Here we will look indepth of our song choice 'Catch Me In The Air' by Rina Sawayama (2022) which was done by my group and I together
Catch me in the air by Rina Sawayama does not currently have an official music video but does have a official visualiser. A visualiser differs from a music video by being less focused on storytelling and instead simply being an abstract representations of music that enhances the experience through dynamic visuals.
1. Song Background;
Genius.com, a lyrical database and digital media company, has provided a small description of the song
“ 'Catch Me In The Air' is the second single from Rina Sawayama’s Hold the Girl album. The song details Sawayama’s relationship with her single mother, and how they have supported each other through difficult times."
Genius.com, a lyrical database and digital media company, has provided a small description of the song
“ 'Catch Me In The Air' is the second single from Rina Sawayama’s Hold the Girl album. The song details Sawayama’s relationship with her single mother, and how they have supported each other through difficult times."
Rina also introduced the song on her Dynasty Tour with "I wrote a very special song and it's about my relationship with my mom who's a single mom. [...] I just wanted to write the fact that we have caught each other when we're falling, and so this song is called 'Catch Me in the Air'." (information found on a website called the Rina Sawayama Wiki)
We can conclude that this song is about the relationship between a single mother and her child as each other’s support system and how their relationship has evolved now that they’re both on their own.
2. Why we choose it
The song was suggested by a friend who's a fan of the artist. We liked the song as it had consisted of a narrative that we can easily follow and develop upon. The song is also really heartwarming which will allow us to more easily invoke an emotional response from our audience, making it easier for us to keep our audience engaged as they will have a stronger attachment to our music video. In addition to that, since the artist does not have an official music video, we have more freedom to experiment and create a narrative based on the meanings we capture from the lyric. These reasons are why this song in particular stuck out to us among all our other options.
3. How your music video will be different
Genius contributors mentioned the first verse of the song is written in the perspective of Rina's mother but we plan to subvert this idea by exclusively sticking to the artists' point of view. This way, it will put the audience in the artist's point of view and would create a stronger emotional reaction more effectively.
Additionally, we choose to subvert from Rina Sawayama's usual style. In the music video she is seen wearing more modern chic clothes, which is a convention more strongly associated with pop artists, whereas we choose simpler rural-like clothing which is more frequent in indie pop artists. This is because our star's persona conveys her more as a simpler girl, keen on keeping close to her roots. Furthermore, in comparison to how her video consists mostly of visual performances taking into account that it is an official visualizer instead of a music video, instead of following that, we'll be creating a storyline.
Reflection: I had wished I'd done this task much earlier as I felt like it would've aided in the planning the narrative when I had fully understood the lyrics and meanings behind all the lines. Writing down our plan on how to subvert from conventions was also a great addition to the task as we could refer back to it before the production phase to ensure our music video will stand out amongst others.
Problems: As ridiculous as it was, I was the only one from my group that was present during the distribution of this task by my teacher. I was worried because of this, I would have to take over a lot of the tasks while my teammates were occupied with other matters.
Solutions: I had done a part of the tasks that were given to me on the day and left other parts empty. I informed my group on said tasks and asked them to complete it on their own time, whenever available. I think this was great since we were all able to take part in this song research while also adding our own opinions could broaden our imaginations, especially with how our music video will stand out.