In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Using Conventions-
Here is a video I made to show how current music video conventions have been applied, and influenced our work.
Here is a video I made to show how current music video conventions have been applied, and influenced our work.
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- Cross dissolves
In Ed Sheeran's music video for 'Drunk', the narrative is that he is reflecting on the failure of his relationship and it often transitions in time from 'then' when they were together, and 'now' where he is alone with a talking cat and ultimately, getting drunk. An editing technique we particularly liked from this video to show this, was a cross dissolve, which was used to transition from a shot of a photo on a wall, into where the actual photo was taken. I believe this is an effective way of cutting to the past. As our video was of a similar narrative, where the main character is looking back on the relationship he had - we decided to use this convention. In our video, we have an extreme close up, zooming into a note that says 'I love you'
- Props
When making a video for a song that is narrative, we wanted to make what was said in the lyrics, appear in the video and be relevant to the theme of our piece at the same time. Props that we used included a hair band which was shown in an extreme close up, fitting in with the lyric 'I found your hair band on my bedroom floor.' We similarly included beer cans for the lyric 'I don't drink like everybody else.'
As well as this, we also included props that had meaning and helped build a story line. Due to the fact a music video is only minutes long, we had to present our story in a brief time frame. Our 'I love you' note was focussed on, as a way of transitioning to flash backs of when they were together, creating a quite emotional narrative in doing so, the audience are able to get inside his head and understand better his emotions in this way. The close up of this picture in the video also works well , as it is featured several times throughout our video. In Taylor Swift's music video for 'You belong with me' , the beginning scenes show the two main characters exchanging conversation by writing messages to each other on paper, this therefore has relevance when the prop is used again at the ending, which concludes by showing the 'I love you' sign. Use of this prop helps to follow the story line of how they start off as friends, and end up together. The note in our video is also featured in the ending scene
You Belong with me - Beginning
You belong with me - ending
U.N.I - Transition to flashback
U.N.I - Ending
- Jump Cuts
This editing technique we applied to our video to make it more aesthetically pleasing. Jump cuts are a common feature in music videos. In the One Direction video, for example, jump cuts are used when the band are standing together, and they swap places. This visually looks interesting rather than them all just standing there. It also seems impressive as it is something that could not be done in real life. An example of these jump cuts in our video include the build up of images behind the main character on his bedroom wall. These jump cuts help to emphasise the main character's emotion. The fact that he himself is static on the bed and the photos build up on the wall behind him, implies how he has almost become a recluse in his bedroom, not doing anything but sitting on his bed. The jump cuts are the images on his wall appearing. This fits in with the lyric 'now I'm in the position to be another stalker.' This adds a comical value to the video, but also as the song is quite sensitive, the audience can gather that he is doing it because he misses his ex-girlfriend, and causes the audience to sympathise and connect with him in this way. Another part in the video where jump cuts are included is in the girl's bedroom, this is effective as it symbolises her packing her belongings and leaving. Instead of just showing many shots of her physically packing her things, this is an interesting alternative and signifies how she is 'disappearing.'
- Positive / Happy ending
This genre of music doesn't tend to be too deep and disheartening in terms of it's lyrics, music tempo and videos. The songs themselves are usually focussed around life and love, typically in a positive way.
Taylor Swift is an example of an artist who sings about these topics, but not in a directly depressing and sad tone, and her music videos are typically very sweet, pleasant to watch in terms of colour schemes and settings. Her video 'Ours' is about a long distance relationship, and although she misses him, she constantly reminds herself of the times they were together. Although the song is not as narrative as the one we used, the video has been created to tell a story. We loved how this video ended, and we wanted to create a similar feel for our audience. Despite the ending being slightly predicable that doesn't contain any twists, it is still effective and relevant to the song.
The song we chose is about a couple breaking up and the reasons behind it, but the music itself is up-tempo, the use of an acoustic guitar has a pleasant tune to it and a major key, that fits in with the conventions of an indie song. Usually when people watch music videos and films in general, it is used as a form of escapism and is an audience pleasure to watch other people for entertainment and emotional release. As there is a story within this video, it causes the viewers to follow it and want to know what happens in the ending. This is a song which some people would listen to as they can relate to it, it is only right that the video also follows this. Due to our target audience being young people, who will experience relationships and breakups, this also makes it relatable . By having a happy ending, it reinforces a positive and uplifting message to the audience. Even when the song is sad, the video does not emphasise this too much and represents it in a bittersweet way.
