I emailed Phil and he suggested I stop thinking about the nuts and bolts of my project for now and focus more on the song and its "story".
The song in question is going to be based around my experiences around coming out as Agender, the critique I get from others surrounding it, and my general feelings from when I came out to now. The song will be fairly moody, but I've asked for Kowa to have upbeat elements in it so I can get some choreography in there too.
The character in the song is a representation of me, based on me and my feelings around the subject, acting as a bridge between me and the audience as someone to identify with.
After discussions with Kowa, we honed in on a subject that isn't talked about much in media or in songs and is fairly unknown. Gender Dysphoria. Its something I face on a day to day basis. I don't want the song to get too depressing as I want there to be a point where the character "breaks free" of the dysphoria and accepts themselves.
Although my feelings with Gender Dysphoria are around me being agender, I'm hoping the song will connect with other trans people and people with body dysphoria too, and to let them know things will be okay.
The video itself will be set in one room with a changing environment as mentioned in a previous post. The room is a metaphor for feeling trapped and unable to get free, and there will be a point in the video where Mika gets fed up with the dysphoria and breaks free of the environment to finally be themselves without the chains of other peoples opinions holding them down.
Please let me know if you would like me to elaborate on any of these points, or if you have suggestions for things I can look into regarding the subjects.
Hey Annie - thanks for this - so my thoughts are that for this to be 'a work of art' it needs to deal with imagery and themes that audiences can make 'about them' even though it is also very much 'about you' - so in essence you're talking about alienation and being 'other' and truthfully, I suspect that all people - particularly young people - feel this is true of them at some point in their lives. I can tell already in your loose boards that you're dealing with quite broad metaphorical imagery and I think that's a useful approach. I think you need to work in this symbolic sense so that everyone finds themselves in your film. Just in terms of music videos ... the ones I love (though it's not the music particularly) are Sia's collaborations with the dancer Maddie Ziegler, because of how raw they feel and how 'continuous' - Elastic Heart is an extraordinary thing - it's stripped down and brave and full of 'feelings', but the actual narrative is elliptical and difficult to pin down - and that's why I think it's so strong: it feels risky for everyone taking part, and that risk is right there on the screen.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWZGAExj-es
and likewise...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vjPBrBU-TM
Thanks Phil its good to know i've been headed in the right track for once! :)
DeleteI'll keep going down the path i've been going down and develop more ways to show what i'm feeling on screen like i've been doing.
What I like about these examples is how 'undecorative' they are - they're exposed and exposing and you can really feel it on screen - about as far from superficial music videos as you can get.
ReplyDelete