Major project research

One of the first things I did after choosing what to do for this project was research
other music videos/films that used the song. Some of them sparked inspiration and
some were entertaining to watch.
dodie's videos using the songs.

Even though this is just dodie singing the song live I really like the camera work and
the vibes that the video gave. It's comforting to watch, and it feels like an intimate
little concert. The camera work is very fluid, and I like the colours they have chosen
to use for lighting. They change between orange and blue. Although my idea is
vastly different, I thought it was good to include this in my research as it is one of the
songs I am using.
 This is the very original video of She that Dodie uploaded onto YouTube. I would like
to take inspiration from the stop motion that dodie included. I remember listening to
this song when I first learnt about dodie’s music, it made me feel valid because when
I started listening was around the time, I started questioning in depth my own
sexuality. This video brings me a calming comfort.
Rainbow

This is the first video dodie uploaded to her YouTube channel that contained her
song rainbow. It is widely appreciated by the LGBTQ+ community and people find
comfort in it. It has been one of the songs that I have felt connected to because I
have felt the same feelings that the song explores. It is one of my favourite songs by
dodie
 More recently dodie uploaded this lyric video to her channel in which you can see a
tear fall down her face and I want to use this idea within my music video.

Other people's music videos with the same songs

I enjoyed this video, it may not have the best camera work, but the person explores
with lots of art materials, so it is interesting. They use paper, card, Lego, felt tips and
cut out drawings to help tell the story. As well as stop motion there is some clips of
them together which makes it personalised. It inspired me because I want to use
stop motion in my music video.
I liked this music video because in the beginning they appear to use 2 girls who are
in a relationship, and it contains a lot of footage of them living their everyday life. It
doesn't seem like it's too scripted and just for the camera. They seem to have natural
chemistry which probably made it easier to create this music video.
The almost 4-minute music video is a glimmer into their lives and love which is what I
would like to create within my work.
About 2 minutes and 20 seconds in, a new character gets introduced which changes
the theme from love to heartbreak as one of the girls is now being intimate with
another girl and the girl that was in the relationship is upset and going to all the
places, they used to go together all by herself. I really like the way this person has
layered videos in the post production stage. They use this to communicate what the
person has lost because the happy memories are layered with the realisation that
the person isn't there.
Even though it's only 30 seconds, the standard of the animation is good, and I really
enjoyed watching it. It uses colour well even in its simplicity. I would like to look at
animation for a part of this project.

This has good cinematography; I adore their filming style and a lot of effort has gone
into making this look visually pleasing as well as telling a story without using
dialogue as the song ‘She’ is used throughout. It has inspired me a lot for my own
music video for ‘She.’
 This has particularly good cinematography, there are shots used that help the
viewers know where it is set. It shows the relationship between the couple, this is
different to most music videos with this song as it uses a boy and a girl instead of 2
girls. They use shots at the beginning with the couple and then again at the end with
just the boy, it puts a somber mood onto what used to be happy and full of love.

I really enjoyed this music video; it has been shot very well. There is a wide variety
of shots used and they help you feel close to the actors when that is needed for
example there is a moment where one girl goes to hold the others hand and they
have used a shot that shows hands and part of a torso you cannot see their faces,
so you really focus on the hands.
You can tell that they have planned their idea well and have spent time choosing
which time of shot to use. The story is helped by the song, and you can feel the
actor's emotions even when you don’t get the chance to hear them talk.
she - Dodie - ANIMATIC
I like the way this person draws, it's simple but pretty. Some things are repeated on
certain lines. And the drawings fit the lyrics for example ‘we could not be more far
apart’ the two characters are sat either side of the frame which shows distance. This
has shown me that the drawings I would like to do can be simple and still get the
point across. The drawings help tell the story that the lyrics are communicating.
Music videos by others that use ‘Rainbow’.

The drawings are simple; they don’t have faces, just outlines of bodies. This person
has some strong ideas but to me the large use of text takes away from the drawings
which changes the feel of the overall video, maybe they didn't develop their idea for
long enough and that could be why some lyrics are text without drawings. I know I
would like to use some of my drawings in my rainbow music video so looking at this
video was helpful.
 This video shows the story of the creator. You can see via drawings them being
confused as to who they are but as the video goes on and they learn who they are
and start to smile which in the beginning their expressions are blank because they
weren't happy with their assigned gender, they are trans. In my music video for
rainbow, I would like to explore my coming out journey, so this was a good video to
research into.
They have matched the drawings well to the lyrics. I like how they have used a grey
background. The drawings show that people of the LGBTQ+ community feel lost. I
don't think this animatic would have been as strong if they didn't have the song.

dodie -cool girl

This video helped my cinematographer's when filming the dance section of the music
video that I made accompanied with the song ‘she’. in the future I would like to work
on sets of music videos as they are very fun to create. The song can mean different
things depending on the audience, but the artist can talk about their own ideas to the
film crew, and I feel like music video sets are fun. The music video can influence the
way the song is viewed.
Rose-Coloured Girl

