Analysing the Break and Imagery in Our Video

We have completed the break section of our video, which is the most technically ambitious parts of the video due to all of the layering but one that is also very vital to the narrative.

This section shows the character watching homemade footage of him and his now dead girlfriend out together, but ultimately the toxic images he associates with religion fill his mind and prevent him from finding the relief he desires in religion. This is such a big part narratively because combined with the few shots leading up to this break, this is where the narrative turns on its head, and it stops being a story about someone who wants to find relief in religion and becomes a story about someone who cannot find relief in religion. 

On the technical side, there's a lot going on in this section. Edited using HitFilm4Express, the audio has several layers, with the popping in of samples and strange distribution between left and right channels being intentional to create an uncomfortable feeling that represents our character's instability. Sound effects used include VHS static, white noise, and more violent static effects which pop in and out. The most interesting audio effect here though comes from this interview with 1975 frontman Matty Healy:

As we are making a video for The 1975 we felt it should reflect their religious views, especially with the song being so heavily about religion. We found this interview which helped us mould our narrative into what it is now, and decided it would be a nice hidden effect if we managed to include the audio of this interview somewhere in the video.

The break was the best place for it to fit, so we isolated the audio of the video, pitched it down and added echo and distortion effects onto it so the voice cannot be heard clearly. What we ended up producing was an almost Satanic sounding deep distortion in the background that perfectly fits the jarring feeling we were going for, while also having the nice addition of adding a thematically relevant hidden message to the video

For the visuals of this segment, we have several images pop up in the footage of the girlfriend that are meant to be images of toxicity that the character associates with religion. We also linked this back to the band, as Healy has also spoken about how he cannot support religion because it prohibits the empowerment of women (source: https://humanism.org.uk/about/our-people/patrons/matty-healy/), and one of the images that flashes on screen is of a man attacking a woman. Further images used include Jesus on a crucifix (to drive home that all of this imagery is linked to religion), the Nazis burning books, a video of a priest attacking a child, ISIS soldiers and an intimidating homeless person at an underpass.

We want this imagery to be quite jarring and disturbing compared to the rest of the video but also maintain thematic relevance, which we feel we have accomplished, though we will still seek audience feedback to confirm this.