Planning: Final idea

After looking at our initial ideas, questionnaire results and the possible disadvantages we have decided to come up with a whole new final plan for our campaign. The song we choose is ‘Syrup and Honey’ by Duffy. The genre of the song is indie pop/blues and my peer and I decided to stick with indie due to its unconventionality and original music, which can be fun to experiment with when shooting our music video and creating our digipak and magazine advert. Despite the niche genre, the song has pretty mainstream lyrics and passes on themes of love, break-up and relationships which are themes that the mass audience will be able to familiarize with, which brings us larger audiences. Indie genre associates with unknown locations but can also utilize popular city attractions to appeal to mass audiences. The artist is usually dressed in casual clothing and isn’t glamourized as indie genre aims to attract audiences through music rather than image. Therefore, in our music video we can experiment with narratives and concepts rather than the promotion of the artist. The target audience we aim to attract are 15-35 year olds of mixed gender and any occupation. This is a wide and open audience to target which will guarantee success of our campaign.  

Duffy is a Welsh singer and a songwriter. She began her career in small bars and overtime began working with Rough Trade Records, which led her to sign a contract with A&M in 2007. She is associated with pop-soul, blues, neo soul and pop rock which are experimental and indie genres that can attract audiences through its unconventionality but also attract sub-cultures. ‘Syrup and Honey’ was part of her debut album called ‘Rockferry’ released in 2008. The album was critically acclaimed by music critics and the song ‘Mercy’ won several awards. Despite the album’s success, ‘Syrup and Honey’ was one of the less popular songs which gives my peer and I more room to experiment as the audience has less expectations.

Video Content and Structure:

We have decided that we will try to implement narrative, performance and concept in our video. This is because it will give our product a variation of structures and more ideas can be utilized for the overall campaign. We want our narrative to be symbolic and show a troubled and self-destructive girl who is longing for affection and someone she can rely on despite in the beginning looking wealthy and supposedly happy. She will walk around London as if looking for love which will further emphasize her loneliness and isolation. Throughout she will drink and smoke to show her self-destructive behavior and careless attitude towards life which will draw the audience with pity and sympathy. The video will end with the singer sitting next to a gravestone and slowly disappearing which gives the audience an impression of death or suicide. Throughout the video there will be performance, shown through the lip sync, as she walks around the city alone. The concept behind the video will be youth and self-destructive behavior which is very common among young people. It is also additions and substance abuse which potentially leads to death. This concept can also raise awareness about the issue of troubled adults. The audience can also understand that money isn’t always key to happiness.  

Star image and Mise en Scene:

We decided that the artist should be portrayed as a young female around 20-25 years old. This will help us target our audience of females and perhaps men aged between 18-30 with different ethnic backgrounds, working to middle class so they can relate to her due to the age similarity. The main artist will not follow hegemony and follow the ‘conventional beauty standards’, instead she will be someone addicted to drugs and have self-disruptive intentions, becoming relatable to people who suffered from various issues that led them to similar state. She will also promote her ideologies through the lyrics and the narrative of the video, for example the idea of love which she seems to value a lot and considers it key to her happiness. Lastly, by having a female character, the audience will feel pity and sympathy for her because stereotypically women are seen emotionally weak and vulnerable.

The mise en scene we will include in our music video:

Costume, Hair & Make-up: The artist will mainly wear dark clothing to convey her depressing thoughts and addiction of drugs. She will wear a winter coat, to show that she is longing for ‘warmth’ from others but also protection from the situation she is in. The main artist will also wear a red lipstick and a light eye makeup to represent her as a femme fatal and someone you usually think is happy and ‘well off’ but when the makeup becomes smudged, it will represent her dark addiction of drugs and her vulnerability. Stereotypically having blond hair shows innocence and vulnerability, therefore we decided that the mains artist should be blonde to draw an audience response. 

Lighting & Colours: Low key lighting will be used to represent the miserable and depressing feeling of the main artist, whereas the black & white filter will be used to represent the genre of the music and link to the classical era as well as the serious situation the character is in. It will help to create a mature atmosphere and show the seriousness of the problem and attract older audiences. 

Setting: There will be various locations used, which include:

• Streets with lamps – the main artist standing under a lamp while singing, thus giving the hint of prostitution.

• Walking in central London by the bridge – which is a typically a crowed place but the main character will feel lonely and alone which is ironic and can draw pity form the audience.

• Graveyard – where the main character will disappear which implies death and the consequences of addiction and loneliness.

Iconography: There will be various uses of iconography:

• Bottle of alcohol: Her main addiction and to show that she is dependent on substances to feel good about herself.

• Cigarettes: Similarly, to the alcohol, cigarettes are another addiction to help her feel less lonely.

• Necklace: The gift from someone significant to her. However, by throwing it away into the river she shows that she has no one she can rely on and gives away her last hope. 

Facial Expression & Body Language: The artist will mainly have sad and miserable facial expression to portray her unhappy and sorrowful persona. Her body language will also be vulnerable and heartbroken to picture her melancholy and feelings of depression.

Theory

• Aristotle: The theme of love and loneliness will draw pity and sympathy from the audience who will feel sorry towards the young artist. They could also feel attached to the artist or connect to her experience based on their own past experiences or memories.

• Todorov: The narrative will be structured as a start (equilibrium) where the female is introduced, middle (disequilibrium) when the audience are displayed to her addictions and self-disruptive behaviors, and end (new equilibrium) when the artist fades out to symbolize death.

