Genre helps us study texts by dividing them into categories based on common elements. Genre is made up of codes and conventions – signs that mean something else for example the colour red has connotations of danger. In a pop music video you would expect bright colours and ‘perfect looking’ artists and dancers. The music video I will be making will be of the gothic genre. I will be looking at costume, setting, mis-en-scene and props. The visual style of the video will be bright yet dark as it represents death and afterlife. The narrative of the song ‘My Immortal’ by the rock band ‘Evanescence’ is about death, pain and haunting spirits. This is a typical narrative of this genre as these are all key elements of the gothic genre.
Industries use genre to sell products to audiences. Media producers use familiar codes and conventions to fulfil a particular pleasure. For example gothic audiences would expect graveyards, cathedrals, black makeup, dark backgrounds, fire, and bright backgrounds and often would be shot in black and white. As genres are not fixed, they constantly change over time. The genre of my music video doesn’t have to be fixed to the conventional gothic genre therefore I am able to put my own original ideas into my work.
As music videos are post-modern texts their main purpose is to promote the star and they can borrow from other media texts of that genre. This video doesn’t have to be a literal representation of the song or lyrics therefore the genre doesn’t have to come naturally as any themes may appear in any genre. I will make sure that the codes and conventions of this genre will appear in my video for example, the video will be shot in different locations including a graveyard and forest which is stereotypical for this genre. The artist will be wearing a black dress and gothic, dark makeup such as black lipstick as these are again codes and conventions of this genre. Making the video black and white is also conventional for this genre and connotes mystery, death and purity.
The original video for ‘My Immortal’ was entirely black and white in a gothic quarter. This shows that the original video also had the same codes and conventions of this genre. Although I don’t want to imitate the original video, some elements will be similar because both videos will be from the same gothic genre. I will be using candles in my video as it will have some elements of minimal importance of religion.
The lyrics of the song create a narrative about ‘a spirit staying with you after its death and haunting you until you actually wish that the spirit were gone because it won’t leave you alone’. This allows the video I am going to create to include many elements of the gothic genre for example the artist in the video has to be ghostly, bright and slow moving.
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