Concept Production
Me, Fajar and Raha (our fallen team member) gathered at Raha's house to plan out and discuss the concept for the music video. We had a range of songs with the potential to have made a music video upon however finally we ended up choosing FINNEAS's Medieval because (and I quote from Fajar's blog post of song selection) "it fitted all our ideas. Maryam wanted to represent social issues, I wanted it to be fictional and Aeman wanted it to be dramatic. There was so much we could fit in one video. the lyrics were perfect."
Since I was the one who pitched Medieval as a song choice, I came up with most of the concept after my initial lyric interpretation. I wanted to portray a protagonist impacted by the effects of cancel culture in a symbolic and ambiguous manner which evokes enigma codes throughout the length of the music video leading the audiences to engage in thought regarding the themes connoted such as the cyclical nature of outrage, fragility of power and apathy in the face of change.
During our meeting we discussed various ways in which we could use symbols to connote these themes in a subtle but evocative manner. Fajar initially suggested that we should use a flashback sequence which is overlayed upon the protagonist writing diary entries. I thought this idea was rather interesting and built upon it by suggesting we should have the protagonist sing the lyrics as a narrative tool in a black and white projection depicting her fallen status and warning towards the audience regarding the "medieval" practices which are undertaken by society.
Then Raha pointed out that even though the b/w projection subtly connotes the protagonists passing, it was way too subtle so then we got to brainstorming. I then had the idea of including her death in the flashback via depicting her drowning in a red pool. The red would reduce the subtlety of the symbolization by making the water seem blood-like therefore drawing great attention on the harmful impacts of cancel culture.
Now we had to come up with what to actually include in the flashback sequence of our music video. We needed to come up with shots which represented each of our themes: cyclical nature of outrage, fragility of power and apathy in the face of change.
To connote the fragility of power, Fajar suggested we portray a journalist who writes an article about what really happens "to the new king" (a reference to the lyrics).
Then to connote the cyclical nature of outrage, I suggested we should include shots of the up-and-coming victims of the "medieval" ways of society. I suggested we do this through shots of a girl doing Kathak dance in western attire instead of the traditional eastern to highlight how the new, innovative thing is always the subject of a trend regardless of how far it strays from tradition. The start of the new trend would serve as a foreshadowing to the phases anything (or anyone) go through when viral and how cyclical it is when most get attacked by the outrage of cancel culture. Lastly to connote the apathy in the face of change, we mutually decided that there would be no portrayal of any justice towards the protagonist. The feeling that nothing ever truly changes breeds apathy and discourages engagement with real solutions.
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