Stylistic influences

Key scenes from stylistic influences: 

Key elements of the video:

 The video jumps straight into the message - Mac is applying lipstick

He then applies mascara. His make-up is messy and smudged, denoting disregard for his appearance due to his emotion and state at of mind, he is only applying make-up to be a woman but does not care if he looks perfect because he does not feel as such.

Mac then takes off the lens that was over the cameras in the video, as though he is reaching for the audience. This, I feel, is a great shot - the front lens is soft and it feels as though Mac is reaching out for a hug from the audience.

 The lens is then fully removed as though he is inviting the audience into his world.

Seconds later mac is showing the steps he goes through in order to become a woman, the earnings and the cap are all vital and representative of the daily routine for people who are not comfortable with the gender they were assigned with at birth. He has invited the audience in to see the truth.

The previous scene then cuts to a soft black fade and then fades out from black here - a smooth transition and works well with the current narrative. Now we see Mac as a woman, make-up, dress and all. The spotlight lifts him from the dark, representative of his negative emotions experienced as a man as he emerges a woman from the previous dark fade. The stage like setting with a curtain draped in the background represents a lacking of fear to bar all 'on stage' to reveal harsh truth.

The two screen grabs above show Mac in a dysfunctional setting as it reflects a confused frame of mind - confusion of social response. Mac has lettuce and cream thrown at him, a physical humiliation mimicking verbal abuse thrown at the Trans* community on a daily basis.

This video is weird and wonderful mainly because that is the style of the artist and all of his videos are as such, but the dysfunctional element always has purpose and is constructed well in a narrative, whether that narrative is simple or complex.

Key elements of the video:

This is one of the first shots that you see in the video. I like this particular shot because it reflects so much emotion without the need of a face. It also shows the thing that everyone does when they are feeling anxious or depressed, putting your palms together. It is so simple, yet it gets the message across in an effective way. The use of dark blue lighting with white light communicates simplicity, yet also a heavily melancholic mood (almost as though you are in the head of the 'character' in the video, feeling his simple and numb emotion) which enforces what the showing of the hands together truly means. 

Here we see the external, looking calm, yet the expression on the face shows a struggle to find an inner peace, and the previous showing of the hands and other facial expressions prior to this enforces that denotation - we are only seeing the external.

In this section of the video, the use of the hands and singing shows a sign of the 'character' in the video opening up to his emotion in an external way for the viewer to see,

This burst of colour comes in when the music begins to pick up, reflective of the 'characters' emotion. The colours look as though they are running through his fingers, and the mix of colours can connote different emotions, combining these two elements we can denote that the 'character' is embracing all of his emotions. The lack of colour in the last screen grab shows the 'character' snapped back into reality.

He then wipes away his tears in a bright blissful pink light, and becomes stronger for facing his inner daemons and emotions.

This simple representation of emotion with body language and lighting is something that would be very useful in my music video, it is simple yet effective and wouldn't take away from the main message in my video.