- Use of technology-
As we are appealing to our target audience of a young, mixed sex group who are very involved in social media and social networking sites, we wanted to include this in our video. There is an increase in featuring technology in music videos. The most common way this is used is including mobile phones, whether this is to show phone calls, texting or taking photos. In Ed Sheeran's video 'Drunk', technology is involved by Ed showing the cat his text messages. The fact that it is a birds eye view shot, and even looks like an over the shoulder shot, it looks like Ed is directly showing you his messages for you to read. This is an engaging way of involving the audience in the video. Due to the audience being conscious of technology and the meaning behind the video itself, they can grasp that the text is from an ex girlfriend causing him to feel the way he does. This influenced us to do something similar, and we included technology in a similar way. After doing research into this genre for this topic, and also in my AS studies, it became apparent that teens of this genre have moved towards using twitter as their social network of preference, rather than facebook. With this in mind, we featured a shot of the main character looking at his phone and viewing a tweet of his ex-girlfriend, saying how excited she was for university. The shot is similar to the Ed Sheeran shot, and is an over the shoulder shot so the audience are involved in this too. We also included technology by involving a voicemail being left. This is a key part to our story line, as it is the reason the girl considers not going to university. We wanted to make it explicit that this was a voice mail being left. It was easy to incorporate this into our video, as part of the song doesn't feature much of a beat / tone and sounds quite talkative instead of properly singing. Therefore we decided to make this the message that would be left. To make this clear, we inserted a voice over of the answering machine when someone doesn't answer their phone. We had no worries in the audience not grasping this concept as they are so aware of technology. Despite this, to avoid any confusion we had a close up of the girl with her mobile, showing that she has a new voice mail and who it is from. I believe that over all this is an effective way of being up to date with the audience and conventional to the increasing use of technology in music videos and fits in well with our narrative story line.
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Theorists
When studying some theorists who have formed their beliefs on the codes and conventions of narratives, it has become clear that some of their theories can be seen in my work. An example of a direct link between a theorist's view on media texts and our work is Vladimir Propp; who analysed 100s of fairytales formed the idea that it was possible to place characters in clearly defined roles from their actions within a story. Examples of these character roles include ;
-The Hero (the main character, usually seeking something)
Although this is a theory which has been formed from typical fairytales which explicitly have the characters in the story such as princesses, there is still a link between my characters and narrative and this particular theory. For example, the hero being the main protagonist who in my music video is wanting his girlfriend back. The girlfriend is therefore the princess and due to the ending of them getting back together is the 'reward'. Despite not being a physical character, the villain in my music video is university. Supported by the lyrics in the song, this is established... "thats why you and I, ended over U.n.i"
This is also a similar pattern to the character roles within Taylor Swift's music video for 'Ours'. In this narrative, there is a separated relationship between the hero (who in this case is Taylor) and the "princess" (despite actually being a male in this video, this is the character role he falls under as he is sought out by Swift in her music video) The villain in this narrative is again, not a physical character but is the man's job role which is causing them to be apart.
Overall, it appears that the convention of relationships and love in media texts cause Propp's theory to apply to my media text and similar texts of the same genre. The narrative follows the Hero/main protagonist seeking the Princess/partner in the relationship. Usually, to provide substance and suspense to a story which is engaging with the audience, a villain of some sort threatens this. The ending however, is a happy one (which is actually a very typical convention of a fairytale!) .The link causing this convention that Propp identified from analysing tales still exists today in media texts that involve the aspect of love, but are applied in more modern situations - such as university and jobs.
-The Hero (the main character, usually seeking something)
-The Villain (opposes the hero)
-The Donor/Helper (helps the hero by providing a magic object)
-The False Hero (falsely assumed to be the hero)
-The Princess (reward for the hero, the love interest who usually needs saving from the villain)
Although this is a theory which has been formed from typical fairytales which explicitly have the characters in the story such as princesses, there is still a link between my characters and narrative and this particular theory. For example, the hero being the main protagonist who in my music video is wanting his girlfriend back. The girlfriend is therefore the princess and due to the ending of them getting back together is the 'reward'. Despite not being a physical character, the villain in my music video is university. Supported by the lyrics in the song, this is established... "thats why you and I, ended over U.n.i"
This is also a similar pattern to the character roles within Taylor Swift's music video for 'Ours'. In this narrative, there is a separated relationship between the hero (who in this case is Taylor) and the "princess" (despite actually being a male in this video, this is the character role he falls under as he is sought out by Swift in her music video) The villain in this narrative is again, not a physical character but is the man's job role which is causing them to be apart.
