Representation Through Mise En Scene

In our music video we wanted to represent a domestic relationship as an interpretation of our song lyrics, we wanted it to be controversial as we felt this took on today’s current/modern take on pushing the boundaries in music videos for instance we took inspiration from Rihanna as in many videos she’s pushed the boundaries creating more publicity surrounding her up and coming album. In our music video we wanted to be quite metaphoric and symbolic in our choice of character in the way our themes are represented.

Our storyline was about a threatening relationship where the girl in the relationship tried to run away , we used different locations to symbolise her feelings. We used a deserted car park to portray her loneliness, we used exterior shots of the car park to show her desperation and isolation. We used the park because we saw the overbearing trees made her look venerable and fragile, the darkness also helped add to her vulnerability. When we went to Salford quays we thought this location was good as it was visually attractive it also fitted the modern style of music.

Another part of our mise en scene that we carefully thought out was costume. When planning out what we wanted our angel to represent visually we wanted her to look very pure and demure; therefore we used white as it is a colour that connotates purity. However we wanted to give her a graphic edge, so we used white, feather like eyelashes as we thought this gave her a mysteriously creepy appearance helping us to represent her angelic yet spooky persona.
We wanted the main female character to be dressed in a way that connoted her venerability; therefore we have her in a pyjama top and shorts as this makes her look innocent and it also expresses her desperation. We used over exaggerated, over the top make up displaying her tears as we thought it was a convention of a music video.

We wanted our main male character to represent a stereotype of a typical abusive partner; therefore we used a modern dress sense of the R’n’B, we used a ‘snapback’ and dark clothing to represent his twisted and intimidating personality. In the media young black males are represented in a negative light so we decided to use this stereotype to our advantage.

When considering how we could represent our narrative through our mise en scene, we thought carefully about how through performance we could display our ideas. As a result of this we had many discussions and meeting on how we could display our narrative we wanted Rhys (abusive man) to act extremely intimidating and aggressive, we wanted the female to be the complete opposite and seem very innocent and vulnerable. Another part of the performance aspect we used was the studio; we had the angel lip syncing as this is a typical music video convention.

Overall we used mise en scene; our choice of locations, our costume, our performance to represent our different themes, ideas and narratives in our music video we feel we did this well and put a lot of thought into it.