Analyse Music Video in Terms of Representation Theories

This year for my A2 production studies for Media studies 2012, I was able to be part of a group that aided me to make a music video for the song 'She's bad mama jama' by Carl Carlton.

The music video shows Alex Jones (Main Character) who is gradually having an infatuation of the girl of his dreams, whom he see at London South Bank. We are then introduced to a series of steps where he is constantly trying to charm and woo her with his charismatic persona. As the video continues we see elements of his passion for skating and singing, which is then fueled for his love for our main girl played by Aimeé Gayle.

In terms of representation when comparing our video to existing products of the same genre, we were able to notice that the codes and conventions of a music video actually conforms to a postmodern genre which is a large factor to our music video that a boy meets girl and gradually fall in love and then there is a disequilbrium that is later resolved.

However our music video actually subverts from this by having a clear and understanding storyline that there is a constant equilbrium. Colour filters are often used to create an atmosphere, together with a series of mid and close up shots, this creates an happy, fun and meaningful music video for a niche audience.
This is what w have conformed to, to create our music video, through the use of the software Adobe After Effects.

“How we are seen determines how we are treated, how we treat others is based on how we see them. How we see them comes from representation”. - Richard Dyer - The Matter of images. Richard Dyer believes that how something is represented is how we are determined to look at it. Therefore we made sure to create an retro, vintage look in our music video, we chose to use a vintage look as it is able to consist of clours such as, red, yellow etc. This way it create a more crisp and hip representation to youths.

Using this colour filter is a stertypical advantage to audiences to realise that the music video is to be targeted at young ones has it cnveys a sense of a hip and fresh music.

In conclusion our music video is able to use a code and conventions and sterotypes to make representations of our character and the plot of the video easier for the audience to understand.