Representation of gender within our own music video

What we have discovered from research and how this has influenced our representation within our music video:

Research into gender representation within acoustic music videos, has enabled us to discover that our initial ideas (more specifically within our treatment) and assumptions of representation within this particular genre, are rather stereotypical/expected of the genre. 

Whilst the 'Characters and Costume' blog explains the protagonist's representation through her costume and make up, our research and analysis has influenced our representation of gender further. These include: 

• Clearly representing the protagonists sense of 'longing' and progression, as seen within both researched music videos. This will be through character emotion, as well as physicall movement from the bike and camera.
• 'Delicate'- a theme already decided and established through the protagonists hair and make up, as well as the use of soft artificial and natural lighting
• Similar to that of Gabrielle Aplin, we aim to represent the female protagonist as slightly vulnerable as a cause of her 'delicate' nature. For example, she will not sing to or interact with the camera, portraying a shy but beautifully intriguing personality.
• Again, like Gabrielle, we aim for the audience to sympathise with the protagonist due to our use of shot-reverse-shot in which her reaction will be captured through a close up shot.
• Post-production: by analysing the two music videos, we have realised how useful and important editing is when understanding representation for example, to portray the artists youth, energy, mental and physical state. Therefore, we have taken into consideration using fast pace cuts in order to imply our character's energy/and or frantic confusion when she realises the truth about her old romance.

Our representation could be argued as hardly unconventional to the genre, possibly not deriving any pleasure from the audience. This is in relation to Abercrombie's theory that 'we derive pleasure from observing how the conventions of a genre are manipulated'; the representation of females within acoustic music, arguably hasn't been 'manipulated' within our music video. However, as already discussed in previous blogs, the intrigue and pleasure that is derived from the constant change in genre within our own music video, is focused upon the strong narrative and lack of performance. Due to this evident lack in performance, the representation of the protagonist will hopefully attract a loyal, acoustic fan base as the representation will appeal in the sense of genre familiarity.