The song used for my media product is ‘Blinding Lights’ by the Weeknd, in which we made use of lyric interpretation to form the message we’d like to give out, which in our perception discusses the rising crisis of unhealthy coping mechanisms in the form of abusing substances such as cigarettes, alcohol, and drugs. In recent trends, the case of depression is rising within today’s youth and we aim to raise awareness regarding this topic as well as make it so that the younger generation relates to the lyrics of this song. The interpretation of lyrics that we’ve decided is the harmful ways people choose to deal with their emotions that despite giving temporary freedom and joy, will ultimately never truly take away the negative emotions we are dealing with.
I took the role of director and editor for this music video and was in charge of filming the music video, planning the ideas, and editing the entirety of the media product. Our music video is centered around the state of mind of being intoxicated due to abuse of substances in order to deal with depressing situations, in our case our artist is struggling to let go of his ex lover and is choosing to instead rely on different unhealthy methods such as drinking alcohol and smoking, causing him so slowly descend into madness as their effects take place - making him act intoxicated all throughout the music video. It represents how being trapped in one’s own emotions and bad past can affect one’s mental health, looking into the mind of an inconsolable person turning to substances as a form of survival in relation to how he’s “running out of time”.
All of this is evident throughout the music video thanks to the use of mise-en-scenes such as the costume design, props, and set design. In the entirety of the music video, it is seen that the artist does not change clothes even once, we chose to do this as this is one of the signs of depression people commonly undergo. According to research and surveys, mental illnesses make it hard for victims to practice basic hygiene as depression makes it difficult due to extreme tiredness and cognitive effects such as brain fog and negative thinking. Additionally, it is difficult for those with depression to start and finish proper tasks such as showering and getting dressed, thus why we resulted in only doing one costume for the whole music video. The unbuttoned shirt signifies his lack in effort in looking proper - contrasting to the suit he wears. In the music video, we put significance in when he has his suit on and off, the suit only comes off whenever he feels like he is too far gone whilst when it is on, it signifies that he still has slight hope that he will be okay. To further enforce the artist’s use of substances, cigarettes and “alcohol” (thus the sober bar and pub as filming locations) were used as props to literally represent the usage of substances.
The music video has a green hue all throughout as green represents revitalization and rebirth, which is what he feels whenever he consumes the substances thus why the artist is often seen running like a crazed person, feeling like “no one's around to judge me”, as he truly feels free from his emotions. In contrast to this however, green also signifies illness and poison, showing how his choices are toxic to his body and is slowly poisoning his mental prowess and soul through this method of coping. This is the reason we decided to keep a constant monotone theme throughout as the color has two flipside meanings that accurately represent what the story is all about. The feeling of being in a sort of high is shown in the music video through the use of effects when editing such as Wobble, to show the delirious state he is constantly in when consuming substances excessively, representing his spiral into madness and his mental state. The artist is “goin’ through withdrawals” and “drowning in the night”, again showing how he’s in a neverending state of realisation and relapsation.
Near the end of the music video, the artist has calmed and sat down - this represents the character’s state of mind at the moment which is now in a state of acceptance and despair after the intoxication has worn off, thus the slower shots compared to the fast pace of the rest of the music video. This shows that he’s finally given up and he’s realised that his ex lover will not return, as well as the fact that the abuse of substances will not give him relief but more grief instead by the time the effects wear off.
When it comes to the branding of our production work, we maintained the theme of dark, flashy, retro, and energetic, all throughout the music video up until the near end, hence, the use of the same hues of green for the overall music video, with lower exposure to keep the media products dark. This is effective as it further emphasises and enhances the message our group wants to send out through this music video. This was done with individual color grading through constant adjustments to the music video’s HSL (hue, saturation, lightness) as well as changing the temperature of every single scene we chose to use for the music video. The artist also wears a green suit to highlight this. In addition to all of this, I used the ‘Green Lake’ filter to make the green more prominent. This same green color is also used in the creation of our digipak and social media which further increases the production work’s sense of branding as the color will be easily recognisable for the audience and possible consumers.
Aside from the color, our production work uses the same “Pocketball” font for all titles in all three works: the music video, digipak, and social media with the same font color and effects. All text with this font are colored a very sheer green with a glow effect to further enhance the flashy retro look we are going for. The images used for the digipak and social media are also those from the same location as where the music video was shot, therefore when the audience views our production work they will be able to know and recognise that they are all related and are from the same branding.
We make sure our products engage with the audience by first deciding who our target audience is, in this case the target of our music video are teens and young adults, specifically those who struggle with finding a healthy coping mechanism in response to negative emotions and experiences, hence falling into the rabbit hole of addiction and withdrawal wherein they are unaware of the risks until it’s too late. This is suitable for our target audience as (researched by the American Psychological Association) there has been a 71% increase in young adults experiencing psychological distress, with 77% Americans admitting to using at least one addictive behavior or unhealthy methods to address their mental health issues (ehstoday.com) We believe our production work will engage with the audience as it touches into their experiences with substances and or their thoughts of considering its consumption.
The technical elements in our media text hints at the feeling of being driven insane through the dependence of these chemicals. Our music video challenges the audience to unveil the meaning behind the lyrics and look deeper than just the surface, giving them the freedom of interpretation which can lead to more interactions and more engagements on the artist’s part through YouTube comments where they will be free to discuss or comments in the artist’s instagram post where the artist themself will be able to respond.
For our music video, according to our research other music videos with the same genre of R&B synth made use of monotone colors for example keeping the same blue or red hue all throughout the music video (as seen in Joji’s ‘Slow Dancing in the Dark and Tory Lanez’s ‘The Color Violet’), we follow these conventions by maintaining the same green hue in all our products. The conventions of other music videos of this genre is the pacing of the music videos, which usually start off slow paced, then speeds up during the climax of the song and ends slow again - similar to a cycle. I chose to follow this convention and did the same thing with out music video wherein the beginning and ending are relatively slower compared to the middle parts of the music video. I also chose to follow the camera shots and angles commonly used in other music videos of this genre which are medium shots, closeup shots, tracking, and reverse tracking, whilst adding point of view shots from the perspective of the mobile phone the artist uses to film his antics. For credits, I noticed that many music videos (i.e. ‘Wake me’ up by Avicii) makes use of end credits so I decided to again follow this convention for my music video.
As for social media, we followed the convention of typical artist instagram posts such as merchandise, tour dates, and song promotion to make the profile more authentic. As for the digipak, we followed the conventions of typical digipak made by artists which include front cover, back cover, and CD design. All in all, we decided to follow these conventions so that our production works look real and legitimate.