in what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media...

Q1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Q1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

What is the purpose of a music video and why are they so popular?

A music video is a message to the audience. Its purposes are to entertain and promote artists whilst promoting brands. But it's mainly to promote the song. A music video or song video is a short film integrating a song and imagery, produced for promotional or artistic purposes.

In what ways has our music video used forms and conventions of real media products?

When planning for our music video we wanted to replicate aspects of some of our favourite singers music videos. For example, a lot of our inspiration for the shots through out our music video came from Lana Del Rey videos. So we used similar editing techniques to create a likeness and a soft feel to our music video. We used vintage filters on premium pro to increase the brightness and intensity of the colours like in Lana's videos. We adapted some of the forms we have seen in real media products such as the layering of footage to create a collage look with lots of visually interesting footage and colours. We also used snap shots of the footage to make them look like captures of time to create that home footage form. We used colour schemes and fonts to create a professional feel and keep a strict continuity throughout the products we did research into what elements digipaks typically have in order to produce the most life like product we could. We also researched into band websites and what features they tend to have. We found Instagram a most popular choice to share news, images and footage to represent our band.

Conventions of a music video/Genres and sub genres

Do artists need to adhere to conventions? Genres can limit the artist creatively, visually and stylistically. Sometimes behaviour can be controlled by producers and the expectations of audiences. In some cases music videos are produced to adhere to ideas at the time. Artists could conform to the zeitgeist.

Andrew Goodwin created a theory which involved 6 features of a music video:

Music videos demonstrate genre characteristics.

there is a relationship between lyrics and visuals.

There is a relationship between music and visuals.

the demands of the record label will include the need for lots of close ups of the artist and the artist may develop motifs which recur across their work.

There is frequently reference to notion of looking and particularly voyeuristic treatment of the female body.

There are often intertextual reference.

So in what ways did our music video use, develop or challenge this particular theory?

How did we use conventions

Throughout our music video we tried to adhere to some of Goodwin's typical conventions but at the same time challenge some aspects. Firstly we did demonstrate genre characteristics through out our music video as we were aiming to represent the indie rock genre, whilst incorporating some vintage and personal look to the footage like Lana Del Rey. Our first inspiration came from Wolf Alice whose song we used to create our music video. We researched into their album covers and what kind of themes their music videos tend to have. We really liked the idea of doing a friendship themed music video full of hand held footage and natural shots, which fit perfectly with the genre conventions of indie rock. In a lot of our favourite music videos a lot of the filming is done in outdoor locations and including multiple elements and people. For example in Lana Del Rey's Video games some of my favourite scenes include outdoor locations, which give it a unique and spontaneous feel. We decided to work with the lyrics and visuals to a certain extent, I took really inspiration from the lyrics in the song Ill keep you safe, youll keep me strong which really drove the ideas and content we decided to use. The message of loyalty, friendship and love conveyed through the lyrics of the song inspired our music video, however we did not have direct links with visuals and lyrics, more of a range of interpretations and influences.

The male gaze and conventions

One of Andrew Goodwin's conventions is There is frequently reference to notion of looking and particularly voyeuristic treatment of the female body. Ever since we learnt this theory this convention in particular has stuck with me. The exploitation of females through art forms can both be empowering and dehumanising. In some ways the notion of looking, I believe, is outdated. A woman is strong and beautiful, the notion of looking should not be used as predatory or insulting but instead the notion of looking in awe of the beauty and strength of a woman, with respect and admiration. I find the use of voyeuristic treatment of women very dated and really in our day and age should not still be happening. The use of women for voyeuristic purposes can be seen as empowering to some women but to the extent of dehumanisation and disrespect is completely unacceptable in our creative art forms. I wanted to take this opportunity of creating an art form to represent women in a positive and empowering light. We chose not to include any males in our music video to represent the importance of relationships with friends and the power and happiness women can find through art forms such as music and also the power that can be found from friendship and beauty. The male gaze theory created by Laura Mulvey (1975) looks at the way women look at themselves and how women look at other women. I think its so important to bring support and kindness to humanity. I think the use of the media over the past 30 years or so has in some ways made it acceptable for women to call each other sluts, slags, whores the use of social media to tare other women down is not doing anything for gender equality. By people using these terms to call each other by makes it seem like its acceptable to use these derogatory terms regularly. We tried to combat all elements of the male gaze theory, we made our female characters strong and happy as opposed to being objectified or represented as a sexual fantasy.

In what ways could be further have pushed the use, develop and challenge forms and conventions of media products?

In some ways we did use forms of real media products to create a professional quality to our music video. However in many ways we developed forms through editing, content and effects. We were inspired by the indie rock genre to create something individual with intense colours and quick paced editing. However we incorporated different elements of genres such as baroque pop which involve collaborations of footage and narrative, which we used to represent the theme of friendship. We have also included pop elements such as the close ups of the lip syncing which is quite typical of that genre. If we were to produce our music video again, I would include different characters and story lines to challenge what we typically see in a music video. Like Altman argued in no such thing as genre, genre is progressive, like he suggests, a new formula needs inventing in order to regain appeal to audiences. I would focus on making conventions more individualised and focused as an art form like many of our inspirations.

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