Music video: Media language.

How is media language used in my music video text in order to create representation?

A media text = a sum of its many parts.

My music video contains a lot of micro elements within it such as mise-en-scene, camerawork, etc…

Notes of my music video:

My music video utilizes mise-en-scene to create a representation regarding the characters within the narrative. For instance, the costumes of the characters in the video help to represent their personalities, and this in turn creates a series of different readings that the audience can perceive from the messages conveyed in the metanarratives of this video.

My music video uses camerawork and its 4 significant aspects also, another example of my media text using various micro elements to apply representation. For example, the single, front angle shot throughout the entire video easily establishes a source of continuity, disregarding the incorrect time manipulation added into the narrative. The shot shows a chain of events which take place in that same location filmed in the camera shot. This chain of events establishes an evolution of the narrative involved of a relationship between the 2 characters. The shot helps to represent the plot and thereby enables messages to be generated towards the audience.

The lighting is an effect that affects the entire video visually. When in the editing stage, I added a lighting effect to the footage to make the video gradually become darker as the narrative also becomes more negative. This use of lighting portrays the downfall of the equilibrium and the negativity of the ruined relationship visually as darkness surrounds the event quite literally as a result of the lighting technique in this video.

Besides the lighting technique, not a lot of editing or special effects were required for the production of my music video. The one shot video was rather simple and easy to produce.

There are some theorists of media language also. Charles Sanders Pierce was one of them. Charles Pierce stated signs only represent anything when society attributes meaning to them. Anything can be a sign as long as someone interprets it as ‘signifying’ something. This is a semiotic study and one that can be applied to my music video. For instance, the sign that the female character is the nice, caring one is only applied if the audience interprets her cuddles, meal offering and emotional reactions as a sign of her concern and love for her partner. If the audience takes an alternate reading to this preferred one, then the sign put in place in the narrative to make the audience sympathise with the character is non-existent. If this sign is applied to the narrative of the music video, it would be an iconic type of sign.