Stereotypes

Preconvieved ideas to what we expect compared with the reality- Stereotyping
http://alcoholrehab.com/alcohol-rehab/stereotype-drug-alcohol-abuse/

There are many different stereotypes that are brought to mind when thinking about drug or alcohol addicts. The majority of these stereotypes make negative assumptions about lifestyles that include drugs and alcohol. People who abuse substances are typically deviants and don’t engage in society like the rest of the population. They embody different values to mainstream society: skirting the edges, unemployed, victims of bad upbringings, high school drop outs and prostitutes. They take drugs in dark, dirty alleyways or squats, rob innocent people, go on binges and engage in high risk behaviors. The reality of substance abusers is that the majority are just like everyone else. They are parents, children, friends, workmates, sisters and brothers. They hold down jobs, have friends, go to social functions and enjoy their weekends. Some fail to manage their addiction and do become entrenched in a lifestyle that the stereotypes embody, but many do not. An addiction does not discriminate between rich and poor, young or old.

Stereotyping substance abusers can lead to many difficulties in recognizing and treating people. Treatments and services for people who suffer from drug or alcohol addiction should not be used to make generalizations about who, what and why people have an addiction. There are many different factors as to why a person suffers from a substance abuse problem and being able to treat everyone should be the priority.

Some people may find that they make assumptions about people who are in high risk groups for drug use. People from low socio-economic groups, from broken homes, from particular suburbs or towns may find they are discriminated against for the perceived addiction. Additionally, some legitimate health conditions can cause people to exhibit behaviours that are similar to someone who is under the influence of drugs. 

This highlights my first inital idea. So therefore i have chose to follow this narrative as it is is more realistic and can actually create a message to the audience. This proves that most likely drug users put on an act to family friends and the outside world showing they are fine and happy however they are not.

Imagery collage within lyrics for carmen

Initial ideas

Carmen-Lana del rey

Idea 1

Showing 2 different lifestyles that girl has. Behind doors she is in depression dealing with many problems such as drugs etc. Whereas with friends and around people, in the real world she is different and shows hiding her problems well. I may choose to make the actress famous in the video, to show the REAL lifestyle behind a celebrity. To get a meaning across: ‘what happens behind doors, stays behind doors’ and also break the idea of stereotyping.  I want the audience to feel and sorry and to create empathy for the actress.

Idea 2

A lot of lana del rey videos is just a montage of random clips that have some but not a lot of relation to the song lyrics. I’d get different videos, old and new ones of when i was younger to present day and put them together. A bit like lana del reys video games. However I will make it have some link to the story line.

Idea 3

Another idea i thought about was the life of a prostitute. However i wanted everyone to feel empathy for the singer and not look at her in disgust. A bit similar to idea 1 about breaking stereotypes and the explaining the negative connotations that came from this.  

story board

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YzabSdk7Zs

Current heatlh issues

For my narrative about having 2 lives which were completely different to each other i thought it would be best to research some health issues which actually is based on true illnesses and events in peoples life to help get my meaning across. 

Bulimia

People who have bulimia try to control their weight by severely restricting the amount of food they eat, then binge eating and purging the food from their body by making themselves sick or using laxatives. As with all of the eating disorders, women are much more likely to develop bulimia than men. However, bulimia nervosa is becoming increasingly common in boys and men.

Recent studies suggest that as many as 8% of women have bulimia at some stage in their life. The condition can occur at any age, but mainly affects women aged between 16 and 40 (on average, it starts around the age of 18 or 19).

Alcohol addiction

According to Alcoholics Anonymous UK, who say they have no unique definition for alcoholism, it may be described as a physical compulsion, together with a mental obsession. Apart from having an enormous craving for alcohol, an alcoholic often yields to that craving at the worst possible times. The alcoholic knows neither when nor how to stop drinking.

one in every 13 people in the United Kingdom is an alcoholic, according to the NHS (National Health Service) statistics. Even among people who are not dependent on alcohol, a sizeable proportion drink too much.

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/157163.php

Drug addiction

Drug addiction is a complex brain disease. It is characterized by compulsive, at times uncontrollable, drug craving, seeking, and use that persist even in the face of extremely negative consequences.

Drug seeking becomes compulsive, in large part as a result of the effects of prolonged drug use on brain functioning and, thus, on behavior. For many people, drug addiction becomes chronic, with relapses possible even after long periods of abstinence.

http://alcoholism.about.com/cs/drugs/f/drug_faq02.htm 

Self Harming

Self-harm is when somebody intentionally damages or injures their body. It is a way of coping with or expressing overwhelming emotional distress.

