Using Colour Synaesthesia to represent emotion

Following on from the introduction where I discussed the concept of "Synaesthesia". Goodwin notes how listeners and composers see psychological images in their mind when they hear and take in music. We used this theory to represent emotion throughout the music video.

As we can see throughout the video, the tone of colour rapidly changes when different characters are introduced. We wanted the color to represent the emotion of each one of the characters and each of their movements reflects that.

In the beginning of the music video we see the girlfriend angry at the boyfriend, the audience don't know why she is angry however we can see from the grayscale that she is upset. We were going to have the tone as the colour red to represent her anger however when thinking more about it, having the colour as Grey shows that she is more upset than she is angry. She hides her emotions by using physical force on the boyfriend which makes her even more upset as he leaves the room. An example of this can be seen below:



This shot is supposed to represent the view from the boyfriend. By blurring around Francesca we can see that all the boyfriend is focused on is his girlfriend. This can also represent the love they once had which again reflects societies especially the political ideology 'New Right' overall view on young relationships whereby young couples are immature and cannot look after themselves.

We wanted to represent the boyfriend in the same light however we lowered the camera to show that even though the boyfriend is larger than the girlfriend he is still in the wrong and so it is a contrast to what society views on couples whereby it is mostly male dominated and seeing the male actually getting hit by the women - many feminists would believe that this is probably an exaggeration to what society is like however we wanted our audience to watch the video and to take all aspects of the video but not at face value. We can see the example below:


The next scene we see is the life of the tramp. This is where we implemented the theory the most. The first shots of the tramp we see the colour tone change from black and white to a dark shade of colour. This was to show that even though when the tramp gets a sense of happiness, he is still very depressed and sad. We showed him gaining happiness by changing the shots to colour when he drinks some alcohol or he gets feels someone might give him money. We alternated the shots by when the cars drove past him. This type of effect is very common however it mostly used to change the scene, we used it to change the colour. We used the disguise of the car covering the tramp to change the shots. An example of this can be seen below:

In the first shot on the left, we see the tramp about to drink some alcohol. The colour is very monochrome but we see there is some colour by the blue of the gates. In the middle shot, we see the car going past the tramp. This acts as a disguise and helps us change the colour of the shot without it looking noticeable. The last shot is the tramp after drinking the alcohol. He again feels depressed as he knows it doesn't make him happy.

The next shot we have is of the group of teenagers in the park teasing the tramp. The colour remains grey scale as it the shots are not only from the point of view of the tramp but are also the view point of the man walking past them at 1:34. Both the tramp and the man see this act as vulgar however the man does not choose to get involved which reflects what happens today that people decide to not get involved and stop these horrid acts such as bullying or fights as they feel they don't want to get hurt. We wanted to show the selfishness of today's society whereby everyone sticks to themselves and are not considerate. An example of this can be found below:

The next scene we have is the meeting of the two girls of whom the boys are very interested in. The contrast we have are the teenagers walking in the park in greyscale and the two girls who are in colour. The ironic thing is that it the teenagers should be in colour as they are happy and the two girls should be in greyscale as they are conforming to the self fulfilling prophecy whereby just because they dress in a certain way, they must feel that they are then in fact 'slags' and are easy. They dress like this to then get the attention from the boys.

We experimented with the colour and the interaction and tried to make both of them linked together. We did this by fading in the shot of the girl being abandoned by the boys of whom she is is a greyscale tone and the boys approaching the girls of which are now in a colour tone. The overall effect this has is very powerful as they are both two contrasts and extremes. The girl is unhappy and so she is left alone and this is not only represented in her colour but also the facial expression with her swearing at the boys and the boys are now in colour because they are happy as they think they are 'getting some action'. This also worked well as the crossover was when the song changed to to talking about the saddest experience they will ever have etc. Please see the example below:

The last scene we have is at the house whereby everyone is socializing however we have Hayley who is being gradually isolated from the rest of the group as she is not getting any attention from the boys because she is not 'giving out'. This is a contrast to her image as she appears to be a 'slut' however, when it actually comes down to it, she is the complete opposite to her friend who is kissing the other boy. As the boys friend 'isn't getting any action' he directs his attention to the other girl. This isolates the Hayley however the colour does not change as she is putting on 'a brave face' and hiding her true emotions. We can see slight sadness when the camera focuses on her face. We can see an example of this below:

So overall, Francesca and I hope we achieved the use of Synaesthesia by changing the colors to represent the emotions. We felt that the audience would hopefully understand the meanings behind each shot.

