Evaluation - Question 1.

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

When deciding on what genre I wanted to work in for my media project, I researched artists into the ‘pop/punk’ genre of music and noticed a lot of similarities in their music videos.  Bands like ‘Deftones’ and ‘Letlive.’ were helpful for me to research into, as their music videos were a lot like something I wanted to create for my own media project. Their music videos were very narrative based rather than performance based, which is the direction I wanted to head in.

I've used jump cuts and close ups within my own music video, as again, using these created the effect throughout the music video which I wanted to create.The use of outside settings, which were all shot at night, were inspired by the other music videos I had researched into beforehand of the same music genre.

Here are a few examples of some conventions which I incorporated within my music video from other music videos from within the music genre I am working within.

Above shows the music video for 'Example - Shot Yourself In The Foot Again', which like many of the other music videos within this genre, include a lot of conventions which I wanted within my own music video. I decided to take the idea of starting my music video in the same way as this one, opening the video in very low lighting, almost complete darkness, yet the light from a lighter/cigarette being the only visible light showing. This introduces the audience into the kind of music video they are about to watch and how it may display society and youth, as the cigarettes lit up in both videos are lit by teenagers. This then goes into a sequence of a girl preparing her make up for a night out, which shows levels of different social classes and stereotypical conventions of today's generation. 

I also applied theorists and theory into my music video and into my print work, first starting off with Andrew Goodwin and his theory. He says that music videos are often constructed by the link between the visuals and the song plus the artist. Relationships are built between these in the video, and the close-ups of the artists gives them the representation and publicity they require. Throughout my music video I shows a relationship between the lyrics and the visuals, with the visuals illustrating, amplifying or contradicting the lyrics. For example, when the artist would sing the lyrics "away I go", I showed the main female character walking away from the camera. I also used the male gaze and voyeurism throughout my music video, as my actors within my music video are all female, which attracted an audience, particularly males.

Settings and lighting were key to my music video, as they are key to most music videos within the 'pop/punk' genre of music, especially to music videos with a narrative based structure. As a good percent of my music video was set at night, lighting was an important aspect of my video. I decided to use high key lighting to highlight the main character ad the main aspects of my music video (like pubs cars, buildings, ect), I also decided to use low key lighting when I filmed inside, as it gave it a more relaxed feel to that specific part of the video, which was what I was intending. Most of my video was inspired by many artists/bands, this is because I wanted my music video to be as close to real music videos what were the 'pop/punk' genre as possible, as this would attract my target audience.

The use of lighting and outside settings were inspired by the bands 'Deftones' and 'Letlive.', as a lot of their music videos are shot at night, using the same types of lighting and settings as I have done. Throughout the whole of music video, I decided to use the use of flashbacks and jump cuts, as it made the narrative a lot more layered, making the audience active when watching the music video itself. Like most generic 'pop/punk'music videos, I also decided to include lip sync into my music video, which allowed the audience to relate with the music video more, as it visible to see the artist or band connecting with the lyrics they were singing.

However, following typical forms and conventions of 'pop/punk'music videos could be risky as audiences who listen to that style of music could find it very predictable  which may result in them losing interest quickly. This is the same case for my design of my digipak and my advert, if it looked to predictable or too generic, audiences wouldn't be interested, which is why I had to make it stand out and look somewhat different to the usual style of print work that you see in today's music industry. Yet, on the other hand, if I made it to different, audiences who listen to that genre of music wouldn't be interested, so in this case, I had to have a balance of both challenging and following forms and conventions.

My music video has elements of entropy and redundancy throughout, it isn't entirely one or the other. I would say my print work was very redundant in a way as I used photos of the main band themselves as my digipak cover, which straight away would attract fan of that music and of that band, just by looking at the digipak. The use o black and white photos was quite entropic, though, as not many artists/bands use that style within their print work, which in a way, would make my work stand out a lot more, as it's not seen that often. My music video itself is quite redundant, as it follows the conventions of this specific genre. The video follows a heavy narrative based style, with a multi-layered narrative, forcing the audience to become active viewers, which is what many other music videos do within this genre.

Audience feedback was very important when it came to deciding on final ideas and changing certain ideas to what the target audience wanted, as I was trying to reach a specific audience with my music video. The following shows some of the feedback I received from my audience when I posted my first initial ideas on Facebook:

As you can see from above, some of my comments didn't like what I created, yet they gave me positive critism, which again, helped me develop my ideas more to what my target audience wanted.