In what ways do your media products use, develop or

challenge forms and conventions of real media

products?  

Music video…

In ways our music video both meets and challenges typical conventions of music videos. We felt it is necessary to meet some for it to look

professional and be received well by the audience, however, the ways we have challenged these conventions make it interesting and we feel

reflect the storyline and song lyrics well.

How our music video develops forms and conventions of real products:

Characters Through intense research of music videos, I have a good understanding of typical features of music videos and therefore, along with my group, tried hard to incorporate these into our own product. Firstly, many artists music videos feature one

protagonist character (often being themselves) with one or two less important figures; we have used these idea by staring the artist ‘Elle’ as the

main character in the video with a main male, Harry, who is seen significantly less and a final character, Sarah, who is seen very briefly. The

lengths of their appearances indicate their importance to the story.

This scene shows all three of the characters that feature in

my music video.

Lip SyncingA convention of music videos which we have developed in our product is the

method of lip syncing to make it appear like the protagonist character is singing the lyrics. Here are three clips where our actor did this:

 

We felt that by including lip syncing in the music video, it will make the character appear more involved in the song as she is actually saying the lyrics,

suggesting to the audience she actually feels this way. Our reason for including lip syncing in the music video was due to our research on music videos of an indie/ pop genre which all included this convention. I feel our actress lip synced well, which we ensured by playing the song while she mimed to guarantee the timing was accurate. She also acted quite angry/ frustrated while saying the lyrics, getting across the characters personality

well.

Camera Shots, Angles and MovementsWe carefully planned and practised the camera angles we wanted to use, aiming

to use a range of interesting shots to portray the situation the character was in and how she felt. This included high angle shots during the smoking/ drinking scene to

represent her loneliness and feeling of being forgotten. The first scenes in the bedroom also use a range of high shots to show her frustration but this changes to a low shot as she walks to the bathroom, portraying how she now has an idea of

what she is doing, deciding to go out.

Like many music videos we included close up and medium to deliver the characters emotions to the audience, while also using long and establishing shots to set the scene at the different locations. The initial shot panned up the characters body,

introducing her to the audience while also showing a plain wall which we felt represented her empty life.

High angle to

show frustration

Low Angle showing she is

overcoming her

confusion

Furthermore, the camera movements we used included a 360 degree pan, during the argument scene which we hoped would make the audience feel involved in the characters argument. Our use of zooming into the picture of Ellie and Harry made it easy for the audience to see this was what ‘Elle’ was focusing on and

thinking about while also showing them these would be the two main characters.

The 360 degree pan shows the argument from various angles while also showing close ups of Elle’s face and so how she feels about the situation.

Most music videos, from my research, use a range of camera angles, movements and shots and our feedback has told us that by using this typical convention in

our own product, it looks professional.

Cross Fading Slide transitionsBetween several of our clips, we have inserted a ‘cross dissolve’ transition

which blends the two clips as they change from one to the other, making it a smooth change. This is commonly seen in music videos so the clips flow well,

while also linking two different adjacent scenes, such as showing a time change between the two clips. During editing, we added the ‘cross dissolve’ for this reason, showing the time difference between the present and past as well as to represent a short time change, such as the character walking between

two different locations.

In Editing…

Cutting to the beatAfter watching various music videos of a simple

genre I noticed that cutting to the beat is commonly done. This makes the music video more exciting as it appears to be driven by the music. It therefore also means the music video flows well and does not look

out of place with the song. I believe we did this particularly well with the black and white memory

scenes near the end which cut quickly with the pace of the music, representing hersudden rush of memories.

Cross Dissolve

Increasing the pace of the music video as the tempo speeds upPart of the song cuts to an instrumental which is fast paced; we met this sped up

tempo with selection of short, quick cut clips put together as a scene of the character drinking and smoking. While fitting well with the speed of the music, it effectively reflects the emotions of the character which are frustration and anger. From my research I saw this is a convention often used in indie music videos as

they commonly have sections with an increased tempo or instrumental.

Use of colour filters for time changesResearch I have carried out shows that music videos which flash between two

different time periods often use a different colour filter to make this change clear, for example in Katy Perry’s ‘The One that got Away’ and in Kesha’s ‘Tik Tok’. We

therefore included this convention in our own music video, making the past scenes black and white, so the audience could easily identify the change in time; in addition the lack of colour resembled the slightly faded memories which would

not be as clear as the present. Our feedback told us that the black and white colour filter effectively portrayed these scenes as memories to the audience,

showing the editing was successful.

How our music video challenges forms and conventions of real products:

StorylineThe storyline of our music video is quite simple but includes flashbacks between the past and present. This therefore makes the storyline more

complex and goes against the views of some theorists.

Todorov believes narratives are structured in five stages beginning with the state of the plot and ending in the reinstatement of everything. This

immediately shows how our product challenges the theory, with the ending showing no progress in the two characters fixing their relationship. In addition

the three middle stages involve disruption of the plot, recognition of this disruption and then an attempt to repair this. It could be argued our video briefly follows these guidelines as ‘Elle’ does attempt to fix the problem by

going to Harry’s house. However, the disruption is there throughout the story; it does not suddenly appear or go away but instead the story flashes to clips of

memories without the problem, showing how Todorov’s theory is not met in our music video.

Our feedback from the media class and friends, however, told us that the storyline was clear and easy to understand, therefore showing the storytelling

was successful and well received by the audience.