Amelia Cranstoun Media A2

Evaluation : Q. 1

The title for my ancillary project is ‘Young & Beautiful’. This is taking from the title of the song featured within my music video. Therefore this is Current and relating to the coursework topic. It was inspired by Lana Del Ray, a modern and influential artist among those who re-uncaptured the vintage glory of the golden age of Hollywood. Her glamorised interpretations through technology and costume brought the 50’s/60’s into fashion with the current generation. Therefore the use of her title engages a connection for the audience and pays homage to the star and her artistic success. The concept of the Video and ancillary projects adapt from the theme of youth, fun and freedom. The idea is to inspire or create a remembrance of younger years. Filmed with both professional camera features and also handheld documentary style clips from our phones it shows conventional visuals from both the alternative genre and the pop genre. This is to create a sense of realism that audiences can relate to and the live clip editing with be more captivating for an audience to delve into rather than a made up story.

<- Our use of Handheld cinematography.

Using the Nikon SLR Camera ->

For the location I chose to use the outdoors as it incorporated the videos sense of freedom and identity. The spacious areas of woodland and skies worked well as breaks within narrative footage and performance. After annotating the lyrics of the song we wanted to portray a narrative to tell a story therefore we used footage of holidays and the summer to help the audience visualize the lyrics; ‘Hot summer nights, mid-July. When you and I were forever wild’ and ‘Oh that face makes me wanna party. He's my sun; he makes me shine like diamonds’. This is encoded to transport the audience to a relaxed, carefree and envious atmosphere. It could be decoded as Wild and Party like to excite the audience and make them crave a holiday. This is also is iconic of an alternative genre as typically the genre features wide open spaces to indicate freedom and therefore the rustic appearances will also contribute the vintage atmosphere: also iconic of the genre. Secondly the post production is also iconic of the genre, taking inspiration from the artist of the song, we have studied her videos and discovered she uses montage editing often, as well as highly saturated and sepia images. Due to her music being alternative, this means we not only are producing work iconic of the genre but also of the artist.

The font and Style used within my ancillary pieces were bold and italic. The stylized fonts were inspired by Digi paks and Posters seen on Lana Del Rays own work. Therefore the audience could decode the project from first glance ad glamourous and classical. As an alternative pop artist, using Lana del ray as inspiration sets a guideline in the right direction for our target audience and recurring theme. For style there is high key lighting to re-enforce the happy atmosphere. To create the vintage film in post-production I used sepia and black and white filters. To make the camera look like a 35m camera effect I increased saturation. This can challenge the stereotypes of a pop genre as the harsh bold fonts act as binary opposites of the cool, saturated and distorted images used do not represent the typical pop genre. Also as my images for the Digi Cover and Advertisement do not use conventional images of the pop genre such as profile self-portrait images of protagonist characters, it once again challenges the themes of the genre.

The use of shallow depth of field is used through fades, this creates a transition between scenes that eases the videos movement and creates a flowing carefree atmosphere to the video. Continuous and montage editing is conventional within the genre of video I produced. The alternative pop theme of the video is presented through these editing aspects and the use of after effects. The burnt out edges and gravelled effect used on Adobe Premiere pay homage to the sophisticated vintage glamour that the video aims for. This decodes a message of reminiscence and memories for the audience as the editing and special effects combined are stereotypically used as technologies of thought tracking.

Burnt Edges – Created on Adobe Premiere<-

Use of Shallow depth of field as characters heads are in focus. ->

There will be 3 characters including an elderly woman, a young girl and a young boy. The elderly woman is used to reflect the idea of reminiscence and aging. The young boy and girl are a symbol of the elderly woman’s happier memories from younger ages where she will have met her husband. The male character will have themes of male objectification as the protagonist characters love interest.

The Genre of the video displays conventional themes of an alternative pop genre. This is displayed through themes of romance and cinematography and editing. Looking into Neal’s ‘Mental machinery’ our video has mostly conventional elements taking into consideration we use male objectification through the females romantic feelings towards the male enigma and we use pretty outdoor scenery which will attract our target audience including colloquial activities for our generation such as festivals and beaches. Our video can be seen as conventional and conforming to a pop indie/alternative genre as we do use performance elements which are stereotypical for pop culture videos.