Eugene, Elise and I held a production meeting planning on what we are going to create in our music video. We came up with a variety of different artists of which we would like our actor to mime to. Many songs, in terms of lyrics, told a story to do with some sort of relationship with a women.
We decided to juxtapose this idea and go for a contemporary new upcoming artist THE WEEKND. In terms of his lyrical content, females and hard relationships are present, but he also sings about a lot of taboo subjects such as drug abuse, alcohol abuse and sometimes suicidal thoughts. He expresses his emotions through lyrics representing predominantly when he is "high" off of a drug. His lyrics and videos are very "dark" in terms of semantics and connotations of the word.
"XO" is the logo of R&B singer 'The Weeknd" which stands for the drug ecstasy and also oxycodone, both very powerful drugs in terms of effect. "XO" can represent many things such as contemporary technological lexis "1337" or Leet language, "xo" often means hugs and kisses in text messages. This may represent him to be a kind and caring person unlike the other ways other artists represent themselves as sex icons.
He is signed by a contemporary Hip Hop and R&B icon Drake.
The Weeknd Twitter- https://twitter.com/#!/theweekndxo
As we came to a conclusion to settle on a Weeknd song, we decided to follow him in terms of mise en scene, heres a quick run through of what to expect in our video.
costumer/character- "rough look" (unshaven/tired), contemporary clothing (denim, snapback),
locations- streets, interior houses (bathroom, bedroom, kitchen), major city (London), interior/exterior of a car etc...
props- some sort of weapon, representation of drugs and alcohol, female company, car, mobile phone etc.
THE WEEKND HIGH FOR THIS LYRICS- http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/weeknd/highforthis.html
In terms of what we are trying to achieve links to Carole Vernallis theory on music videos. Vernallis says "Music video presents a range all the way from extremely abstract videos emphasizing colour and movement to those that convey a story."
We have decided that we are going to correlate the video in terms of the lyrics to convey a story. We have not yet chosen a song to do yet but this will be decided through another discussion.
In terms of target audience we are going to aid the gratifications of entertainment through the mellow beat and the lyrics, it can give them the effect that the listener is "zoning out" to the tune relating to drug effects. Relating to Dyers theory gives the audience a sense of escapism and could encourage audiences who are suffering from exhaustion from every day-to-day life to feel energised and exhillarated, giving them another reason to watch. Lastly, we wish to enable social interaction via posting it on facebook, twitter and youtube of which targets our specific audience of which is teenagers who predominately use social media websites.
To follow the conventions of the artist and his dark lyrical content, we are going to do the video in black and white, we also researched videos of which we can follow the typical conventions and make our video looks as professional as possible.
We found one example, although its a hip hop song, we ignored the song and looked at the video and its what we are aiming to achieve but obviously with our own touch and twist on the video. We will just be guided by the video in terms of what to expect of shots, colour, lighting, costume and storyline.
Here is a video of a brainstorm that Eugene and I created, this was to get down the main points such as song choice, location, camera angles, mise en scene etc. This allowed me and Eugene to get down the main points of which we could then decide upon to add into our music video and ancillary products.
