Evaluation Question 1.

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

 FORMS AND CONVENTIONS OF MUSIC VIDEOS:

In music videos the conventions that we normally see are:  

Camera Shots: Music videos tend to include many long shots, close ups and mid shots. This is to create emphasis on the artist , location and emotions. Also, close ups are used not only to show emotions but to reflects the words of the song with the movement of the lips of the artist. 

Camera Movement: The movement of the camera is used to follow and trace the artist or band. Camera movements include tilts, pans, tracking and crane shots.

In our video we used various shots such as an extreme close up at the beginning, long shots, mid shots and close ups. 

Mise-en-scene: This refers to the arrangement of performers and props on stage or in a scene for a production of a music video or any other media text. Mise-en-scene puts importance on the representation of something. An example is, 'Do You' by Miguel. The mise-en-scene involves him traveling around with his girlfriend and being in each others company. This reflects on his love for his girlfriend. Also the props includes casual clothing such a t-shirts, jeans, and more evening clothing such as leather jackets and dresses. This represents them going around at night, enjoying themselves. Similary, the lighting is kept quiet dark when he and his girlfriend are shown in black and white obviously looking back on their time together. In the performance scenes the lighting is kind of colourful but the setting itself is dark. I believe this was done to represent him still being happy because he has his girlfriend if if at times they're in the dark (having problems in their relationship). This is just one example of the mise-en-scene used to give an idea of how it works. 

Miguel - Do You

Editing: Jump cuts is the predominant technique used in music videos. This is because this allows a sudden change from one scene to another. Similarly, transitions such as fade and dissolve are very common in music videos as they create a different effect to cuts.

One of the many jump cuts we used in "Wonderful". 

Lighting: Some music videos are black and white which help emphasise a particular mood and some videos have artificial lighting which put the artists in an enhanced look. However in "wonderful" we didn't really use any lighting due to most of our shots being outside. We didn't use it as the natural lighting was effective. 

Props: These are a vital in aiding to add to the scene and create significance on particular objects or people.

Costume: This goes with the scenes in the song and reflects the genre. Costume is an important factor because it has a slight influence on how the viewers will dress because they use some of the celebrities as role models.

Colour: Colours tend to set the mood of the song through creating an atmosphere. For example, dark colours are used more in Rock songs such as Kings of Leon and bright colours are seen to be used more in Hip Hop and Pop videos.

Music Conventions in Hip Hop/R&B videos: 

- Locations tends to be a party, club or a fancy location.

- Use of alcohol. 

- Recognised brands and clothing

- Expensive cars and houses.

- Camera shots tend to be long and establishing to show the money involved. Close ups to show the jewelry and assets of the artists. 

- Attractive women. 

- Does not follow a storyline, only follows the genre. 

- Artists tend to be involved. 

50 Cent - Candy Shop













JUICY J - BANDZ A MAKE HER DANCE 











FORMS AND CONVENTIONS OF ANCILLARY PRODUCTS: 

- Clear Font

- Appropriate image size 

- Clear photos in focus

- Layout must follow rulw of thirds for composition 

- Must follow the Three Color Rule for font, background and images.

THEORETICAL IDEAS:

 CAROL VERNALLIS THEORY (Edits, Basetracks, Camera work) 

Carol Vernallis' theory centre around 4 key concepts that all relate to the way music videos are constructed. They concepts are:

- Narrative

- Editing

- Camera Movement and Framing

- Diegesis

NARRATIVE - the video is a visual response to the music, there is not necessarily a balance between narrative and performance, the structure of the video may appear disjointed, something drives the video forward, but often it is not the narrative, it could be the music, the performance, a mixture or some other element.

EDITING - The editing may match the musical phrases or the beat, the video may break or disrupt many of the 'rules' of continuity editing - this is a clear convention of music video editing, editing may become 'foregrounded - the edits may be really obvious, to draw attention to themselves as opposed to invisible, continuity editing. For example: jump cuts, breaks of the 30 degree rule, breaks of the 180 degree rule, cutting against the movement, cutting within the lyrics, fancy edits or cuts, extreme jumps in time and space, extreme, changes in paces, juxtaposed frames, graphic matches, a style of editing that runs throughout the video and is distinctive to that video, we also may not see smooth transitions, matches on action, and even pace throughout. Jill Scott - Hear My Call, breaks of the 180 degree rule. 

