Monday, February 23, 2015

Medium Specificity

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Bt7m9H60gQ

         My medium specificity assignment is a silent music video of the song “Nothing’s Wrong” by Echosmith.  One of the biggest points of this video is that the human body is a piece of art that is capable of sharing thoughts and feelings in many different ways.  While watching a music video, the viewer is bombarded by vocals, instrumentation, and a visually dynamic moving image.  There is so much in a music video that distracts from the performer, including color.  Take Taylor Swift’s music video for “Blank Space” as an example.  While being an incredible piece of art, there is a lot of distraction from the main point of a music video: to see the singer actually sing. 
         In my video for “Nothing’s Wrong,” there are many things that lead the viewer to appreciate the actual singing aspect.  For example, most of the video is in black and white.  The performer barely moves throughout the video to create minimal distraction.  She is blindfolded so that the viewer has to look at her mouth.  And, of course, there is no sound.  If the viewer wants to know what the singer is saying, he or she has to pay careful attention to try and read her lips.  The random shots that are in color represent the desire to break out and do something crazy and exciting, which are what many music videos are like.
In the text written by Scott McCloud, he discusses how he regained an interest in comics as he got older because there seemed to be something there that wasn’t there before.  He said, “I felt that there was something lurking in comics…something that had never been done.  Some kind of hidden power!” (3).  There aren’t many music videos that don’t have sound.  This new way of viewing a music video forces the viewer to appreciate music in a new way.  The singer’s lips move according to a certain beat as they mouth the words to the song that clearly must be playing even though it cannot be heard.  This video addresses some disabilities such as deafness, blindness, and color blindness and that something still exists even when it cannot be experienced.  For example, if a person cannot hear, that does not mean that music doesn’t exist.  Music can exist in many different forms, even if it is only in the mind.

In conclusion, one does not need to hear music in order to feel it.  It is not even necessary to hear the words to know what is going on.  So many songs have such beautiful or important messages that are drowned out by too much noise, both visual and aural.           

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