Research: Representation in our Video

In music videos, certain characters appear, the protagonist usually being the artist. It is all about the representation on the protagonist and other characters within the text, that depend on how the audience recieve it. This post will be looking at how we will represent our artist and any other characters in our video.

The Protagonist
She will be our artist, portrayed by Sarah (a fellow student who does Drama) as her individual look is quite striking, we want to keep her in her comfort zone by dressing her to fit the typical costum of an acoustic rock artist. In the video props such as acoustic guitars, miscrophones and other instruments will be used. We will represent the artist as funny, happy (as through out the video it will be obvious that she is enjoying herself) and "cool" - this final representation will allow the aspirers in the audience to feel a great inspiration from her.

Her costume will involve jeans, leather trousers, dresses and red accessories - the main theme for the video, and the artist, will be red which can connote as passion, romance and anger. We do not plan using The Male Gaze in the footage as it does not conform to the typical conventions of a acoustic rock video, so we will simply use the colour red as a device to catch the audiences eye.

Other Characters
We have planned for our video to be purly performance based where we see the artist playing instruments and singing the lyrics of the song. However, to create a sense of entertainement throughout the audience and to improve and use our technical skill in the video, we plan on creating a "Sarah Band" where a long shot will be used, showing Sarah in different positions of the band, at the same time. Although she is the same person, different costume and accessories to imply a different character to the main artist. To cut between these band shots, there will be footage of the artist, in a different costume, singing or playing an instrument. As the other characters in the video will be the same person, the representation will be the same.

We plan on avoiding stereotypes as best we can as our target audience frequently make a point, through media texts, that they, young people and teenagers, would sooner be seen as people and not labels. As our video is performance based, the chance of showing any stereotypes will be unlikely as there are no characters present in the footage, other than our artist.

EDIT
Protagonist - Sarah both in the narrative and performance side of the video. She is presented as our brand image suggests - Quirky, unique, fun etc.

Other characters - Although there is now narrative in our video, we still do not have any other characters. Other than the idea of a 'wolf' which is never actually seen throughout the video - it could though, be classed as the 'villain.'