Statement of intent

Statement of intent:

For my A level Media Studies coursework, I will be using the song “Big Yellow Taxi” by Joni Mitchell to create a music video protesting for saving the environment.

In my music video I will be using people of different social groups in order to make my audience keener on trying to help save our environment. The different social groups I will use include age and gender because this will encourage the audience to act as people from different ages and genders will be visible. Another thing that will encourage the audience to act is the use of direct eye contact as this is used to reassure the audience about something, in this case that they should act, the use of direct eye contact will also make the audience feel for the actors and actresses that I use in my music video, therefore reinforcing the audience to act. The people that I use to perform in my music video will also be smiling as this will tell the audience that it can be fun to save the environment and you feel good after playing your part. I will also make sure to include things that most think of when someone says the word ‘environmental’, this is mainly plants and waste, I will make sure to incorporate these in at the beginning of my music video as this will inform the audience what the music video is protesting for from the start. My music video will include sections of people lip syncing to the song as this is a performative element and it will be used to create a feeling of ‘we need to do something and this could be fun’, about the subject matter. To promote saving the environment I will use recycling bins  and bikes so that they are not contributing to already high levels of pollution in our atmosphere, this can also be used to inform the audience of what they have to do in order to help save the environment. My music video will use inter-titles in order to get my points across to the audience. The beginning of my music video will be black and white as this will inform the audience how bad our environment is at the moment and it will explain to them that we need to help save our environment. I will use high angle shots towards the beginning of my music video to show that we are vulnerable if we carry on the way that we are and not stopping to help save our environment. We are vulnerable because we will die a lot sooner if we do not protect our planet. Closer to the end of my music video I will use low angle shots and multiple people to show that if we all come together and collectively try to save our environment, then we can overcome these environmental problems that we are faced with now and save our planet.

For my editing, there will be a range in shot length, but they will mostly be long as this can help tell my story better.

For my intertextuality, the people that I use for the saving the environment idea will wear 70's hippie outfits. The 1970's was a time when everybody was focused on saving the environment, it is widely recognisable due to the outfits worn around this time, it included clothing such as: embroidered clothing, loose satin pants, layered clothing, pantsuits, cowl-neck tops, V-neck velour shirts, flower patterns, tennis headbands and platform boots. in the early 1970's, everybody was wearing colourful clothing but by the end of 1970 people were wearing earth tones and black, white and greys.

The narrative in my music video will relate to the song and its lyrics. The main lyrics to the song “They paved paradise and put up a parking lot” is sung eight times throughout the song, at the beginning of my music video I will use people who are fairly old and each time the main lyrics of the song are sung, the age of my performers will decrease, this will show that our planet is old and fragile at the moment, but if we all come together and help then our planet can be restored to being young and full of life.