In class, we were given an activity to help us understand how to use lyrics to create a narrative idea. To do this, we were played a song that we had never heard before and told to come up with an original narrative for a music video in small groups. We were played the song multiple times and each time we were able to add more detail to our ideas. Below is the sound file of the song we were played, Autophilia by The Bluetones, and the narrative idea that we created.
Video Idea:
The video would begin with the protagonist, the singer, entering a shop. The shop would look like a car show room but would be full of girls with huge price tags hung around their necks. Each of these girls would be wearing different coloured dresses; 16 in total. The protagonist would choose one of these women and buy her, taking in all of her features with his eyes. The video would then show the two of them going on a date, during which they mess around and have fun, laughing in the sun. At the stage of the song when the protagonist sings "I'm on a double yellow line", the two would be balancing along the double yellow lines painted on the road. This shot would be copied every time the line is sung. The video would continue to show the protagonist and the woman on multiple dates with each other. Then, during the third verse, the two will be shown to be having an argument, before resolving it and reliving their first date together to remember what they have. After the last line, the camera would pan from a front view of the protagonist to a side view which would reveal a beautiful car parked behind him on the double yellow lines, where the woman had been. This would connote that the entire time, the protagonist had been singing about a car, rather than a woman, that he loved.
The music video would be a comedic pop video and the narrative would be typical for the genre as it would be focused on the love aspect of the song. Any references to love within the video will be expected, however the ending of the video would be unexpected as it would reverse the concepts created. There would be a vague intertextual reference between the video and Shallow Hal - a Jack Black film - due to the way in which Hal sees girls incorrectly which links to how the protagonist will be viewing his car as a woman.
The video would explore representation of gender as it would present the female in a very stereotypical way as being the weaker gender. It would also present the male figure as being masculine and dominant which is stereotypical however the video would also subvert the male stereotype by presenting the protagonist as being emotional, a trait which is usually viewed as feminine. The artist would be shown in the video as themselves and would be presented as being wealthy and obsessive.
It would be aimed at a niche audience of male teenagers between the ages of 15 and 19 in the middle class. This is because we believe they would be most likely to understand the humorous aspects of the video as there is the potential that they would be able to relate to the narrative. The video would target this audience by including characters of a similar age and from the same demographic group.
The video would be set in California suburbs due to it's connotations of wealth, success and a glorified lifestyle. The dominant colour of the video will be blue due to it's connotations of both calm and loneliness. This would therefore foreshadow the revelation at the end of the video.
Real Video:
The Differences:
It is evident through watching the real video that though the two ideas are similar, there is one key difference between our idea for the video and the real video. This is that within our video idea it is shown throughout the majority of the video that the protagonist is in love with a girl and it is only unveiled at the end to be a car whilst in the real video it is clear throughout that the protagonist is in love with the car.
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