Product

Lately, I've really enjoy the relaxing dream narrative behind the song "Fantasy" by Alina Baraz. The narrative is a simple one but elicits a lot of the listeners to create their own stories and fantasies that give it more dimension as a piece. So for this project, I wanted to represent the fantasy narrative in a visual form, but then suddenly twist the original narrative by the second half of my work. In order to execute this piece, I used Adobe Premier to mix and add video with the music.

Intention

(If you care about spoilers, don't read until you've watched)

My goal with this piece was to twist the dream narrative of the song to become an example of the extreme difference between fantasies and the darkness that fuels such illusions. In order to execute my goal, I wanted to make the video aesthetically pleasing and calm at first to still represent the original narrative. However, I was going to create a dark and monstrous turn that would surprise viewers. Therefore, I chose women and beauty to be the fantasy because it was a subject that would lull the most people into the dream (either viewers might want to be or be with these women). In addition, I found that it was very natural to create and destroy the dream environment around women's beauty.

Context

I think the strongest source that lead me to this outcome was the music video of "Best Friend", by Foster The People. The idea behind their piece was similar in that it showed the vanity and monstrous dark extremes a person would go to for beauty. Therefore, it fueled my idea and became a good amount of the video content of my work.

Process

I decided that since women's beauty was going to be my subject, I was going to use summer music videos and model photoshoots as my initial content. In my first iteration, I was simply going to have the entire music video be just a fantasy for the original story of the song and then a couple of dark images by the end. However, I found that it didn't bring out the right message and wasn't surprising enough. I then took the clips from the music video of "Best Friend" and put it in the middle of the fantasy clips. Again, the message wasn't clear and was confusing as to what was happening. Finally, I made the first half the fantasy and the second half the destruction of the fantasy.

Reflection

I think I'm for the most part satisfied, but I still want to perfect it. A part of me isn't sure if the message is still clear, but I guess that depends on the audience's response. I've learned a lot about the small details that can twist the narrative of a piece, and also I've learned a lot of technical skills related to Adobe Premier. I think if I could do this again, I would not only add visuals to the song, but also distort the song by the end to accentuate the final theme.

Attribution

Song: Fantasy by Alina Baraz (Vice Remix)

Videos:

Summer by Calvin Harris

Best Friend by Foster The People

Don't Give Up by Blinkie

High By The Beach by Lana Del Rey