In my media product there are many breaks of the 180 degree rule. Also many times where it cuts against movement and lyrics from one basetrack into the other, for example. There are also special effects used to highlight the fast paced movements and edits (show that). We used these types of edits as they are used in real media products and also because they suited the song, having quite a fast beat. 

CAMERA MOVEMENT AND FRAMING - When its comes to shot types, extremes are very common, the style of framing and movement may run through the video and is distinctive to that video, the camera may move in time with the music, the camera may move on the lyrics, the master shot (or other establishing shots) is used frequently, as are close ups. Kirk Franklin - Smile. Many different types of shot types were used to introduce the audience to our artist 'Solo'.

KIRK FRANKLIN - SMILE 

Shots we used to introduce the 'Solo'. 

DIEGESIS - The diegesis may be revealed quite slowly, actions are not necessarily completed - they may be disrupted or interrupted in some way, character or object movements may move to the music, there may be gaps in the audience's understanding of the diegesis - in time and space, music, performance and narrative, some frames may be more important, there may be maby repetitions, e.g musical phrases, the beat, other musical elements, themes, lyrics, performance, images, colours, camera positions. - Janet Jackson - I Get So Lonely, uses mainly 3 colours in the video, which are black, blue and white. Our video uses mainly blue. 

We took inspiration from from Rihanna - Cheers, Hit-Boy - Jay Z Interview, as both videos use different types of camera work to make it look very candid. We decided to use these types of edits to show the artists personality and things that they must obviously enjoy, e,g skateboarding.  

RIHANNA - CHEERS

HIT-BOY - JAY Z INTERVIEW

ANDREW GOODWIN: 

Andrew Goodwin identifies 5 key aspects of music videos that we the audience are exposed to when watching them: 

- Though beats 

- seeing the sound 

- The star image

- Relation of Visuals to song 

- Technical aspects of music video.

1. The structure of the song, e.g chorus, verse, bridge. 

2. The voice of the song. For example, a very distinctive voice can help build an image and popularity for an artist e.g Rihanna. 

3. Goodwin points out how artists tend to want to tell a story in their songs and illustrate it through a music video using it as a communication device for a viewing audience, for example, Common - Come Close Ft Mary J. Blige shows this perfectly. 

- The star image is another vital aspect of music videos. Making sure that the artist of the song's image is portrayed in a way that will give them recognition is important as it helps them build a reputation that could benefit them in the long run, for example artists such as Michael Jackson e.g clothing.

 As a group we decided that we wanted 'Solo' to have a very urban look rather than a lavish over the top look because we wanted him to be able to relate to his target audience of young people, probably still students.  

- Relation of visuals to song - 
Goodwin also believes that there are three ways in which music videos work to promote a song. 

Illustration - Music videos can use a set of images to illustrate the meaning of the lyrics and genre. For example: 

LILY ALLEN - LDN 

Amplification - Meanings and effects are manipulated and constantly shown through the video. For example: 

TLC - UNPRETTY

Disjuncture - Where the meaning of the lyrics have nothing to do with the video. For example: 

RIHANNA - RUDEBOY

Our video has elements of amplification mainly as different people have different views on what they regard as 'Wonderful'. I believe the term 'wonderful' to people, can mean a lot of things. For example, to some it may mean to have their family around and to others it may mean living a very lavish lifestyle. This is something that you can't really interpret, but it's to follow what the artists regards as 'wonderful'. So we used skate boarding, a bit of karate and people messing about and having fun.  

LAURA MULVEY:

Mulvey says that the concept of gaze is one that deals with how an audience views the people presented. For feminists it can be thought of in three ways:

- how men look at women.  

- how women look at themselves. 

- how women look at other women. 

Laura Mulvey came up with the term 'Male Gaze' in 1975. She says that in television the viewing audience have to watch characters from the perspective of a heterosexual male. 
Slide 17: Features of the Male Gaze - 
The camera lingers on the curves of the female body, and events which occur to women are presented largely in the context of a man's reaction to these events. It also relegates women to the status of objects. The female viewer must experience the narrative secondarily, by identification with the male. 
Especially Hip Hop/ RnB videos. Genre of my music video. However we challenged this as our video does not conform to Laura Mulvey's theory. We wanted to focus on what we thought was wonderful, and also entertaining for a viewing audience rather than having females being placed on screen for the sake of it.