Evaluation - Question 2

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

Within all music videos there are commonly used forms and conventions which shape a selection of different shots in to a music video. Successful music videos will stick to the typical forms and conventions, however there can be the exceptional music video where these conventions are not conformed to and these videos can be just as effective or even more so.

Andrew Goodwin's theory consists of various forms and conventions of music videos. This theory was our initial starting point in researching music videos and it has helped us in applying suitable aspects to our own music video.

One of our many close-ups 

The theory emphasises the importance of the star's image, therefore, a lot of music videos tend to place a great deal of focus upon the artist themselves by using camera shots such as extreme close-ups of them. This is effective as it can improve the viewers memory of the artist because the viewer is able to remember the artists face. The image of the artist is very important and they have to look good in order to make their music videos more appealing and watchable. We ensured that we represented our artist in an appealing, unique way to link with our indie genre and we used as many close-ups as we could to present the emotions within the lyrics of the song. We discovered that close-ups can make audiences feel more involved with the artist and that is what we wanted to achieve, so we used a lot of them. However, we did use some mid-shots and long shots as well to give the video some variety to make it more visually interesting to viewers.



Relationship between lyric and visual
in our video.
Visual = flame, lyric = 'burns'.

Andrew Goodwin also noted that there is a relationship between the lyrics and the visuals. Sometimes there can be literal representations of the lyrics within the music video, for example if a lyric is saying something about money, then there might be an actual representation of money in the video at the same time. However, sometimes there is a contradiction in the lyrics and the visuals or sometimes there is no link at all. In our music video, we had some direct links between the visuals and the lyrics. For example, when the lyric said 'burns', there is the visual of our artist pressing the button on the lighter to produce a flame which is in sync with that lyric. We thought that this would be effective because it is representing the realism of her emotions and how serious the artist is throughout the song. In real media products, direct links/representations are used but not to excess so we ensured that we followed that notion.

Andrew Goodwin also stated that there is a relationship between the music and visuals. In a majority of music videos, the pace of the visuals and how often a new cut is put in place depends on the pace/beat of the song. For example, a mainstream, upbeat pop song will usually consist sometimes of several hundred different cuts from a range of angles throughout a typical 3 minute length music video. In our music video, we used a lot of cuts in order to make our music video have the right pace that it needed. At the end of the chorus', the pace of our song speeds up significantly, so we created a montage of several fast paced cuts to fit in with the music. This concept conforms to real media products.

There are 3 different types of music video; Narrative, Concept and Performance. 

• Narrative music videos consist of a story being shown in the music video. The narrative is usually reflective of the lyrics. Sometimes movie soundtrack music videos will use some of the movie clips to form the video. 
• Concept music videos are usually based about a single idea and are explored visually. 
• Performance music videos consist of the artist in a live performance, staged performance or a social setting. 

Our music video is a combination of narrative, concept and performance. It is a concept music video because the central focus of the song is about one idea; confusion and heartbreak. However, the concept of confusion/heartbreak is quite a typical thing that is sung about in all genres of music. To make our concept more visually intriguing, we displayed some of the emotions through the smashing of the wine bottle, the flame, the cigarette smoking, the red powder blowing in the air and the paper with words such as 'love' on them being ripped up. We believed that this would be an alternative, visually exciting way to portray these emotions as they added a cool edge to our music video.

Our music video is also a performance based video. As well as having various frames not including the artist, we did include a various range of close-ups, mid-shots, long-shots and tracking shots of our artist performing the song. Having this performance element within our video enabled us to encourage the audience to really relate to the artist and get to know more about her style.

Our music video also consists of a loose narrative. The narrative is about a time in her life when her relationship is not going the way in which she anticipated it would go. The narrative was mainly shown in the video through her being alone. We decided to go against the convention of having a male character in the video to show their breaking relationship, as we thought that this would be too cliché and we wanted to be more unique in our representation of the song visually.

