M3 - Codes and Conventions

The song I chose for my music video is Tickle Me Pink by Johnny Flynn. Johnny Flynn’s music typically revolves around the folk genre, which is also the genre of this song. The style for my music video is narrative to tell a story of my main character finding happiness and freedom in the countryside, away from civilisation and his boring life and everyday job.

Conventions:

Folk genre is mainly base outdoors, in nature – it has a large focus on the environment. This is because folk is a very traditional genre and is related to cultural or national identity due to these traditions. It is usually played with traditional instruments such as string instruments. Due to this link to the countryside, folk music videos can include scenes of nature and appreciation for wildlife and the world along with walking, hiking, and camping in the countryside to further appreciate the environment and world we live in, resulting in a common theme of good, sunny, and warm weather to portray nature as even more beautiful. A lot of folk music videos show raw, simple, and old-fashioned imagery which include bands playing with traditional instruments and simple scenes of nature. Due to folk linking to the countryside, hiking, Due to this old-fashioned nature of the folk genre, characters seen in folk music will also be seen wearing comfortable clothes with subtle colours such as dark green and blue which are appropriate for being outdoors – unlike modern day hiking gear, which is very colourful, lightweight, and expensive. Folk music is typically very deep and meaningful therefore, folk music videos commonly have narrative concepts to be able to explain this deep meaning behind the song to the audience through visuals. Overall, this means that characters must be very relatable to the audience and fit in with the storyline.

Mise-en-scene:

My music video conforms to the conventions of the folk genre as it is all based outside in nature. My video shows beautiful imagery into the valley, on the moor, at a waterfall and next to a stream to show the characters appreciation for nature. Another convention of folk music my music video follows is the theme of good weather, throughout the video it is bright and sunny showing how beautiful the characters journey was. However, towards the end of the video you can see the sky has filled with more clouds and looks slightly moody. This has been done to induce a relaxing feeling in the viewer and to show the character is relaxed as he is finally finished his journey and is free. One part of my music video shows the main character in a slightly more built-up area showing roads, cars, and buildings. This is to link with the opening line to that verse ‘monsters in the valley’, suggesting that civilisation and people in the valley are bad and it is undesirable to live and suffer a normal life. The use of similar metaphor

is is a very common convention of folk genre: that urban is evil. In the next series of shots, you can see the main character making his way back up to the countryside as that is where he belongs – in the beautiful, peaceful environment, further showing his appreciation for nature. Throughout the video you can see my character wearing a comfortable jacket, hoodie, hat, and jeans. These conform to the folk genre as it shows he is wearing comfortable clothes appropriate for hiking which people would wear in more old-fashioned times and not what modern day hikers wear. It is a very common convention of the folk genre that the characters appear just like ‘every day folk’, this is an important representation of the character as it is to appear more relatable to the audience as they too are ‘every day folk’. The story behind my music video has a deep meaning which is very typical for the folk genre. The story is that the main character is a young man who is bored and has grown to hate the normal life everyone lives, the life where you wake up, work, and go to bed only to repeat it the next day, so he escapes it. At the start of the video, you see him at his camp in the morning of the start of his journey, throughout the video you see him travelling and walking to different locations. At one of them you can see he is doubting his choice and is feeling guilty for leaving his old life behind and in another scene, he goes back into the valley – but impulsively decides to head back up to the countryside and becomes the happiest he has ever been. This is also portrayed in the lyrics – which, in folk genre is a must as the deep lyrics and meaning behind the song must be portrayed and linked to the video. In the folk genre it is very common to find a symbolic link between the lyrics and visuals. This is explained by Stuart Hall’s Reception Theory because it states that the producer of the media encodes a maeaning which the audience then decodes. There are three types of decoding, dominant or preferred, negotiated, and oppositional.

Codes:

My music video conforms to the codes of the folk genre as it follows the symbolic codes which are things you see and attach meaning too. For example, in my music video you can see the character progressively begin to appear happier and is smiling as he nearly reaches his destination. This is to link to the fact that he is realising he is finally free and links to the meaning behind the song. When viewers see this change in emotion, they may associate it with the fact he has escaped from his life and is now able to do what he wants and is no longer burdened by the mundane life he used to have.

Another way my music video conforms to the codes of the folk genre is that it follows the technical codes which are things you expect to see and hear in terms of SFX, edits, camerawork and sound. In folk music the visuals are very raw, simple, and old fashioned which include shots of the band/artist (performance) and wide shots of nature and the story behind the song (narrative). Camera work you typically see in performance aspects of folk music videos are master shots/wide shots of the performers which you can see in the instrumental portions of my music video. Other shots you commonly see in the performance aspect of music videos are close ups of the instruments whilst the band/artist is performing. There are two close ups of instruments in my video, and that is in the final chorus where the traditional folk instruments: hand drums and an acoustic guitar can be seen playing by the other two characters. In most of my music video, you can see wide/extreme wide shots of the main character walking with a great view of his surroundings, showing the beautiful moor, woods, and streams, showing this appreciation for nature and the environment, further linking back to what I discussed in the conventions section. Another technical code of the folk genre is the there is no manufactured imagery and effects to further express the convention of nature, countryside, and the wildlife. Throughout my video you can see that no effects have been added to stray away from the natural imagery excluding colour corrections to enhance the beautiful colours of the wildlife.

Uses and Gratifications Model:

The Uses and Gratifications model is the basic idea that the choices which people make are motivated by the desire to satisfy a range of needs. For example, audiences use media for diversion. They absorb media to escape from their daily routines and forget about real life. Diversion is a reason why people may watch my music video as a classic convention of the folk genre is that is focuses on escapism and freedom which is the biggest part of the story of my music video as the whole plot is that he is diverting and escaping from his old, boring life to achieve freedom. Therefore, audiences may use my video to divert from their lives and dream of achieving what my main character has achieved too. The audience may envision themselves as him as their personal identity relates to him as he is achieving their dreams: being free, hiking in nature.

Stuart Hall’s Reception Theory:

Stuart Hall’s Reception Theory states that media texts are encoded by the producer who fills the text with values and messages, which is then decoded by the audience. My music video conforms to this theory as I have encoded the video to show that wanting to be free and being fed up with your everyday life is normal and okay and if you want a break to go on an adventure or leave it all completely behind – that is a good thing. These values will be decoded by the audience by them seeing the difference of my main character’s facial expressions when he returns to the valley and when he realises, he is free and they will decode these expressions to show that being free and away from civilisation is good, peaceful, and relaxing and that if they want to be free like my main character, they should go for it. I believe most audiences will accept my dominant/ preferred meaning because every human on this planet dreams of being free and believes they have the right to do what they want to do and thirsts to be able to do whatever they want without society. However, some audiences may have an oppositional reading as they may be happy living a standard life in civilisation as it is the modern way people live.

The Effects/Hypodermic Model:

The Effects/Hypodermic Model describes that the consumption of media texts has an effect or influence upon the audience who consumes it. It also describes that audiences are passive and powerless and cannot prevent the influence and that the power lies within the message of the text. My music video conforms to this model as one of the subtle parts of my music video is that nature needs to be respected and cared for and I wanted to show how beautiful and freeing it is in my music video. To induce my audience, I have included shots showing a small yet mesmerising waterfall and stream, a couple, brilliant views into the valley showing the other moorland along with general wide shots of the environment my character is in. These shots will influence my audience to be more respectful of the environment and to stop civilisation from destroying its natural beauty by looking at these visuals and seeing how amazing it is. Therefore, my music video will influence my audience to become better people.