Evaluation Question 1

Question 1 - In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Before identifying the forms and conventions of our music video, it is important to fully understand the genre of music and the target we are targeting towards.
The genre we have chosen to represent within our promotional package is, ‘Pop Rock’. The key forms and conventions of a Pop Rock music video are;

• The lighting is often quite dark.
• Lots of different camera angles are used.
• Black and white is used in parts of the video sometimes.
• live performances mixed with narrative.
• The colours/lighting in the video change. Depending on the lyrics, tempo and structure of the song.
• Casual clothing.
• Close Ups are used quite often to show the emotions of the characters.
• The mise-en-scene reflects the mood of the characters and the tone of the music.
• The artist/band tend to predominate the music video.
• The pace of the editing fits the pace of the music.
• A cameo is also quite common in a pop-rock music video. Where the band or artist features in the video however they do not perform.

Conventions of a Music Video: General Theory/Famous Theories

• Lyrics: establish a general feeling/mood/sense of subject rather than a meaning
• Music: tempo often drives the editing
• Genre: might be reflected in types of mise-en-scene, themes, performance, camera and editing styles
• Camera work: has an impact on meaning. Movement, angle and shot distance all play a part in the representation of the artist/band (close-ups dominate)
• Editing: the most common form is fast-cut montage, rendering many of the images impossible to grasp on first viewing, so ensuring multiple viewing. Often enhancing the editing are digital effects, which play with the original images to offer different kinds of pleasure for the audience.
• Intertextuality: not all audiences will spot a reference, which would not significantly detract from their pleasure in the text itself, but greater pleasure might be derived by those who recognise the reference and feel flattered by this. It also increases the audience’s engagement with, and attentiveness to the product.
• Exhibitionism: The apparently more powerful independent female artists of recent years have added to the complexity of the politics of looking and gender/cultural debates, by being at once sexually provocative and apparently in control of, and inviting, a sexualised gaze.

Famous Theories

ANDREW GOODWIN’S THEORY

• Visuals either illustrate, amplify or contradict the lyrics and music.
• Genres often have their own music style/iconography
• Close-ups should always be included
• The artist/band might want to develop their own star iconography, which becomes their star image
• Voyeurism is a common theme within music videos
• Intertextual references are also popular
• Goodwin argues that the female performer is frequently objectified principally for display purposes, often through a combination of camerawork and editing with fragmented body shots emphasising a sexualised treatment of the star.

STEVE ARCHER’S THEORY

• There needs to be a strong and coherent relationship between narrative and performance in music promos.
• Music videos will cut between a narrative and a performance of the song by the band
• A carefully choreographed dance might be part of the artist’s performance or an extra aspect of the video designed to aid visualisation and the ‘repeatability’ factor.

JOHN STEWART’S THEORY

• The music video has the aesthetics of a TV commercial, with lots of close-ups and lighting being used to focus on the star’s face.
• He sees visual reference in music video as coming from a range of sources, although the three most frequent are perhaps cinema, fashion and art photography.
• Stewart’s description of the music video as ‘incorporating, raiding and reconstructing’ is essentially the essence of Intertextuality, using something with which the audience may be familiar, to generate both nostalgic associations and new meanings.
• The video allows more access to the performer than a stage performance can. The mise-en-scene, in particular, can be used to emphasise an aspirational lifestyle.

SIGMUND FREUD’S THEORY

• Refers to the notion that erotic pleasure may be gained by looking at a sexual object (preferably when the object is unaware of being watched)
• LAURA MULVEY’S THEORY
• Because filmmakers are predominantly male, the presence of women in films is often solely for the purposes of display (rather than for narrative purposes).
• The purpose of this displace is to facilitate a voyeuristic response in spectators, which presumes a ‘male gaze’ one that is a powerful controlling gaze at the female on display, who is effectively objectified and passive.

These theories have helped us vast amounts, throughout the process of are video being produced.

The standard conventions of a music video, are as follows:

1. Mise-en-Scene
2. Camera Angles
3. Lighting
4. Editing
5. Sound

Mise-en-Scene

The Mise-en-scene in a music video is largely important.

You have to take into consideration; The Location/Props/Costumes. The locations in are video are very important.

Editing

View more presentations from Jakey Coppin.

How did we use conventions in our music video?

Before beginning the process of actually filming the music video, we had to plan what conventions we would use to make our video fit into the genre of the song conveniently. Our initial plan was to talk as a group and analyse the lyrics so we could enhance the convention: Visuals either illustrate, amplify or contradict the lyrics and music.

The main sentence in the lyrics of the song that emphasises this the most 'If you want me out then I'm on my way..'. As we hear this, we see Jon driving away just after he's left Sophie. It is vital that the lyrics actually fitted with the images that we were seeing in our video. Our sequence was very narrative, it told a story, so this was vital that what we as hearing, was what we was seeing in some stages of the video. Andrew Goodwin said that there should be some sort of relationship between the lyrics and visuals. This gave us a sense of ability that we was able to achieve that.

Andrew Goodwin - "There should be a relationship between the musics and the visuals. The visuals should illustrate, amplify or contradict the music.

A relationship between the lyrics and visuals. What we hear should illustrate what we see"

Music Videos