Group 22: Evaluation 1- In what ways does my media product use, develop, or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

In order to answer this question, I would first examine some of the forms and conventions of music videos.

Forms and Conventions

Carol Vernallis, a writer and author who studied editing and camerawork closely in music videos put forward these points from her observations;

The usual riles of 'continuity' editing are broken in order to draw attention to what is on the screen.
Edits may be really obvious to draw attention to themselves. Wipes and special effects are added.
Jump cuts are often added.
A master shot or base track is frequently used to give the video a structure.
The camera may move in time with the music.

Andrew Goodwin, a theorist also gives an analyses of conventional music videos. Below are some of his points.

Andrew Goodwin believes that pop music videos are focused around the song and that they do not consist of traditional analyses.
Pop videos uses the singer as narrators and character's and they look directly at the camera to try and involve the viewers at home.
Music videos are one of these- illustration (This is when the video demonstrates and tells the story of the lyrics.) amplification (This is when the video adds new meanings that do not go with the lyrics but they add layers of meaning.) a disjuncture (This is when the video has little to no connection to the lyrics or where the video contradicts the lyric.)

Bearing all these forms and conventions in mind, I will now analyse how I have conformed and developed this forms and conventions.

Using obvious edits that draw attention to themselves.

Camera moving in time to music

Repeated shots of the artist and artist looking directly at camera

In Addition to the above videos, my music video conforms to the forms and conventions because it is focussed round the song and doesn't consist traditional analyses. Also, according to Andrew Goodwin's typifications, my video is a disjuncture. There is little to no connection between my video and the lyrics.

Visual Style
I also conformed, challenged and used the visual styles of conventional artists. During the research and planning stage of my coursework, I watched some music videos, saw some adverts and looked at some digipaks. From this I was inspired by some of the works I saw and I conformed to the visual styles that I saw. Below are explanations of them.

Layering- (Used)

I was inspired by the use of layering in pixie lott's 'all about tonight', where the artist's face was layered along with city locations. Therefore, in my music video, I used this technique. I layered the face of my artist with one of our locations. Below is video that explains it better. Happy viewing!!!

Shots of the artist- (Used)

In Nero Guilt's music video, I appreciated some visual styles in the video. This includes shots of the artist especially the close ups on the artist's face from different angles. Therefore, in my video, I incorporated the same idea by having close ups of the artist's face from different angles. Close ups are conventional because it establishes an image for the artist. Below are some pictures exploring this idea.

Nero Guilt My Video

Location- (Used)

Having watched the music video for nero guilt, I was enthused by the use of urban location in the beginning- the lighting, urban mood, dreamy city at night, clubculture. Even though we do not have the budget to film using the same angle and camera movement, I tried to replicate this idea by filming an urban area at night in my music video. Below is some screen shot of my music video and shots from Nero Guilt's music video.

Nero - Guilt

My video

Nero album for "crush on you"

Digipak- (challenged and used)

Nero album cover for promises

Chase and Status album cover for "no more idols"

Emile Sande 'heaven' album Cover My album Cover

Advertisment-Usage and Developing
I used and developed ideas from different professional advertisements. For example, I included tour dates and a picture of the front cover of my digipak like Paul Heaton's Acid Country advertisement. However, I challenged the graphic images in both digipaks.

Seeing that the digipak is an important element in the success of creating an image and brand in a particular genre for an upcoming artist, I checked up some conventional methods used by professional artists in their digipak. But I challenged some of their ideas. For example, Nero uses a silhouette picture and keeps the artist out of the way but I used the picture of my artist in the fornt cover of the digipak because she is upcoming and her face needs to be in front of the digipak to attract new audience. Also, I did not use graphic images like chase and Status does because like I wrote before, I need the artist face to be on frontcover because she is upcoming and she can really do with the fame now!!! However, I used big, bold fronts just like Nero & Chase and Status do in their own digipaks, because this will really capture the visual attention of my audience.

However, I was enthused by the front cover of Emile Sander's heaven cover. Therefore, I adapted the idea and used the it in my music video. In this way, I conformed to the visual styles of a profesional artist's digipak cover.