QUESTION
1
In what
ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of
real media products?
·
What did you learn about what the conventions
were of real music videos? And what music video conventions you have included /
not included and why
Throughout my
research I discovered a variety of music videos which contained either a flowing
narrative. The video that I have chosen to be influenced by is Ed Sheerans song
You and I, this music video has a strong narrative of Ed and the relationship
between his cat and himself, the video music video then goes back to Ed singing.
In contrast to Ed Sheerans one strong narrative I have chosen to use several
different narratives throughout my music video to reflect different stories
folding into one. My first draft of my music video had about 9 different scenes
which all reflected communication, which is my theme, from the first viewing
the feedback I received was that there is a narrative running through but it
would be helpful if some of the scenes swapped around, in particular the girl
on the computer to show to the audience that she is the bully, I was able to
create this effect by using the transition cross dissolve, in the print screen
below you are able to see an image from my music video of a cross image of the
bully and the victim, I found that this helped me strengthen my narrative of my
music video because there is a strong image of the two characters connecting
together.
·
What did you learn about
real music genre conventions and what
genre conventions have you included / not included and
why
I discovered through my research that most music videos have
a strong narrative and also the main vocalist’s song it synced in with their
lips. I decided to go to challenge the typical conventions of my music video
and include one main narrative with two underlying ones. My main narrative is
the girl on the computer sending another girl in the music video hate mail and she
ends up committing suicide. My two other narratives are the couple flirting and
the main musician which is on the guitar creating music. Another feature I included
in my music video to challenge the typical conventions of music videos is by
not having any lip sync, I decided to go against this as I wanted my music
video to seem like a film. I feel that I have achieved this by playing the
music over the top with matching actions to the lyrics. My music video
reinforces Rick Altman’s Semantic theory, as I have chosen to shot my music
video in black and white colour theme it reinforces the dark, powerfulness of
my narrative of a girl committing suicide, although in contrast I chose to shot
the first scene in colour to make the audience think everything was going to be
okay when it wasn’t going to be.
·
What did you learn about
real Digipak conventions and what Digipak conventions have you included / not
included and why
From researching into various digipacks and advertisements
I noticed that colour theme and images had a massive impact on the target
audience as it is the first insight they have got from the music video and they
need to be persuaded into buying/ watching my music video. When planning my
digipack and advertisement I decided to contrast my music video my using colour
and fun images, I felt that my music video as a very strong narrative and this
is something I didn’t want to reflect in my digipack and advertisement as this
would maybe detract the audience from buying them. The colour scheme I chose
was red and black, the reason I decided on these colours was because the red
reinforces the bright happy beginning of my music video and the black
represents the dark ending. These colours work well together and represent my
narrative of my music video without scaring my audience away. Image wise I decided
to choose images that contrast my music video too, as the images are going to
attract my audience in I decided to create a collage of my main actor pulling
funny faces and having fun, I feel this targets my audience well as he is
around the same age as my target audience and also still represents the theme
of communication.
·
How your use of
conventions might attract or appeal to an audience
I decided to use the following to attract my audience-
- Colour
- Camera
shots / angles / movements
- Editing
techniques
The colour choice I decided to choose was Red and Black, the reason behind my colour choice was because I felt that the red represented the bright attraction from my digipack and reinforces the bright start to my music video and the black reinforces the dark narrative within my music video of suicide, although I feel as I contrasted the two colours together they attracted the audience in and also reflected my music video, digipack and advertisement which is something I wanted to achieve.
Throughout my music video I used a variety of different camera shots and
angles to represent what is going on in my music video alongside the lyrics,
for example in the scene where the girl is sinking in the bath taking her last
few gasps of life I decided to angle the character to the far left, with help
of the tripod I also was able to make the audience feel that they were watching
in on her, which is something I deliberately did because I wanted to make the
audience feel more uncertain by the scene, not only by her committing suicide
but also by the fact they are looking in what she is doing, they are not meant
to be there. At the end of my music video I used an extreme close up of a text
the girl sent her mum before she died saying "I’m sorry, I love you x
" behind the phone I also planted the hate mail the girl was sent which
drove her to her death, I felt that an extreme close up was needed on the phone
because it signifies that the girl has actually died, I felt that it was
important to tell the audience that she had died because otherwise they will be
on a cliff hanger not knowing, as I chose to create my music video as if it was
a film I did think it was needed for them to know. I then zoomed out from the
extreme close up which enabled the hate mail to appear, I think this would
leave the audience with a question "was she right to do was she did?"
"Would you do that?" as now the audience can see what drove her to
suicide.
In my music video you will also notice the variety of transitions I used
on the editing software I used, premier elements, I felt that I need to using a
variety of different transitions in my music video purely because I had a
variety of different scenes going on which need to keep the audiences
attraction. When creating my first and second drafts I was very weary of the
scene with the main guy on his guitar, this is a very long scene and I felt
that my audience would loose concentration, I really didn't know what to do as I
had tried numerous transitions whilst playing around I came up with an idea of
playing two scenes over one another, at first I wasn't sure whether this was
possible but after a few goes of trial and error I achieved this. It actually
turned out to be very simple all I had to do was copy and paste the 2nd clip I
wanted to used and then put that above the first clip, I then used the FX
effect replicate so there would be four images for each clip, this then allowed
me to adjust the settings on the main editing box so that there would be two
images on top of the 2nd scene and 2 images on the bottom from the first scene.
I feel that this works really well in the scene i chose because it is as if he
is going back and forth into time
Theories :
