How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
Hello I’m Taylor, and this is my music video that I created to the song Natural Blues by electronic musician Moby. The song was released as the fifth single from his 1991 album ‘Play’. The song was first released in the UK where it reached number eleven in the charts.
Moby is quite a unique artist, with very interesting lyrics in his tracks as well as unique videos. I wanted to combine influences from other videos of his like the original ‘Natural Blues’ video which told a story of elderly people in a care home and their feelings. I wanted to take this idea of having quite literal lyrics with a strong story and incorporate this into my video. Therefore I used the story a young boy in care, and linked the lyrics ‘no-body knows my troubles but God’ with how a child in the care system can feel- isolated and lonely. The music video ‘Love Lost’ by ‘The temper Trap’ were another inspiration to my video, as they have children running and miming the lyrics looking directly at the camera, I liked the feeling that this created which I felt was very personal and as they were children was unique and in turn made the video stand out much more, as well as catch an audience’s attention. Because of this I wanted to have my actor singing directly into the camera. Furthermore as I wanted my video to contain a strong message I felt that this direct and intense approach would be suitable.
With this in mind I wanted to have parts of my video that would consist of my actor talking about his life, in between the music, I wanted to do this as I felt that it would help the audience to understand what was happening as I thought I may find it hard to present every aspect of the story along with the emotions and feelings with my limited budget and acting skills. I also felt that having the clips of my actor talking added a reality aspect to my video, and made it clear that it was a true story which I felt made it more powerful and effective. I then decided to add subtitles to the clips where my actor was talking as I felt that it made it clearer to the audience what he was actually saying as I found that it wasn’t very easy to understand with him speaking it, as at times he mumbled his speech. I was aware that I was at the risk of an audience thinking that my video looked more like a documentary, however I didn’t think that was the case and simply felt that I was playing with the conventions of a traditional music video, and trying something new. I felt that it allowed me to communicate the context of the setting to the audience, and allow them to experience the environment as the little boy has experienced it.
From experimenting with lots of different effects on Adobe Premier Pro, I managed to add different lighting effects to my film, I used brightness and contrast controls to intensify different parts of my film, and make the video look more interesting and eye catching. I also used slow motion in some parts of my video, as because I was working with a slow song, I felt that this effect also intensified important parts of the video, and helped me to keep to the pace of the song.
Furthermore I wanted my video to have stereotypical ideas of a happy family running through, for example holding hands with a parent walking through a door. Shots at the park form a stereotypical ‘happy’ place for a child to be. I did this because I wanted my audience to be able to relate to my video, and to be able to link the ‘happy’ part of my video with these stereotypes, therefore making the story more clearly to them.
When I created my Digipak, I wanted to continue the theme that I had created in my video. I wanted to do this by using the same effects I had used in my video, so that my audience would be able to identify the two as being together. I included black and white pictures, so that they linked in with my video. I also used building block text in different primary colours to build my title for the front of the digipak. The child was represented by the building block text, and primary colours, which traditionally people relate to children. However the direct mode of address image I used for the front consisted of my actor having a very serious yet expressionless face. This contrast of the text and image I felt summed up my video completely. I also felt that it was very unique and different, and the contrast would attract an audience and intrigue them to want to know what the video was about.
I then used an image of my actors back for the back of my Digipak. I wanted to use an image like this as I felt that it was very simple, however that it still had uniqueness and the fact that it was literal, (with the back of the Digipak being an image of the back of my actor) added originality and personality to my Digipak.
My advert also keeps in theme with my film. I used the effect ‘threshold’ on the images for my advert; I had used the same effect in my video for the miming part of my video. I felt that using the same effect linked the all three of my product together, as I didn’t want it to be the same as my Digipak, but still be similar enough that my audience would recognise the two. I therefore continued the use of the building block text. Not only this but I also used some of the same images.
I have received feedback from the screening to parents and friends who filled out questionnaires on the video which consisted of some positive comments, which I was very happy with, and also some comments of different opinions which were not so positive. Many of the positive comments consisted of saying how strong and clear the message in my video was.
In conclusion I feel very proud of all three of my products, and feel that I have successfully accomplished my aim to link all three together in subtle yet strong ways. And creating a video that puts across a strong message, and one that has been a huge part of my life.