Sometimes when people self-harm they intend to die but often the intention is more to punish themselves, express their distress or relieve unbearable tension. Self-harm can also be a cry for help. 

http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/Self-injury/Pages/Introduction.aspx

Complication

I had a complication just before i began filming for my music video. The boy who was meant to be playing in my video unfortunately broke his leg which meant that i wouldnt be able to cast him anymore. This meant i had to change my storyline so instead of doing that i thought i would change song to which would help me create a new storyline. However i still made sure that it was from the same genre and the same artist, lana del rey so not all my planning will of gone to waste. Instead i chose to do carmen.

Stage name

I have decided the actress who is playing my singer in my video doesnt have a very fancy stage name 'lea broc' therefore I have decided to play around and the name on the front cover will be Lea Katerina instead her middle name to make it more professional and fancy.

First attempt at filming

I started my first day of filming however i realised once i uploaded the shots that i had done they had all turned out like the one below. Due to my narrative being a depressing story line i wanted the lighting to be dark to reinforce this therefore i began at 3'o clock in the day just when the sun was setting however when i looked at the video it was too dark and my character wasn't visible. I now know in the future its important to hire out some lighting for when im filming so i have enough light.

I also did a shot with the light on which is shown below. Again this made me realise that lighting is very important and can be shown by looking at the 2 videos.

Reception Theory

Stuart halls ‘Reception Theory’

Here Stuart Hall believes we are part of an active audience which actively engage in the interpretation of media texts. He believes in media one message sent out but more than one understanding is made from the text. Depending on who we are depends on how the media text can be consumed and what meaning we create from the text.

Stuart Hall studies ‘semiotics’ and the way we decode a text and how the producer has encoded it.

They are encoded by the producer and are full of ideologies, values and messages that the producer wanted the audience to perceive them on. However us as an audience will decode the text depending on what audience it is not all audiences will decode and react to the media in the same way, in some cases it may be different to the producers idea.

Preferred reading is meant when a text is encoded with a meaning that the audience should interpret from the media they are given. When the audience are consuming a text they will Recognise codes and conventions and draw upon their audience expectations. These are factors such as genre and use of mise en scene etc. The producers can almost kid the audience and consequently produce a certain amount of agreement on what the text means.

There are several different types of audiences, these are:

·         Dominator preferred who agree with the message and decode it how the producer has wanted them too.

·          Negotiated this audience may agree with parts however hold their own opinions on other parts within the text.

·          Oppositional they Don’t agree with the message the producer is trying to put across.

An audience will interpret the media in tersm of certain factors these are:

· Life experience

· Mood at the time of viewing

· Age

· Culture

· Beliefs

· Gender

Mulveys theory- Example in music videos

Strauss theory- Examples in music video

In both these videos 'we are never getting back together' and 'picking up the pieces' the most obvious binary opposite within them is the boy and the girl. Due to Paloma and Taylor being our main singers us as an audience automatically see them as the better character therefore we see the boy as the antagonist. We automatically make an assumption that the boy in both has done something wrong within the video which we soon learn is true.

Theories to think about

Flashback ideas from other songs

In my music video i have decided to go with a montage of flashbacks. I have chosen to put this in because a lot of lana del rey videos are full of flashbacks. Examples of these are video games,born to die, national anthem etc. To do this i decided i would research other videos that do this in the video so i could get inspiration for what i could do in mine.

Gabrielle Aplin- Panic Cord

Katy Perry- The one that got away

Angel- The world

Miley Cyrus's Wrecking Ball Video

When Miley Cyrus’s wrecking ball video was broadcasted it sent a panic around the world. People slated the video and used words like ‘slut’ to suggest the actress’s new persona. However hidden in the video showed a lot of connotations of why Miley Cyrus created the video the way she did. She says, 'Lets get something straight. You guys don't understand my music video. So let me explain it to you. I kiss the sledge hammer to show that i secretly still love the pain. I'm naked to show how Liam destroyed me. I emotionally became "naked and stripped" meaning im hurt on the inside. The wrecking ball symbolizes a destructive love, hence the song title. (the wrecking ball breaks the walls and im left laying in the remaining of it) so instead of calling me "slut" or "whore" realise im trying to tell a story of love that went wrong and destroyed me emotionally.' This could link to the concept of my music video as they are both related to the story of love and mourning over the fact that their lover is no longer there. This shows that i must put connotations in my music to relate back to the actual narrative that im trying to show like miley cyrus has done.