Analysis of Blank Space Music Video - Gender and Power roles.

The music video Blank Space, by Taylor swift has formed an inspiration for our thriller film. As we feel the prospect of a video, a love story which ends with a psychotic women killing a lover. As this links in so closely with what our idea is for our thriller. I have chosen to analyse it, picking out crucial shots that we may possibly use in our thriller.



The reason I have chosen to analyse this music video, is because it closely links in with the topic of our thriller, deception and unfaithfulness. The video uses a clever range of shots, to reveal the truth of the plot.

0.05 seconds
There is an establishing shot of the castle, from an arguably low perspective to make it appear bigger and more daunting. We see the car, which seems tiny in comparison, possibly representing the power of the two protagonists, the man in the car and the woman in the castle, immediately portraying woman as superior from the start, and in a fairly positive way thus far.
0.15 seconds

-There is following this, a long shot of the main woman character at the top of a grand staircase. As she is stood at the top of the staircase, and the cutaway following reveals the man is at the bottom knocking on the door. It shows she is in full control of the relationship from the very beginning, as the position of her on the stairs shows her high status and perhaps wealth, therefore more power within her decisions. As the man is behind the door, it shows he has to wait for her to open the door to be let in, this potentially foreshadows their relationship and that - she is in control, as she has to open up the door for him into their new relationship, whilst he is very much stood waiting for her command.
0.27 seconds

The shot of the man drinking the alcohol at the opposite end of the table, then the woman at the following end, in a new outfit. This is effective in showing the passage of time, as her outfit has clearly changed, and could show the change in their relationship - from strangers to love interests. As they are at opposite ends of the table in the shot this could mean that they have different interests, and their relationship is not intimate as they are clearly far apart from each other, dooming the relationship from the start.
0.42 seconds

The woman's direct look at the camera in this shot, suggests to the audience that she feels she can trust them, as the direct eye contact suggests intimacy. This could mean that she is letting the audience on perhaps very much accurate memories. Therefore foreshadowing the level of trust between the woman and the audience, so we potentially trust her recollection of events better.
0.49 seconds

The long shot used of the woman and man is an interesting one as it reveals a lot about their relationship. The man is holding two Rottweiler dogs, often associated with being strong and potentially dangerous dogs. As the man is holding the two dogs, this could represent the mans dangerous character, revealed later on in the video. In the following shot the woman stares into the mans eyes whilst he walks on, this could show his lack of interest in her, and the black outfits they both wear could arguably connotate mystery and evil of the two characters.
1.12 seconds

The slow motion capture used shows the girl running, which is effective as it could symbolize time moving slowly throughout the relationship. As she is running away from the man playfully it could show they have had a lot of fun times, as the slow motion makes it feel longer than it is. Alternatively, the shot of her running away could possibly represent the fact that she wanted to get out of the relationship but slowly as opposed to quickly - maybe she knew it wouldn't last from the get go?

2.11 seconds

The woman is closely grabbing the mans face in an angry demeanour and we can immediately infer, from the previous few seconds, that they are in an argument. This scene is captured with a shaky turn from the camera, from the camera being placed nearer the left side of them, moving further right. As the camera deliberately moves shakily, this could show the unstableness in their relationship at that moment in time.

Risk Assessment Form

We had to complete a risk assessment form, so that we could identify the risks that could occur when shooting our film. It is beneficial to us to know what potential risks there could be.

Schedule

This is our schedule for planning out filming hours in January 2015. We have tried to find and book out equipment for days that we are all free to be able to help out capturing shots and organising the film. The day's highlighted in yellow on the sheet are the days we have booked out the equipment to film our thriller opening.

 

Equipment



A Camera Lens
A separate camera lens for recording various different shots, this will give us more of a variety of shots, and more of a chance to experiment with the type of shots that we could potentially capture.

A Camera

A camera, although this seems obvious, we will need a camera that is able to capture high quality shots, such as a HDR camera. This is so we can try out different effects, and change some of the features of the camera such as the aperture, exposure and various things.
 

 A Microphone

 We will need this to closely capture all the sound that is in the film. As we are using a microphone the sound will be clearer and more precise, so we can use this to edit the film.

 

A Boom Mic Pole
We need a pole to hold our microphone on to make sure we can get the sound without the microphone being in the shot, this way we can hold it above the characters to still get clear dialogue.