Narrative music video textual analysis - 'Titanium' by Sia and David Guetta.
Although the artists have sung this song, the video does not visually feature them at all. The video follows a narrative base of people out to get a young boy who has supernatural powers and has caused destruction at his school. Nearly all of the camera shots in the video of the boy running away are not held, they are tracking shots following the boy as he is running away. This use of shot is effective because it makes the audience feel as if they are with the boy in that scenario, trying to get away, and it adds tension to the narrative. It also arises questions within the audience such as, 'will he make it or not?' The narrative builds up when the boy gets to his house and almost gets caught, but his powers ward off the police for the time being. However, the video has not finished yet and the end outcome of the narrative has not been confirmed as of  yet. As each chorus occurs, the pace and amount of cuts used increases significantly to speed along the vibe of the video/song. Towards the end of the video, the lighting becomes a lot darker and the effect of that is that it makes the boy appear a lot more alone and vulnerable. However, the audience will think that the boy has not made it but then he turns in to a bright ball of light and the police officers are blown away.

Similarly, in our music video, we have a narrative theme which is more realistic than this fictional narrative theme of a boy with supernatural powers. Our narrative theme is the experience of heartache, confusion and love from the artist. We also used a few tracking shots of our artist in the subway tunnel to make it feel as if the artist is walking directly towards the audience and connecting to them. However, our artist does 'break the fourth wall' in some shots because she does look directly in to the camera lens but in the 'Titanium' video the boy does not look directly in the lens at all.

Tracking shot of our artist in our music video.

Concept music video textual analysis - 'Waiting All Night' by Rudimental. 
This video is concept with elements of narrative. The video is focused on a real life event of a man who lost his leg. He has a passion for BMX bike riding but he can no longer do that any more because of the loss of his leg. The video uses the real footage of him in recovery. The idea around the video is the tense build up of him gradually getting better. Without the music, this video would look more like a documentary but the idea fits in well with the song. A lot of the shots are hand held and filmed on what appears to be 'Go Pro' P.O.V cameras. This goes against music the music video convention of steady and high quality cuts. The overall video makes it feel like the audience is on a journey with the man. Further on in the video, the climaxing music goes well with the visuals because that's when he's been given his prosthetic leg and it portrays a sense of 'all or nothing'. Finally, at the end, the prosthetic leg is a success and he is able to BMX again!

Performance music video textual analysis - 'Crystalised' by The XX.
The entire music video features the band in what looks like a live studio style performance but without an audience. The use of the moving projections projected on them adds effect to the video to make it less standard and mysterious looking. Various different camera angles of the band performing are frequently used in order to make the video interesting because if only one long-shot angle was used throughout, audiences would get bored. Due to them playing musical instruments, this shows that they are extremely talented and unique in that they do not really use computerised music sounds for their songs. All of the close-ups focus on the intricacy of their music playing and mostly upon the 2 vocalists.

The 3 music video's above are very different in how they are. However, in our music video, we used aspects of the conventions displayed in them. Our video challenged the convention of live performance in terms of singing in to a microphone (as displayed in The XX's song) and having musical instruments in it.


What are the forms and conventions of music videos of our genre?
Our chosen genre was 'indie'. Indie music videos are usually a lot different in comparison to pop/mainstream music videos in that they are not as up-beat and vibrant.

Forms and conventions of indie music videos:

• Performance based; either live or in a non-live setting with a narrative sequence that intertwines with this to break up the music video and to give it an interesting story for the audience to follow.
• Low budget locations are used, such as studios, tunnels and cities. Although the settings can be plain and not very nice in appearance, this allows the artist and production team to enhance them and make use of them in terms of linking them to the music video.
• The artist/band tend to have quite a unique appearance to them which contradicts the type of outfits worn in mainstream pop music videos.
• Artists can be shown playing music instruments, in particular drums and electric guitars.
• Close-up and long shots are commonly used to show face and location.

