Finale

"If music be the food of love, play on." - William Shakespeare

As a whole I feel the process went really well for us as a group, we ended with a great main product and some ancillary texts that complement the main video really well. We were optimistic in choosing a song not mainstream and on top of this it had no lyrics. Not having lyrics meant we had to impose a narrative, because there were no lyrics to base a story on, but in the end I feel this worked out better for us, because lip syncing can only work so well, instead we landed ourselves with a real DJ who knew the track well, so he knew exactly what he was doing. In terms of the narrative, in retrospect, I would probably change location, to a more urban area to increase the dystopian effect that our narrative imposes.

The colour grading process was crucial to our pop video working. I never realised that this was so important. In media texts for the screen, every frame may be graded to make sure the colour is correct and fits the message intended. We used the colour grading software on Final Cut Pro to desaturate our colours somewhat, to make them seem a little cold and almost hostile. In this way we were stressing the message of our pop video that the world is aggressive and in a state of dystopia, which I take to mean a society that is in constant breakdown.

In such a greedy, tempestuous society, it is hard for any organic music act to break through; off hand I can name a lot of musicians and bands that are more talented than many mainstream ‘musicians’. The industry is a money hungry giant, that would continue to function even without people going in and out of it on a regular basis, and pop music fans are quick to forget what they were into last year. Our pop video intended fans to be drawn into the music, and sell the artist. However our pop video contradicts the music industry as an entity, portraying youth as your own, and not syndicated as the major labels intend it to be. Overall our originality as individuals really shone through, and this collectively combined to form a great group. And we are delighted with the finished product, and although it was lengthy and painful process, it was thoroughly enjoyable and rewarding.