• Hegemony: The artist will pass on common values of love which is a dominant ideology as mainstream audiences look for love. In addition, contemporary popular stars often discuss breakups and relationships in their songs. However, what develops this idea in our music video is that she longs for any love not just from the opposite sex or romantic relationship but friendships or simple companionships.

• Goodwin: We will be using genre characteristics through the use of black and white filter which is common for soul, blues and jazz genres due to their sophisticated nature and mature target audience. The lyrics and the visuals will match as the singer will discuss love and wanting to have someone by her side while she looks for it around the city. The music and the visuals will match too as the song has a slow pace and we intend on making the music video slow too in order to let the audience absorb the narrative and concept behind the visuals. We intend on having an intertextual reference to Titanic. In one of our shots the female artist will throw a necklace into the river which references the last scene of Titanic. We decided to have that scene to show her longing for love just like Jack and Rose in the film and idealize their affection. The video will be concept, performance and narrative based.

Discuss your final choices in relation to your audience feedback:

We finalised our decision after receiving feedback from the audience about our final ideas related to the Blues/Jazz/Indie genre. We changed and developed our initial ideas further as we found out that the audience wanted a conventional narrative, so we ensured that our narrative appealed our target audience. in that process we came up with a whole new idea and song. A majority of the audience also said they wanted to see intertextual references evident, so we have decided to include that within our music video. The audience feedback we received was essential when creating our final idea as we got to gain direct feedback and responses. The research we have previously done was also beneficial so researching the conventions of the alternative Indie & Jazz genre and seeing what appeals to our target audience was crucial when coming up with initial and final ideas. Overall, the audience feedback allowed us to finalise our decisions and ensure that we know what our target audience wants to see and what appeals to them.

Why and how is this music video conventional to mainstream music video making?

Our music video is likely to be conventional to mainstream music videos as we will follow the common conventions that most videos have which include: a main artist, performance, lip syncing, a narrative, close ups and editing to match the beat. These classic conventions will make the quality of my music video appealing to my target audience and we will be able to meet their expectations. If the music video does not follow conventions it is likely to that it will not appeal to the mainstream audience, therefore it will be targeted at a niche audience, putting the videos success at risk or local appeal which could make a money loss but not always as niche audiences are often loyal. For example, if the lip syncing does not match the image of the main artist singing, the audience will not find it professional, meaning that the viewers will decrease and not recommend the music video. Therefore, we will make sure that our music video is conventional which is an important aspect, in ensuring that the video appeals and can be enjoyed by a mass audience.

How it the music video conventional to genre:

The music video will be conventional to the indie blues/ jazz/ soul genre for various reasons. First off the black and white filter is very common amongst these genres and helps to reflect its mature content and older target audience but also sophisticated concepts. In addition, the video will link to the Golden and Classical Era of film where jazz music was widely popular. This link can broaden my audiences. The video will not glorify the lead singer but focus on the message behind the video and the music itself which is common for indie genres. There will be little to no close ups of the artist in order to place emphasis on the meanings. Furthermore, there will be no women objectification or ‘male gaze’ as the artist will wear full clothing and the camera will not linger on her assets. This is also common within indie genres as the majority of the music videos tend to promote gender equality and not male domination but focus on the music.

Existing Product Influences:

When discussing our final idea, we have drawn upon existing music videos that could be similar to our product. We also looked at the common representations and images of the artist in various products which we could base our ideas on.

• Hozier ‘Take me to Church’ and Adele ‘Someone Like You’- both videos have the black and white filter and both are not exactly mainstream. ‘Take me to Church’ touched upon the serious issue of homophobia and hate crime whereas Adele’s music video was a simple performance and she uses similar location to the ones we intend to use (for example the bridge).

• Amy Winehouse ‘Back to Black’ – the black and white filter was also evident and the theme of death is similar in our music video where we gently hint that the main character is in fact dead.

• Ed Sheeran ‘A Team’ – The aspects of drug abuse and loneliness will be evident in our music video from the female who is self-destructive. In the ‘A Team’ music video the female is homeless, whereas in our video the artist looks to be financially stable and quite sophisticated, yet she shows that money cannot give happiness and she is still unhappy with her life which leads to addictions.

• Lana Del Rey and Paloma Faith: These two female artist have influenced us through their image and their unusual appearance. We decided that our female character will have a sophisticated look and be very serious at the beginning of the video to mislead the audience into thinking that she is happy and ‘well-off’. However, throughout the video her makeup will become smudged to show that she is not as happy as she seemed to be and has issues of her own.

How does your music video represent your artist?

Our music video will represent our artist as original like the actual artist of the song, who has her own style of performing. Our artist will go against hegemony by looking and behaving differently to other mainstream artists such as Rihanna, Beyonce and Katy Perry who all support hegemony and are perceived as role models, who young females look up to and aspire to be like. Such popular artist promote nudity, sex and wealth yet our character actively rejects that. She also consumes drugs and alcohol which is not a good example for audiences to follow. We want our artist to be presented as an everyday person who promotes their ideologies through their performance and body language and have issues of their own. This is important, as the artist should have an identity rather than being perceived as similar to other artists. According to Dyer this will show that our artist is ‘extraordinary’ but at the same time ‘ordinary’.  However, we do not want our artist to be perceived as a controversial figure for promoting her views, therefore, we will ensure she promotes them in a sensible and mild manner. Overall, our music video will promote the artist as someone who is isolated and lonely which will be evident as she is depressed and drinks alcohol publicly. Her portrayal will be beneficial as she will become popular among her target audience and will gain more fame after the video, if it succeeds.