Facial Expressions Reserach

A good artist must be a good actor, especially when it comes to music videos. A good actor knows that human emotions are mainly communicated by facial expressions, so body language is a key element in the determination of whether her or she is a good or bad actor – this falls a lot into mise en scene, an aspect which is used when analysing any sort of media, be a music video or a front page magazine image. Facial expressions and gestures have to be congruent with the delivery of the lines. If the actor(ess) is effective at combining nonverbal and verbal forms of communication, the audience will forget what they are viewing (for example a music video) and believe they are watching something in front of them from the emotion they give.  Some artists will cause an audience to squint their eyes in fright or cry with sympathy.

Portraying the raw emotions of music involves the entire body and the way the artist carries themselves. When they perform a sad song, the emotion will portray a lot in the eyes and slumped body language. Often artists compose music videos about songs they have written which relate to their lives or a past experience - this allows them to involve genuine emotion and a much more natural performance. However, the ability to use and read body language and facial expressions during a performance is not always an advantage for a musician. Some artists try to create a certain way of expressing themselves on stage, and that comes across as contrived to many people, but the musicians who let their movements flow from their feeling inside have an effect on people. 

A good example of this is Eliza Doolittle. She uses a lot of facial expressions to create feeling and emotion. Her songs are open and they tend to relate to real life situations therefore the audience can empathise and relate to the lyrics - her facial expressions are directed from the lyrics and are used to engage the audience even more so. The body language she conveys when she is putting on an emotional performance matches perfectly with the lyrics of the song. 

In the image above, I have created a photo collage of two screen shots from her video 'Let It Rain' - she is singing about a boy she has lost and you can tell this from her blank and hurt emotion in the top image, however when she relates back to happier memory of him (this happens in our song when the 'mother' refers to her daughter - a nostalgic memory 'I can say that you look pretty... You turn my legs into spaghetti... You set my heart on fire...'), her facial expressions change from bruised to a smirk.