Planning Lighting & Colour - Miss Miller

A variety of lighting styles and colours is essential within a music video because they portray certain aspects of the music video without having to say them directly. In terms of colours, this is done through connotations. For example, an artist in a love song may wear red clothing because red has connotations of love. Lighting helps to create connotations through the mood and atmosphere it creates.  This makes the music video more interesting because these elements do not just denote the story line but connote the meanings.                                                                

Natural lighting will be used a lot in my groups music video mostly because a variety of our shots will be filmed outside. Natural lighting will be seen in the picnic scene and the short memories of the couple walking and holding hands etc. This lighting technique is conventional to the indie music genre as indie artists often appear natural in appearance in that they do not wear a lot of make-up and aim to look glamorous like mainstream pop artists. Instead they have a rather stripped-back style much like our chosen artist Gabrielle Aplin who wears minimal make-up and has messy hair. This portrays them as natural and down to earth as they are not pretending to be someone they are not. Using natural lighting will have the same effect because it shows the audience that the artist is honest and not hiding anything.Furthermore indie record labels tend to be low budget and so using natural lighting means saving money on buying artificial sources of light. Natural lighting will help represent our artist as confident and honest as she is not afraid to show herself clearly to the audience in her natural state.

Because it is important to include a variety of lighting techniques in your music video, we also decided to entail low key lighting. We will create this with fairy lights and it will take place in the outdoor cinema scene. We will create an outdoor cinema in one of our groups garden and film when it is evening with fairy lights. This is conventional to the indie genre, again because indie music videos are known for being low budget and simplistic and this is portrayed through using inexpensive and unprofessional lighting for an entire scene.
The fairy lights are also conventional to this music genre as they are a very familiar iconography item as many people will have them in their house at least once a year for Christmas. Christmas has connotations of comfort and home which will suggest the couple feel safe in each others company. This lighting represents the artist as creative as it suggests she has created the lighting herself and it also presents her as down to earth and level-headed as she is happy with simple things in life.

My group decided to use colours, mostly in the characters clothing, in order to create connotations. We decided that a contrast between black and white would be effective as it portrays the artists state of mind before and after the relationship.In the first bonfire scene the artist is wearing white clothing which portray her as innocent and pure when she firsts meets the male character. At the end of the video, in the second bonfire scene when the relationship has ended, the artist is wearing a similar outfit but in black. The black portrays her as corrupted and depressed. The high contrast in these colours could also represent good and bad and therefore represent the good and bad elements of the relationship that will be compared through memories throughout the entirety of our music video. This is conventional to the indie genre as the colours are both very simplistic and natural yet bold and edgy. It is stereotypical of an indie artist to have a natural relaxed style yet also appear edgy or quirky. These colours represent the artist as having both a good and bad side in her nature which fits in with the narrative of the music video as she doesn't want to hurt the male character but she has a tendency to break hearts due to her commitment issues. This also portrays her as honest about all parts of her personality as she is not trying to hide the good or bad sides and is open about the whole story.

Another colour that we discussed using as a group was blue. We decided that our artist should wear blue denim clothing as it would have a variety of suitable connotations. The artist will wear a large amount of different outfits throughout our music video because there are a lot of different scenes. In a few of these scenes she will be wearing denim such as denim shorts, ripped jeans or dungarees. She will wear more denim towards the end of the music video in scenes such as the pub and other breakup scenes because denim has connotations of being worn and ripped which portray the breakdown of the relationship. The blue of the clothing will also portray the artists negative feelings in the relationship as sadness and loneliness are both connotations of this colour. Worn ripped denim also has connotations of being old which can portray the narrative of the music video as it entails the artist living in the past and looking back at old memories. The blue is conventional to the music genre because artists of this genre will be expected to use blue to connote meanings of their songs as they often sing about personal and often sad experiences in their life. This represents the artist as conventional to her music genre as well as open about her negative feelings and past experiences such as relationship breakups.

 I decided to interpret red into my music video because there are many connotations of this colour, both positive and negative. I will do this by having the artist wear an item of red clothing such as an oversized t-shirt, red converse or red lipstick in certain scenes. Red is a very emotionally intense colour as it raises blood pressure and respiration rate of those who see it. This could represent the artists feelings at the early stages of the relationship whereby the couple are excited to see each other. Red is associated with danger and so can portray the problems in the relationship and the danger of getting into a relationship when one of the couple is scared to commit. Contrastingly, this colour portrays love and passion and therefore the positive sides of the relationship. This is conventional to the indie genre as it has bold and straight forward connotations which link to indie artists open and honest attitude to sharing their personal feelings and experiences.

My target audience will be able to build a relationship with my artist through the lighting and colours I have selected because they will understand the connotations and meaning behind the colours as well as the mood and atmospheres created by the lighting. Planning the colours and lighting of my music video has helped me ensure my music video will be successful because it has made me consider what to prepare for each scene in order to interpret connotations and meanings to make the media project more interesting and less straight-forward as there will be several connotations and denotations.