Textual analysis of music videos of our indie genre:
The Neighbourhood- 'Sweater Weather' 
The Neighbourhood are an indie band who have a very distinct unique look and feel to them. A lot of their music videos tend to use the black and white effect. This effect gives this video a very chilled vibe and a sense of being quite old fashioned. The dark lighting emphasises the genre as most indie videos consist of dark lighting. The video uses multiple locations, the studio apartment and the outdoor Californian roads location contrast quite a lot as it is portraying both a gritty and glamourous side to the video. The pace of the frames are quite fast which match the pace of the music, however in the chorus when the vocals are held for much longer, so are the frames, to match. This makes the video more exciting because it makes audiences curious as to what might come next. Their car also stands out as it is a rare and old-styled in comparison to the other cars and this represents their individuality as a band compared to the 'mainstream'. Guitars, cigarettes, a girl, tattoos, bright studio lights are all in this video and these concepts are commonly associated with the stereotypical hipster type of indie genre. The Neighbourhood spray paints their symbolic logo of a basic upside down house in the video and this can be seen as artistic/abstract and gives the video a retro edge.

The XX 'VCR'
The features of this music do not conform to the conventional structure of the typical music video because the indie genre wants to stand out and be different. The use of black and white is effective because it gives off a gritty vibe and emphasises the genre well. Their clothing is very basic, not glamorous at all which gives the video a more naturalistic feel to it. Basic clothing is common in the indie genre as more attention is wanted to be placed on the lyrics and the meaning behind the song and the video. It is unconventional that the band are not in the video themselves, as usually the main focus is on the artist, not on strangers vandalising an abandoned location.

Aspects of these videos that we used in our own music video:
Both of the real media products above are of the indie genre, and analysing videos like these helped us in learning the conventions of indie music videos so that we knew what kind of things we needed to put in our own music video. Both of the above videos are in black and white. This is a feature that we used in our music video. This effect makes indie music videos significantly a lot different to mainstream music videos as mainstream videos are usually vibrant and full of eye popping colours. We followed the convention of using a low budget/gritty location and simple outfits.

What conventions did we use in our own music video?
Since our song choice had a very depressing vibe to it and our intention was to make our genre clear, we used an isolated subway/tunnel location and a plain studio for the video. I think that this complimented the song and the overall video very well as it gave that unconventional, trying to lock in emotion feel to it. Also, it meets the indie music video convention of basic, low budget indie music video locations. We used this type of location for various reasons. Having a basic location would enable our artist to stand out more and that this meant that we could focus more on the presentation of the artist. The location choices also allowed us to make it seem like our artist is isolated and alone within the problems of her love life.

We followed the convention of having our music in black and white. We did this because it would instantly make our video recognisable as indie, urban and not the typical colour scheme you would see on music videos in general. Taking out all the colour from our music video left us with a video with a cold and serious vibe which we wanted to portray because of the depressing/sad nature of the song. Our artists image was very 'hipster' and urban yet basic. We used basic colours and outfit because we did not want to overcomplicate the video and we did not want the main focus to be upon the clothing, but on the artists face instead. We managed to follow the clothing convention of indie music videos. Despite, the simplicity, our artist still looked very cool and stylish which is important to present.

Does our music video use, develop or challenge it's genre conventions?
Our music video definitely uses and develops the general indie conventions. It uses them by following the use of appropriate camera shots such as lots of close-ups of our artist, having abstract concepts in and by the general video being uique. Furthermore, it develops the conventions from using our own creative perspective because it is our ideas of what the video involves. We put concepts in like the wine bottle smashing to represent the unbearable emotions the song holds. It does not challenge its genre conventions because otherwise it would not be indie, indie music videos do vary a lot in terms of what they are about and what they show but it is easy to spot one and differentiate them between the pop music genre for example.

Conclusion
Overall, I believe that we have produced a professional looking media product, by which it is very similar to that of real media products. There is a reason why there are certain set conventions for various genres. These conventions make music video's as a whole work, so I discovered that by following these conventions, my music video has turned out to be effective for what it is. Due to the high tech camera equipment available to us, we were able to create a music video of the same high quality of a real music video. This camera equipment enhanced our video, because on a low quality camera we would not have produced such a realistic take of a music video. I think we managed to portray the indie genre very well due to having researched and applied key conventions of real existing indie media music video's. I think that if we had challenged the indie genre conventions, then our video would no longer be classed in the indie genre.