This popped up in my YouTube suggest watch list, so I decided to watch it, then I
realised they used the song she by dodie just like I have for one of my music videos.
It is a very cool concept that has been well filmed. I wish I were making this project
outside of covid times because I would have loved to use actresses and the outside
world to tell the story.
I thought it would be fun to add some doodles to my music videos as it is something
that dodie does and I thought it would be a little nod towards her and if people that
know dodie’s videos watch my music video hopefully they will notice the connection.
I really like the doodles in dodie’s videos even though they are usually little stars or
even squiggly lines they still add to the overall video. Also, I think it will help me learn
how to add doodles into premiere pro which I could then use in other pieces of my
work.
YouTube, dodie’s channel
LGBTQ+ Representation
University of Liverpool – blog about villain and queer cinema
I wanted to look at representation of the LGBTIQ+ community so I used this blog. I
learnt that a lot of films use queer coding which meant I had another term to
research and educate myself more on. I have heard of queer coding before but not in
association with films. The blog writer shares her opinions about queer
representation and how it helped her. The more representation out there the better
because more people will feel comfortable coming out. I hope the music video I
make will give comfort to some people.
Her campus article about Queer coding
This taught me that some tv shows and films Queer bait, which means they grasp
the LGBTIQ+ community with a hint towards a LGBTIQ+ character but they don’t go
through with it they just do it for views which is bad.
Everyone should be titled to representation. It makes me angry that they can't
represent a community within their show or film, it is not that hard. Some tv
shows/films represent well but others are bad, or they don’t use LGBTIQ+ characters
at all. Normalise it, every now and then have a LGBTIQ+ character they exist, they
are people not unicorns.

Posted in 2016, this YouTube video explores queerbaiting and queer coding in
Disney and other shows. They mention that it is usually the villains that get Queer
coded which gives the connation that being LGBTIQ+ is bad which is wrong and
infuriating as an LGBTIQ+ person myself. I never noticed before that Disney only
seem to queer code their villains. If straight people find validation from seeing
themselves represented, isn't it only fair to represent LGBTIQ+ people to the same
standard?
Like Rowan says kids learn about the world from Disney shows so if there was
LGBTIQ+ representation in Disney films it would be better for the children that will
eventually realise that they are a part.
Action research.
After shooting my music videos there have been some things I have investigated that
I didn't before. This is known as creative practice development. Researching while
doing post production work is still worthwhile, it grows your understanding and helps
with interpretation.
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19 April 2021.
For my video using rainbow I have filmed it by myself and it's of me, so it involves
self-portrait. Seeing as I have already filmed it, I will have to use research to reflect
on the work instead of the research influencing the work.
There's this real simplicity to my music video for rainbow, it is a series of locked off
shots against a plain white wall. I wanted to have this background so there were no
distractions and viewers are able to understand the storyline without being too
distracted by the visuals. It is self-portraiture but in video form. The topic itself is
personal so I think that being the only person onset made it more intimate in a way. It
reflects the coming out journey I had was personal and only me that experienced it
from my perspective and the filming process was something that only I experienced.
Everyone that watches the video sees the altered and edited footage, I was the only
one through the messy parts of filming just like I was the only one who saw my true
battles of realisation that led to my coming out. The world only saw my radiance of
coming out when I had gone through tough times.
Andy Warhol Screen tests
I decided to look at Andy Warhol and his screen tests as they have this simpleness
to them, it feels personal as it's just that person looking at the camera. They look like
portraits. I like this body of work as it seems to blend film with photography. It also
shows me that not everything needs to be highly produced to become famous and
well known. Sometimes success can be found in the stripped back version of
artwork.
 Another document I looked at that has relations to moving image portraiture. It's
written by Stephen Burstow and there is lots of evidence and quotes of people's
views towards self-portraits. It discusses how the process is performative and isn't
truly the person's true self. Reading this made me start to think deeper into
self-portraiture and what parts of it are real and what are made look real when the
reality behind it is made up. Burstow uses resources well and includes a reference
list which shows he collected things to explore in his writing and this more than likely
expanded his knowledge on the subject.

BFI Flare London LGBTIQ+ Film Festival trailer

As my work has relations to LGBTIQ+ people I could place it into a festival that
shows LGBTIQ+ unfortunately this festival has been and gone but the BFI is always
something I can become involved with in the future. Researching into the trailer has
given me a insight to the quality of work that they accept.
Pas De Deux
As I have researched pas de deux for a previous project I already had knowledge on
it but I decided to research it again for this project as it relates to the dance section of
my music video for ‘She’. Pas de deux is shot on a plain black background like my
dancing is. The only difference is they have silhouetted the dance and I haven't. I
think that this worked well for that body of work. I didn’t want to silhouette myself in
my music video as there is a theme of connections; the sun and the moon, water and
sadness, the 2 actors, love and heartbreak. I feel like the silhouette would have
changed the theming as it's almost this empty human as you can't see features
clearly, it feels as though the silhouetted person is a ghost.
This is a body of work that I will forever love as it combines two of my interests,
dance and filmmaking.
Dodie’s music video for rainbow
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On May 7 as a part of her debut album, dodie released 12 lyric videos that worked
together, included in that was a music/lyric video for rainbow. Even though I have
created my music videos, I still wanted to include this in my research section. In this
video dodie looks sad to begin with, it's how the song starts but by the end she is
happier and there is rainbow lighting. In my music video for rainbow, I communicate
sadness and as it progresses, I get happier. I didn’t have this video for inspiration
while filming but it is something I can be inspired by for future projects. It uses
lighting well and I like the simpleness in the camerawork, it is not distracting from the
storyline.

The Art Story, Gesamtkunstwerk

Gesamtkunstwerk is a German word, and it's used to describe united works of art. It
looks at the combination of artforms to make a new piece of art. Richard Wagner
made this term more well known, the word is not used much nowadays but when it is
used it is for multimedia artworks or installation pieces.
Also, on this link there is a timeline where different artistic outcomes are talked
about, seeing the progression was fascinating. It also points out the influences that
the artists had.
This word relates to my work as I am using someone's song which can be seen as a
piece of art, I am using photographs as well as filming as my media. Some shot
ideas were influenced by other creator's camera work. The props I am using have
been made by other people, so my music videos are a collection of other people's art
to create a new piece of art. I didn’t know this word before today but now I know so
my knowledge has been expanded.