Problems that occured...Filming

Lighting
As the majority of shots were filmed outside, we didn't have any access to electric plugs to use for the lighting so we had to resort in natural lighting however this was used to our advantage as we wanted our film to look as natural as possible without the use of many effects. This added to the social realism of music video. By using the lights provided in my house for the bedroom and the lounge shots, we were able to create an intimate as well as uncomfortable surrounding for the viewer. They almost felt that they were present within the video.

As we were using natural lighting, the other problem that occurred was continuity whereby in some shots the scene would look brighter however in a shot that might of been taken an hour later, the lighting would be much more dim. To solve this, we used an editing technique whereby we could adjust the lighting for each shot to correspond to the timing of each scene to give the impression that the shot is being continued throughout.


Filming in public
Another issue that occurred was that because we were filming in public, we had to inform the by-passers of what was going on, however, we found that by not telling them and by filming from a distance, we could capture their natural responses which we found were very effective to add to the social realism of the video. An example of this was when the young girl gave money to the tramp, the dad obviously knew what was going on however, she genuinely thought that he was a begger and sleeping rough. Her response to this was to give money to him however she was scared and so she ran away. By showing this, we not only portrayed the general view on tramps as being isolated from society but also the generosity some members of the public have towards people who might appear less fortunate then them.

Timing, Location & Transport
Our time management for shooting each scene was crucial however chaotic. We didn't really plan in advance how long each shot was going to be we just needed the actors to be there on time however due to problems that occured on the train lines, most of our actors couldn't turn up so we had more time to film one scene to perfection. During the second lot of filming we had to plan very precisely how and when the actors are going to perform the scene as we were battling against the light and some of the actors had other plans that they had to commit to so by keeping in schedule we luckily filmed all the required shots in a short space of time.

We arranged that all the actors would meet at my house on the Friday at 230. They traveled to mine by getting lifts with two of the actors. We were very fortunate to have the actors driving as it was much easier to travel to the locations with all the equipment at hand.

The Finished Video!

Francesca and I were very pleased to eventually finish our music video. Please see it below.



After watching the video a number of times, I have come to understand how we intended to captivate the audience with the variety of story lines and shots and how we took to our advantage that the audience might relate to it.

In our music video, it is clear to say that the beginning of our music video draws in the audience. The emotions that these two characters feel, and the argument in which they are partaking in, immediately attracts the audience and catches their eye. This is because humans are interested in other people, they want to know what is going on; why are they arguing? In some ways in relates to Baudrillards theory on media whereby we are instantly attracted to news personalities. He states that personalities such as celebrities or real life tragic stories captivate the audiences interest. Humankind sympathizes and has opinions on various matters, and are usually interested to find out and discover 'juicy gossip' about other people; whether it is their close friends or celebrities in the media.

Another theorist which inspired us throughout our music video was that of Marxist philosopher Louis Althusser concept of Interpellation. This describes the process by which ideology addresses the pre-ideological individual which effectively produces him or her as a subject. Althusser goes against the classical definition of the subject as cause and substance: in other words, the situation always precedes the subject, which precisely as subject is "always-already interpellated."

The finished video not only follows Althusser's theory of interpellation, but it also relates to hegemony. Hegemony is a belief where leadership or predominant influence exercised by one nation over others. An example of this can be found within the media whereby the elites such as newspaper owners like Murdoch, inject their views into the media which dominates the minds of the readers however they believe that these views are their own.

The Current Situation

Music Video
Francesca and I have been editing our music video in our lunch times, our free periods and after school. We got all the footage we wanted in the music video itself and have added appropriate effects and transitions to the video. The beginning of the video starts off quite well, but as it gets further into depth, the quality of the scenes deteriorate.


There are still some finishing touches that need to be done:
1. Correct the lip syncing at the end
2. Correct the continuity with one of our actress' cardigans
3. Double check some of the shots are in time with the beat and noises of the soundtrack
4. Ensure that we haven't included any shots where the actors or actresses are looking at the camera
5. Ensure the latter half's quality is up to the standard of the beginning


Digipak Cover
Individually, we have been working on the various covers for the CD cover. Quite a minimalistic cover is portrayed in one of them, there is just an old man sitting on a bench. The others are quite packed with graphics.

Another image that I will hope to include in the second cover will be words that relate to loneliness and depression and fill the screen up with them to give an overall contrasting effect.

Website Homepage
As I have some knowledge with website creation, I have been producing a fairly professional homepage for the artist. I have created a black background with an image of Stenchman layered over the black. This creates a very powerful effect. The background is static and so it won't move when the curser goes up or down