Inter-textual references

Our music video utilises a convergence of different characters, shown through the different costumes to represent different personality types (e.g the use of a preppy style of bracers and bow tie to suggest the character is smart and indie). The costumes were also inspired by various film characters and therefore we have our own inter-textual references.


One of the characters featured in our music video is inspired by two cult movies: Clueless and Mean Girls. We decided that the costume in Mean Girls created an image of popularity and sexuality. However, the costumes used in the film are not realistic for our music video and so we had to tone them down. We therefore decided to mix the highly feminine fashion of Mean Girls with the sophisticated and couture fashion of Clueless. This mix creates a character who appears popular and sexual whilst maintaining class. The hot pink costume of the "Mean Girls" theme had to be changed to suit our genre. For example, our Mean Girls-inspired character is wearing black. The style of the clothes is there but the colour we changed as pink is too bright and the theme of our song is dark; therefore black matches our genre. Mean Girl's Regina George and Cluesses' Cher both are similar; they are both rich and failing classes. This represents how luxurious lifestyles can still produce failures. This inspiration was taken into account when constructing our kitchen scene. There is a shot of our Mean Girls/ Clueless character on the floor, seemingly passed out, reflecting how despite her popularity she is still at the bottom of life. A similar character is later seen in the bedroom, passed out on the bed with a bottle in her hand. She drops the bottle, representing her drop in popularity, referencing the Mean Girl's scene in which Cady throws up on Aaron Samuels during her party.

Our idea was also partly inspired by the film Project-X as the film focuses on a series of parties which become destructive. The main way we did this is the simple use of the red cups. The cups have connotations of America and heavy partying and the cups have even begun to become a novelty at British parties. However, to fit our cool, low-key indie genre we toned down the size of the party whilst retaining the cups.

We also borrowed Tove Lo's "Habits" Music Video narrative by following one character during a party. We altered it slightly by not showing the face of the character we follow and by having separate scenes to show the mini-narratives in the party. Tove Lo uses a close-up of the main character's face however we changed it for a point of view shot. This allows the audience to experience the themes of the video more. For example, during the end climax the main character bumps into other characters and as it is a point of view shot filmed on a go-pro it increases intensity. The audience is placed into the protagonists's shoes and it forced to endure the exit as the protagonist does. We had to remove point of view shots however mainly due to quality. We had access to a DSLR and a go-pro and the two qualities differ. The DSLR is much more higher in quality so we swapped out some go-pro shots for DSLR shots, mainly in the living room shots. We used the go-pro shots for transitions to other rooms. When the protagonist goes up the stairs the argument witnessed becomes more evident and more natural due to no cut to another angle.

figure 1

figure 2

I also made an inter-textual reference to Melanie Martinez's music video for 'Dollhouse'. The music video focuses on the reality of the grand-narrative of family and shows the collapse of the grand-narrative (Lyotard). The music video shows the hidden reality of the perfect family and that inspired our own music video. We wanted to collapse a grand-narrative and expose the darkness within it. We chose a party as it matched our age demographic and is therefore relatable. In the music video there are smaller scenes such as the scenes with the son of the family smoking cannabis behind his parent's back. We also chose to mimic the scene with the mother as a mother is seen as caring, perfect and selfless however the music video rejects the stereotype and presents the mother as an alcoholic and uncaring figure. In figure 1 you can see the mother holding a bottle of alcohol and in figure 2 you can see the bottle of alcohol held by our interpretation of  a 'Mean Girl' character. The parallel is an inter-textual reference and we chose to do this as 'Dollhouse' has a very similar theme as our music video.

In my print productions I made some inter-textual references to the fantasy genre of film, most notable Alice in Wonderland. I chose to use a fairy-tale-like colour scheme of bright green, purple and blues. I then used effects which were not physical possible such as a person turning to smoke and water. This was done as people generally like things that are different from the norm. They like things that are out of the blue and a bit quirky. That is why I chose to use interesting effects that appear as though they are from Alice in Wonderland.