Sea Oleena – Milk

‘Milk’ is a song written by singer/ songwriter Sea Oleena, which is a project made by Canadian Charlotte Oleena. This song if from her second mini album ‘Sleeplessness.’ The album explores an ambient dream pop and experimental post folk feel. This song sits in the blues ambient lo-fi fi shoe gaze genre. The music video was produced by motion piczer who are based in Lodz, Poland.

Goodwin’s theoryGoodwin’s theory states that each different music genre follows a particular characteristic, which define the genre. Sea Oleena’s ‘Milk’ is known as dream pop and Ambient pop; there are many different factors, which contribute to these genres when making a music video.

A main convention of dream pop videos is that they follow a relationship between the lyrics and visuals (so they are illustrative, amplify and contradict). Within this music video, there seems to be a deeper meaning with the lyrics and visuals. The whole idea is ambiguous as it may be interpreted in many different ways, in

my opinion from reading and listening to the lyrics and even taking meaning from the video, I believe the video is based on depression and power. By looking at the lyrics it states, “the only living ghost to grace the hall.” By comparing ‘living ghost’ to the characteristics of the girl you can see the lack of emotion within their facial expressions and body language to compare them to something, which

feels dead inside. You are able to see them through close ups of their faces and long shots of them looking dead with their long hair covering their faces. This theme carries on throughout the lyrics as it says ‘float to the window’ by saying ‘float’ it gives the impression of the ghost floating down the corridor; they feel like they have no purpose when waking up. Another theory I gathered from looking at the music video and lyrics is that is states, “meanwhile on the battlefield” the use of battlefield may refer back to depression and showing the thoughts of someone who may have depression by thinking of the noble soldiers who are fighting for us to live and dying on the battlefield in

pride but comparing them to oneself ad society who may have not experienced what they have but still have the feeling of wanting to die. The music video shows a repetitive scene of a girl running through

woodlands through a long shot tracking shot, with a low angle looking up at her to show her dominance and power. There is also the use of various medium shots taken from the side of her with a gun and then holding a bird in a different still long shot. These scenes may represent the battle of evolution and how us humans are predators and kill other species for survival; this may show that we are only here on earth to stay alive and reproduce which may give the feeling to someone that there is inevitably no point in living if we have no purpose. The shots of the birds flying may suggest that they are free whilst the girl is trapped, therefore the girl hunting them may be doing it out of jealousy to hunt them down as they are free, to hope to find it herself (which also relates back to the battlefield), the girl holding the dead bird also may represent the soldiers who die on the battlefield and she may represent the other side who is ultimately the enemy. In the chorus is states, “float to the window, open the blinds, now never mind.”Whilst showing a revered clip of a girl at a window rapping herself in curtains, this may symbolise the idea of depression when people wake up and regret it and wish they didn’t get up in the first place, the use of reverse represents their thoughts of them reversing back in time to just stay in bed.

Another theory of Goodwin is the relationship with the music and visuals. The pace of edit is slow to fit the tempo of the music, the shots are always slightly moving with the very still shots of the girl’s faces. Because dream pop is quite a slow paced genre, a lot of the time there aren’t many shots because they are long paced shots to fit the music. During the chorus of the song a quicker beat and

more instruments are included in the music and the video follows this. The shots change to the beat of the drum in the background and show a woman spinning round to then an owl. The owl may represent being a predator, which relates back to the theme throughout the film of mankind. The use of pastel colours in independent videos is very popular due to the cinematic feel that it gives off and the lighting seem but higher key to give off better visuals. There are no visuals of the lead singer, as dream pop doesn’t focus on making as much money as they possibly can but focuses on the art of their music video. Rather than sexualising the girl’s, whom

the pop industry does, there is a lot of feedback stating how the music video and music is beautiful rather than just the girls.

The third theory states the demands of the record label showing close ups of the artists and motifs used within the video. The song was released on Pitchfork, everything created for this artist is independent so the music company didn’t rely on the use of popular videos to promote Sea Oleena but rather focused on the art of the video compared to the music. The only thing, which could be considered a motif, is the use of the girls in the music video as they are represented to be quite dull and have lack of emotion, which relates back to the music. The use of bird is prevalent in the video as the girl sits and day dreams with them flying on the wall which also relates back to her thinking she is trapped and wishing she was free like the birds. There’s also the use of a triangle transition, from the comments some people believe that it may because of the ‘illumanati’ other comments state that it’s a symbol for control and self assurance. The first shot of the music video shows a shot of a videotape with the title of the music giving credit to Sea Oleena and motion pickzer who created the film. Towards the end theirs a small title sequence giving recognition of all the people involved in the making of the video.

Another theory is that the music video demonstrates genre characteristics (e.g.: a rock video may show live performances to show the relationship with the band and their fans.) The major technique used in dream pop is the subdued atmosphere from the vocals and melodies to make it feel very dream like – the music creates and follows the music with the dream like sequences of the whole video. As the of the video tape at the beginning it already feels like the whole thing isn’t real and a sequence of tapes put together to symbolise a bigger meaning. The use of the steady beat in the chorus also follows conventions of dream pop with the shots following this beat and changing when they change. Dream pop focuses on a blanketing feel and doesn’t rely on the walls of sound, looking at the idea of blanketing this may be why the whole video is based on depression as of the feel that most dream pop gives off. Within this music video the use of pail, simple clothing is worn on the females this may be so that full attention is aimed at them and the colours may represent the idea of milk as everything is white which also relates to the lyrics of the video saying ‘calcium sipper’. The lighting is natural throughout which makes it look quite sharp and rich, hard settings, which I believe, compliments the whole simplicity of the

video. Plus this may portray the different girls emotions in the video, by the plain clothing to represent their mind and their emotions within, how they feel empty. 

Another theory is that is shows the frequent references to the notion of looking, in a lot of music videos; they focus on the treatment of women so that they attract the male gaze. Even though this video doesn’t sexualise women, it focuses a lot on them by having an all girl cast. Some shots in the bath and sink they aren’t wearing but clothing but rather than seeing this as sexualising it, I believe its to symbolise the emptiness through the use of subtle colours and clothing. From looking at the comments, the comments seem to focus on the beauty of the video and music rather than just the girls.

The video seems to primarily based on depression so looking at textual references, they may have been inspired by films such as ‘Girl interrupted’ and ‘Helen’ based on the topic of a mental illness. Finally the last theory is that the video is primarily performance based, narrative based or concept based and how the element is used within the music video. For Sea Oleena’s “milk”, the video is very concept based due to the apparent fact that there is no one answers to what the lyrics and video means but many different theories and personal perspectives on it. Due to everyone’s individual experiences, they may relate to the video and music in many different ways as there is no one feeling towards this music but many different.

Brief Timeline of Video:

The video begins with an establishing shot of the house in which most of the video is set.

There’s many similar shots to this one showing girls stood meaningless showing their emotion.

Images of a girl by the window relating to the lyrics.

Different shots of girls in baths and sinks and milkshake/ pastel pink liquid representing milk/calcium.

Images of the girl hunting (keeps flicking back at this scene)

Shot of the videotape similar to beginning to shoe the end and carry on the narrative.