As our group consists of three males and one female we felt it would be sensible to base our product around a video that stars a solo female artist. Not only does this allow us to effectively have three separate cameras to film with at any one time, it would also conform with the convention that the pop genre is heavily dominated by this archetype of artist.
We looked at three different solo female artists that perform within the pop genre and selected the video we liked the most.
1. M.I.A- Paper Planes.
Mathangi "Maya" Arulpragasam or M.I.A is a
British-Tamil recording artist. The title "M.I.A." is both a play on
her own name and a reference to the abbreviation for Missing in Action. Her
compositions combine elements of pop, dance, electronic and hip hop music. The song Paper Planes can be interpreted many ways but is most commonly known for expressing the idea that immigrants aren't accepted into societies due the hatred of stereotypes. Paper Planes explains that governments and societies go through vague stages of ethnic cleansing as more people take racist and prejudiced views upon minorities. It also refers to the idea of urban survival where people have to do whatever it takes to make a living, even if it is illegal.
WHY DID WE LIKE THIS?
This song contains a very strong message and we particularly liked the screenplay which visually emphasises it. The song is set in an urban environment and features some small scale dancing so we could realistically replicate within the scope of our project.
2. Lorde- Royals.
Ella Marija Lani Yelich-O'Connor or Lorde, is a New Zealand
singer-songwriter. The song Royals is about how not everyone can live the life
like rich and famous people. It explains that Lorde didn't come from a rich background and does not
have the luxuries of the pop stars and rappers. She says that she wishes for a
short period of time she could "live that fantasy" of experiencing
life without any cares and with money to blow. We also believe that the song takes a jab at other music artists that only sing about materialism.
WHY DID WE LIKE THIS?
We liked Royals because we all felt that we could really relate to the meaning of the song. We always see rich and famous people in the media and although having luxury and expensive items is nice, in reality, you can enjoy life without all of it. We particularly enjoyed this video because it didn't feature the 'fakeness' that you tend to see in pop videos and the screenplay obviously didn't cost millions to produce.
3. Tove Lo- Habits (Stay High)
This song shows very dark and strong emotions and we liked this as we could effectively exaggerate this emotion with the use of strong visuals. Like Royals, this song is not conventionally devoted to the pop genre. We feel as if we could represent the song in a different manner and still portray the strong feelings that are sung about.
FINAL DECISION:
We decided the pick Habits by Tove Lo. MIA's song was good but we felt it relied heavily on the feature of ethnicity and as our actor is Caucasian and we live in a predominantly white area which could confuse the visuals with the meaning behind the song. Royals wasn't chosen because we felt more confident we had a better opportunity to explore the many open interpretations of the meaning behind Habits and not Royals as it was quite specific.
