Lauren Cooney

Written Summary of Ideas Generation

The product that I wish to produce for my coursework is a music video for the song ‘Mad World’ by

Gary Jules. As well as this I will design and create a CD digipak for the album which my song will be a

part of and an advertisement for a music magazine promoting ‘Mad World’ as a single. The target

audience for the video will be 16+ years due to the content of the video as it features scenes of

depression and attempted suicide. The genre of the video, soft rock/ folk, also makes this older

target audience more appropriate as they will be more interested in this style if music.

The male character will be the performer in the video, creating a stereotypical representation of the

genre of rock music. His hair will be long and messy and a flat cap will also be worn which is

stereotypical of the soft rock/folk genre as it is subtle and alternative, similar to this genre of music

as well as the style of his hair creating a stereotypical representation of a rock musician. He will not

play an instrument, however, like most rock or folk musicians as we would like the video and the

performance to be more alternative and to differ to what has already been made. The female

character will be the main character during the narrative scenes of the video. She will be presented

as lonely or depressed through the actions of attempting to drown herself and overdosing on drugs.

She will also be seen crying, adding to the representation of depression. This portrayal of depression

is fortified by the plain clothes that the female character will wear; this costume will depict the

emptiness and loneliness that she is feeling. Additionally, two children and a mother will feature in

some scenes to suggest a flashback to the female character’s childhood. They will be seen sitting

around a Birthday cake to convey that they are happy and to reveal the juxtaposition between her

once happy life and her current depression. The characters of the children will create a narrative

enigma as their relationship will not be completely revealed but the audience will know that they

have a connection in some way.

The narrative of the video will cut between performance and a fragmented narrative, revealing

different incidents in the female character’s life. The narrative will follow the events in which happen

in the female character’s life, but will be slightly disorientating due to the cuts to the male character

performing in the forest and flashbacks to her childhood. The end of the video will reveal a

connection between the male performer and the female character as she enters his setting of the

forest, hints at this connection will be made throughout the video as he is seen in the background of

the scenes depicting the female character’s life. Additionally, this will create a narrative enigma as

the audience will not know what sort of relationship they have, whether it is a friendship,

relationship or a connection between siblings.

The male character’s flat cap and long, messy hair depict the folk/ soft rock genre as this style of hat

and hairstyle are alternative to what you would expect to see in a video of a different genre and they

are also stereotypically related to the soft rock and folk genres. Another way in which iconography

will be used in our video is through the pills in which the female character will appear to be taking .

This symbol will connote that she is attempting to commit suicide. This also links to the theme of

depression and loneliness which runs throughout the video. Towards the end of the video, the

female character is seen by the audience laying a flower beneath a tree in the forest where the

performance scenes take place. This icon of both love and death suggests that it is a place where

someone close to her died. Flashback scenes will feature in the video to reveal that the female

character was once happy when she was a child. A young image of the male performer will also be

depicted in this scene, again, revealing that they have some sort of connection. During these scenes

a Birthday cake will be displayed with a family gathered around it. This is iconic of happiness and

childhood.

The main setting of the video is the female character’s home which represents family and a place

that should be seen as safe and happy. The representation of this setting is contradicted, however,

by the attempts of suicide made by the female character. The second location used within the video

is a forest which creates dark connotations of being followed as it is stereotypically a setting where

horror films take place. Although this is what is stereotypically thought about this setting, our video

will portray it as a calm, tranquil setting. The lighting used throughout the video will differ from high-

key during happy scenes and in the forest, where there is natural light, to low-key lit scenes where

the female character is depressed. This use of different lighting will create different moods over each

scene.

Tilts and tracking shots are utilised to create a sense of voyeurism and to make you believe that you

are following someone’s journey but watching it through a window. The tracking shot also helps to

submerge us into the diegesis of the music video as we are taken in through the window of the

female character’s house. This also suggests that we will be watching something that we shouldn’t

be. The tilt shot moving from the male performer to the sky, alongside the slow edits which will be

used, will create a dream-like mood as if you are about to be taken into another world which

correlates with the slow, dream-like pace of the music. The lighting of the video will differ between

low and high-key depending on the mood of the scene. Additionally, the video will be edited so that

it is in greyscale. This will represent the darkness of the narrative as well as giving the video a more

alternative, artistic feel.

The music video will conform to the stereotypical conventions of a soft rock/ folk music video as the

edits will be slow paced to fit with the gentle rhythm of the music and the use of black and white

editing will create a dark atmosphere, which is stereotypical of rock music. Another way in which the

video follows the conventions of soft rock music is by only having one performer; videos of this

genre often only contain a single performer therefore, the video will conform to the stereotypical

conventions of this style of music. However, one way in which the music video deviates from the

conventions is that it has a fragmented narrative and contains a narrative enigma, normally, music

videos of this genre consist of one long, linear take and narrative to create a straight forward

message. Our video will hopefully portray the message of loneliness but through a more alternative

style of narrative.