out
79. Close Up - girl on balcony
80. Medium Close Up - boy barging through the door
81. Medium Close Up - empty balcony
82. Close Up - boy looking upset
83. Long Shot - boy looking over balcony
84. Extreme Close Up - boy with hands over eyes, crying
85. Long Shot - girl sat in the corner of the balcony
86. Close Up - boy looking really happy
87. Mid Shot - boy running up to girl, hugging her
88. Medium Close Up - boy and girl looking into each others eyes

Costume and Prop List

 

 

Questionnaire

 This is the questionnaire I got a random sample of people to fill in:

These are the results I obtained from the questionnaire:

Questionnaire results from lucy_richmond

Health & Safety in the Media Industry

What you should know:

• Health and safety legislation applies to all work activities in the UK, whether conducted by UK nationals or foreigners,even if they are not being paid.
• Legal duties under health and safety law cannot be delegated.

What you must do:

• Define responsibilities and duties
• Have a system for managing health and safety
• Assess and manage risks
• Regularly review the process and procedures for managing risk

Define responsibilities and duties

Employers are required to have a management system in place to control the risk to employees and others from their work. The industry uses large numbers of independent companies and freelancers and it is sometimes difficult to decide who the employer is. However, in the majority of cases, the employer will be the producer or production company.

System for managing health and safety

The size and complexity of management systems for health and safety depend on the size and complexity of the production. For more complex, hazardous or specialist productions – advice may have to be sourced from a competent outside specialist or consultant. An employer’s legal duty to manage health and safety cannot be delegated to a consultant or to anyone else.

Assess and manage risks

Risk assessment is a fundamental part of managing health and safety and helps you to identify hazards and control the risk they create for those involved in your production. The process requires you to:

• take the time to systematically look at your activities
• decide what hazards they present
• assess the risk of people being exposed to these hazards
• find ways to either eliminate or control them

Review

You must review and update both the risk assessments you have made and the controls you put in place as work progresses to make sure they are still working. After the production, it is good practice to review the whole system to see whether useful lessons could be learned for the future.

http://www.hse.gov.uk/entertainment/theatre-tv/film.htm 

Location Ideas

The locations of my music video will be in normal places such as streets, bars, houses etc. This is because my music video, although it has elements of a performance video, is a narrative type video and so I want it to be as close to real life as possible. Some of the video will take part at night and so I need places that will look effective at night as well as during the day. As I live in Hull I will probably film in Hull so may use places like humber bridge or marina and old town, places in Hull that may look effective as a location for a music video. 

Hair & Make-up Ideas

The make-up of the main female character in this video will be quite dark make-up such as thick black eyeliner and dark coloured lipstick such as deep red, purple or black. Her hair will be quite messy, slightly wavy and either a dark brown colour or bright blonde. This is quite conventional of the indie genre, girls do not like to have neat hair or girly make-up. Quite a few girls who are either artists in this genre or fans of the genre have dyed hair, sometimes brightly coloured hair. In my video, the girl is not going to have an unusual colour hair as I want her to look as normal as possible as her life is not really that normal. I don't want too much irregularity in my music video.

Male Costume Ideas

The male main character in my music video will be wearing dark colours, conventional of the indie genre. He will be wearing something simplistic such as skinny jeans and a t-shirt. He may also be wearing a hat, probably a beanie, and wearing trainers such as converse or vans. He is wearing fairly normal clothes as in this video he is fairly normal and has a fairly normal role. He is the one who keeps the female main character sane so in this video he has to look and act quite regular, hence the simplistic costume.

Female Costume Ideas

The main character in my music video will be wearing a light coloured, preferably white, dress. This is to represent her innocence and purity. A white costume will also be used in contrast to her emotions. In this video, she is depressed, she is delusional, she is not in touch with reality. This type of emotion would usually be represented by dark colours, blacks and greys, however the character in the video is trying to hide her emotions by wearing light colours. She doesn't want anyone to know how she is feeling so she is hiding behind her clothes. Like the 3D, red blue effect, the white dress will also be used to show when her dark emotions are coming back, when she starts to become delusional and suicidal.

Editing Ideas

The 3D, blue, red effect is something I would like to incorporate into my music video. It is going to be used to represent the main character becoming delusional, disorientated and not being in touch with reality. It will emphasise to the audience which parts of the music video the main character is becoming crazy. The main character is suicidal and so using this effect will show the audience when she is contemplating suicide. When this effect is not used in the video, that is when she is relatively okay, she is not contemplating suicide, she is not delusional.

These three videos are examples of videos that use this kind of effect. In the Lana Del Ray Video, the effect is used to create a drug addled effect, to make the audience feel the way she is feeling.

The effect is used in the Bruno Mars video to show he's upset and to show that he is not really with it. He misses his girl and he can't get back to normality, he can't get back in touch with reality until she comes back. The Foals video shows the band and the audience at their show in a state of ecstasy, represented by the 3D effect. They are all really excited and having a lot of fun and the effect emphasises this.