A Tripod

To hold our camera steady when filming, we will aim to use this most of the time so the shots that we do take are focused and still. Unless we were to pan, then we would use features available on the tripod to do this.
 

An SD Card.

The SD Card is used to capture all of the shots, without one we couldn't film so this is possibly the most important piece of equipment to remember and we must keep it safe.

Storyboard

Here is our storyboard for our thriller, it is a basis for all our ideas and what we will refer to when we film our shots. Our team member Ellie, drew out the storyboard, me and Brandon had a discussion over the phone on the kind of shots we wanted to capture, and our other team member Georgina helped decide on these as well. We all agreed on the type of shots and Ellie drew them up into this storyboard. I am very happy with it to use as a basis for our ideas. 

 

Q&A on Our One Page Pitch

Me, Ellie,Georgina and Brandon, were asked questions on our one page pitch which we began to explain in detail to our Media teacher, Mr Welch. I edited the video using Windows Movie Maker so I could get used to the software, and practice editing skills.

Our One Page Pitch

Age rating:
Our age rating is a 12. I looked at the BBFC regulations and have selected an age rating that I think will be appropriate to audiences. A rating of 12 seems suitable as our thriller will glaze over the murder scene so there will not be any graphic violence displayed. There will not be any scenes involving drugs or sex. However the theme will be mature and suitable for ages 12 and over.

Target audience:

Our target audience will be between ages 12-25. We are targeting our film at young adults as we think that is a good age to target our thoughts about the issues raised in the media text. Our media text will be used as a form of escapism. It will be used for people to escape from reality and everyday life. The media text is used to provoke an emotion from the audience or can be used as a way of expressing ideas about the topic of the film with friends, family or acquaintances. We do not want audiences to be passive when watching our thriller, we want people to question our ideas and what happens in the film, as it will raise issues regarding gender empowerment and sexism.

Statement of intent:

For our story, our theme is envy and jealousy, and how it can drive people mad. We have chosen to tell the story that we have to portray how delusional love can make people, and the drastic ending that one woman had to take when her love for a man was disrupted. For us as a group, we feel passionately about this subject, as although we haven’t personally experienced it, we know how being unfaithful can shatter someone’s heart. The feeling is unimaginable to comprehend, as the love of our main characters life betrayed her trust, as well as using the other woman. The audience, we feel, will care about this subject, as it is very commonly portrayed in the media and women’s feelings and thoughts are never shown.  In the modern day, we feel like the story of a man having an affair leaving a woman heartbroken and deluded, is appropriate to tell. Our aim is to make men think about their actions, as not many women will just forgive and forget. Our main woman character is strong, and although a murderer, her motive was that she either ended his life or hers, because she couldn’t take the news of his affair. We hope that the audience will feel the need for the story to be told, as it is an important aspect in relationships – and the gluttony of men or woman thinking they can have two loves, is sadly mistaken.  We have chosen to make our thriller a film opening, as opposed to a TV drama, as with TV drama characters can develop over time, whereas our characters we want their personalities to be clear throughout.

Plot

For our plot we have chosen to have many characters stood around a coffin, either viewing it in the morgue or crying, or around a grave. We want the characters to show emotion, to know that the loss has made a massive impact, and 2 women we want to stand out immediately, perhaps by cutaways from one to the other. But one noticeably crying, the other one noticeably looking angry ( the girlfriend and the one he is later revealed to have had an affair with ). For the second scene we want a clear flashback, where the main character BOB and his girlfriend MARY are shown in a montage of clips doing things together such as going on dates – the story of how they fell in love. After this we want a clear shot of suspicions, with MARY lurking around where BOB is, later to be looking out of a window and seeing BOB with the girl he’s having an affair with ( JESSICA ). After BOB returns from his affair that night, we see MARY look smiley and happy, however we (THE AUDIENCE) see she has a knife behind her back. We have shown to include the audience in dramatic irony, that she wants to kill him, as then they can infer for themselves what will happen, without actually being shown it.

Tag-Line;

The female of the species is much deadlier than the male

The what if premise:

What if the love of your life, the one you held closest to your heart, the one who you would do anything for, cross mountains and oceans for, betrayed you? What if the man, who promised to love you and to cherish you, no matter what, lied to you?  What if because of his poisonous and vile lies, everything you worked for and everything you’d treasured had come crumbling down?  What would you do? Could you forgive him? Or would you take your revenge?