Overall, it appears that the convention of relationships and love in media texts cause Propp's theory to apply to my media text and similar texts of the same genre. The narrative follows the Hero/main protagonist seeking the Princess/partner in the relationship. Usually, to provide substance and suspense to a story which is engaging with the audience, a villain of some sort threatens this. The ending however, is a happy one (which is actually a very typical convention of a fairytale!) .The link causing this convention that Propp identified from analysing tales still exists today in media texts that involve the aspect of love, but are applied in more modern situations - such as university and jobs.
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Developing Conventions
More and more current artists now release a lyric video alongside their actual music video when promoting their single. These types of videos are becoming increasingly popular, due to the fact that when someone enjoys a song, they tend to want to learn the lyrics and sing along to it. Despite these not being released on music channels as an official video, they are put on artists websites and Youtube pages. Often, people watch music videos on the internet more now anyway, with Youtube and Vevo being the two main ways of viewing it. These lyric videos gain millions of views, so it is apparent they are a common and popular way of people listening to their music. Typical conventions of a lyric video include an animated, moving image of the words appearing as they are being sung. They are usually reflective of the artist and the song style as well. They visually move in a smooth, slick way and look professional.
We developed conventions by applying a lyric video to a typical music video. I haven't found any music videos that incorporate both video styles, but due to the audience being young and frequent users of technology, I believe that it wont be a shock to them and would be easy to adapt to this style.The fact it is only a small part of the video, and was only included in one chorus it isn't too much and doesn't detract from the narrative video and story line.
Other ways I believe developing this convention is effective, is that Ed Sheeran is quite creative and artistic in terms of his album covers, posters and videos. All of this single covers are similar due to being black and white, a simplistic composition, the image being an illustration and the font being in a handwriting style. Therefore the audience/fans of Ed Sheeran's music would be aware of this and we wanted to fit in with his overall style. We adapted our lyric video to fit in with this, and kept the colour scheme black and white. We also had the fonts look relatively hand written and the images that were used look like doodles. Another way that this is effective is that one of the props used in our video is a black piece of paper with a doodle on it, so it also links in that way.
I enjoyed incorporating this into our video and believe it is an effective way of combining two popular music video styles to please our audience.
We developed conventions by applying a lyric video to a typical music video. I haven't found any music videos that incorporate both video styles, but due to the audience being young and frequent users of technology, I believe that it wont be a shock to them and would be easy to adapt to this style.The fact it is only a small part of the video, and was only included in one chorus it isn't too much and doesn't detract from the narrative video and story line.
Other ways I believe developing this convention is effective, is that Ed Sheeran is quite creative and artistic in terms of his album covers, posters and videos. All of this single covers are similar due to being black and white, a simplistic composition, the image being an illustration and the font being in a handwriting style. Therefore the audience/fans of Ed Sheeran's music would be aware of this and we wanted to fit in with his overall style. We adapted our lyric video to fit in with this, and kept the colour scheme black and white. We also had the fonts look relatively hand written and the images that were used look like doodles. Another way that this is effective is that one of the props used in our video is a black piece of paper with a doodle on it, so it also links in that way.
I enjoyed incorporating this into our video and believe it is an effective way of combining two popular music video styles to please our audience.
Challenging Conventions
One way in which our music video is not conventional is that there is barely any lip-syncing. The only time we do include this is for the purpose of the narrative story, where there is a shot of the male character leaving a voice mail, and it creates the illusion that he is speaking the words in the lyrics down the phone. Often in music videos, typically in the pop and R&B genre, artists will lip-sync along with the song and often are facing the audience looking directly into the camera. In the indie genre it is not necessarily in a band / party set up with instruments and a band, but instead the artist lip-syncs in more of an everyday context, such as walking down the street or in a park. Despite challenging conventions as a whole, due to creating a video for Ed Sheeran's music, we wanted to follow conventions that he as an artist uses. Ed Sheeran very rarely mimes along to the lyrics if at all in his videos, and due to his songs being quite descriptive, sensitive and having meaning to them, it often focusses on a story that is related to the song. I believe that if it cut to a set up of him singing, it would spoil the overall theme of his music videos. Therefore we decided to also create a video in this way, to maintain Ed Sheeran's video style, which would also continue to appeal to his fan base and audience.
