Evaluation Question 1 - Harsh Makwana 7101

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Conventions of an Indie/Pop music video:

• Live performance from the artist 

• Main settings are in studios, cities, parks, streets 

• Narrative is shown through the visuals 

• Dialogue is often used to either begin the narrative or conclude the story 

• Extreme close-ups are common as it introduces the artist or the antagonist to the audience 

• Tilt shots and pan shots are commonly used 

• Handheld shots are also used, often to show a memory 

• Filters are often used to give the audience a certain idea - eg. black and white filter is often used to show a memory or to represent the past 

• Fast and slow cuts between shots are used, often to reflect the pace of the music, creating an atmosphere for the music video 

Goodwin's theory states there are 5 key aspects to a music video:

1. Relationship between the song and visuals
2. Narrative and performance of the song
3. Thought-through beat
4. Technical aspect of a music video
5. Star image being made the centre of attention

There is a relationship between our visuals and the lyrics of the song to some extent. There are lyrics linking to independence, freedom and travelling, and we have incorporated that into our visuals, with shots of trains and a lot of walking shots. There is no fixed narrative; we deceived upon this as it would give us freedom and allow our creativity to take over, illustrating the theme of freedom and independence. In terms of a thought-through beat, we had every clip in our music video cut to the beat, with that changing to every half-beat during the second half of the chorus. We did this as there was a guitar added to the track at that point, making the tempo sound faster, so we decided to reflect and enhance that change of tempo through the visuals. We also decided to increase the speed of these clips to again amplify the change of tempo.

Prior to filming our music video, we as a group had to decide what conventions we planned to adhere to, and what conventions to challenge. Taking inspiration from many different Indie/Pop music videos, here is how our media product uses, develops or challenges forms and conventions of real media products:

Gender Neutralisation and The Fourth Wall

Initially, we intended to use a male actor to lip-sync the male vocals however as a group, we decided it would be interesting to go against the stereotypical music video and have a female lip-sync a male's voice. It has been done previously, most notably in The Hunna - Never Enough music video, where they too have a female lip-syncing a male, however it is not conventional. During our lip-syncing scenes, similar to that of The Hunna - Never Enough music video, the female actress is positioned centrally, linking to one of Goodwin's features of the star image being made the centre of attention. Our actress is against a black background and is seen wearing a fur coat, with her collar bones on show. Although many music videos do feature sexualisation of the female body, most notably the works of Robin Thicke and Miley Cyrus, it is not necessarily a convention of the Indie/Pop genre and so we decided to stay away from that, with our actress' collar bones only being made apparent to highlight natural beauty as opposed to sexualising her.

Something that we explored and that comes under one of Goodwin's features is the fourth wall and the breaking of it. Regardless of the genre, the fourth wall is almost always broken in music videos, with the actors or artists looking directly into the camera. We decided to adhere to this convention as it would be easier to film and make the acting more authentic. We also decided to break the fourth wall to build up rapport with the audience. As mentioned in the costume section of this blog post, all the actors are of a similar age as the target audience, and so we made the decision to further this empathy between the audience and the video by having the lip-syncing done directly into the camera and by also having the actors looks into the camera at various points in the video. As seen below, no matter what genre the music is, the breaking of the fourth wall is a reoccurring theme. 

Our breaking of the fourth wall

The Hunna - Never Enough

Pop/Rap Song

Rap Song

Indie/Pop

Mise-en-Scene

Costume

As we, the members of the group, were the actors in the music video, and we are all of a similar age to our target audience, we decided to wear our own clothes in order to enhance the relationship between our video and our audience. Our costume also reflecting the theme of that sort of 'urban youth' lifestyle. Our costume is also similar to other Indie/Pop songs, for example The Wombats - Give Me A Try, adhering to a convention of the Indie/Pop genre:

Our Media Product

The Wombats - Give Me A Try 

Setting

As mentioned before, our music video aims to highlight freedom and independence, reflecting the fast paced lives that teenagers live. One way that we encoded this into our video is thought the use of many different settings. One setting in particular that takes up the majority of our music video is God's Own Junkyard, a neon light shop. We used this as a setting as the venue itself is bright and vibrant, which was what we initially set out to achieve. Another one of our settings was at a party. As seen below, the party was a neon party, which fit the theme of our music video perfectly. This is something many music videos have explored, espeicially when focusing on the youth and young adults as it is an aspect of youth life, especially in Indie/Pop songs, such as The Wombats - 1996.

Our party scene

The Wombats - 1996

Editing

As mentioned previously, lip-syncing directly into the camera is a convention of all music videos, not only the Indie/Pop genre. The editing of the lip-syncing shots against the audio line was difficult to perfect due to the timing. We as a group wanted to perfect this piece of editing as it was vital in establishing rapport with the audience. We used stabilisation in may of the party shots again to enhance the rapport with the audience; party scenes are very common in music videos and because our target audience are of a similar age to us, parties are very much a part of the youth's lives and in stabilising these clips, we made the content of the video more immersive. We also edited our footage to have many quick cuts and jump cuts. We included these clips to accentuate how quickly life goes by, and how in particular the teenage years fly by. This is a technique also used by other music videos, such as The Wombats - Give Me A Try:

Quick cuts in our music video

Quick cuts in The Wombats' music video

Conventions of a Digipak

Front Cover

• Eye-catching
• Album cover art
• Usually has the same artwork as the CD

Internal Panels

• Booklet
• Name of band/artist
• List of songs on album
• Song lyrics
• Personal Messages
• Artist information 

Our Digipak

Overall, our digipak conforms to the conventions of real media texts. We took inspiration from Michael Jackson's 'This Is It' as well as many other digipaks with the track list on the back panel. We also took inspiration from many other digipaks with the featuring of a lyrics sheet on one of the inside panels. We also took inspiration from the digipak below in that the protagonist of the music video is at the forefront of the digipak cover. 

Magazine Advert

Real media texts are very similar in that they do tend to feature the artist on the front cover. In a similar way, the magazine advert for 'Said and Done' also features the protagonist in the forefront. We took inspiration from the way they used the rule of thirds and in response, positioned our protagonist centrally to create an rapport with the audience as seen below: