Hostage: Unofficial Music Video - ID# 494

Mundelein

Music Video

Entry Description

The lyrics for this song are originally about a girl and boy. However, my intention was to alter the meaning of the song through creativity and symbolism. I planned it to capture a girl and her darker side, with her darker side being the girl with the gold. She is trapped with this side that "holds her like a hostage". The gold represents her controlling dark side, the strawberry represents her heart, and the fish in the bowl symbolizes herself.... trapped. All the ideas are original and come to life with one camera, one lens, one lightbulb, and two friends :)

Recent Teacher Comments

• 3/4 12:45 pm - Great use of lighting, unique camera angles. Singer/editor does an exceptional job of matching the lip synching. While it is a slow song I found the video very entertaining and captivating. Professional looking video, great job.

Judge 1

Positives: I love so much about this music video. There should be a category here for performance. The acting is fantastic. Mesmerizing, beautiful photography. Really smart editing. I dig the fish mouth synched to the cymbal hit. Bravo.

Improvements: The song is kind of flat, so the visuals stay flat as well. It would be been nice if you could have built the story to a kind of a climax. Maybe she eats the fish.

Judge 2

Positives: Excellent visuals. Symbolism everywhere and a clear vision of complicated situation. Casting was well done. Convincing on camera presence. Editing was paced very well. Not too fast, but fast when it was supposed to be

Improvements: Visually captivating but storywise I didn't find much to latch onto. By the end of the video I was no closer understanding what was going on. That was intentional I'm sure but it's still missing something more subtextual. I could have used more camera movement in and out to break up the sameness of a lot of the shots. Again, if intentional, I get it. But it could have been more interesting visually. I can get this nitpicky because overall, it was really really good. Lots of potential!

Judge 3

Positives: Wow - great production value and art direction. Love the consistent color palette and editing. Beautifully shot.

Improvements: Without your description, I don't think I would have gotten the narrative you propose, but that's okay in a music video. Your inspiration led to a beautiful video with some strong, enigmatic images.

Judge 4

Positives:

Improvements: