Analyse Representation in one of your Coursework Productions.
I will be analysing my music video that we filmed and edited for our main task which formed part of my Advanced Portfolio in Media – a promotional package for release of an album, to include a music promo video. In class, we studied representation in existing Music Videos such as Miley Cyrus’ Wrecking Ball, Pharrell Williams’ Happy, Katy Perry’s I Kissed a Girl and Lady Gaga and Beyonce’s Telephone – I extended this study to look at videos across a range of genres including Michael Jackson’s Thriller, Blur’s Parklife and Johnny Cash’s Hurt to get an idea of representation across a range of genres. This enabled us to fully understand how representation can be applied to our own productions.
My music video was a high energy hybrid of both Electro Pop and Dance using the music of a local, unsigned band called Money Honey, making clear intertextual references to the music of Gaga and Beyonce’s Telephone but also Toni Basil’s Mickey from 1982. The song was called Take Me There and our intentions from the start were to represent femininity as empowered, referencing Angela McRobbie’s concept of the post feminist icon. Looking at existing media was important in helping us understand the representation we were looking to achieve, linking with a sense of narrative – in Gaga and Beyonce’s Telephone for example the narrative shows a sexualised, but in control Lady Gaga leaving prison, picked up by a sultry but again in complete control Beyonce. The video then takes on the genre conventions of a road movie while also referencing the Tarantino film, Kill Bill and also the Ridley Scott production Thelma and Louise. Take me There has limited production values but we did manage to film the three characters (one male and two female) in three separate locations and believe we achieved the representation we were looking for.
The narrative of the song was important...
