Transcript
Page 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop and challenge real media texts

In what ways does your media product use; develop or challenge forms and conventions in real media products?

Page 2: In what ways does your media product use, develop and challenge real media texts

The songI chose to do a song which does not have a music video already because I didn’t want to be influenced because I wanted to try and be original. I used Frank Ocean because he has challenged the conventions of being in the music industry by coming out as being gay recently, which is hard to do in this area because of all the publicity. I used RnB conventions within my video to portray to the audience that it is this genre however, I also challenged them. For example I used a very green setting showing tranquility and peace which is usually seen in indie videos. I did this to try and show that the artist believes in beauty and that the song is about loving not because of what is on the outside, like having the body of a woman, it just matters what is natural because that is what is most beautiful. In this case that love is beautiful and it doesn’t matter if your partner is a man or a woman just like the natural world that we live in. the song is about a ‘blind man’ and the main message is that he can love a person because of their personality and who they are, not because of the outward appearance.

Page 3: In what ways does your media product use, develop and challenge real media texts

Camera work

I tried to convey the raw emotion by showing a wide range of shots of the ‘artist’s’ face because this is the best way for the audience to connect with the song and the story behind it. This complies with conventions because of the records demand to show lots of close ups of the artist to market them, almost like brand identity. I also used a range of movements and angles, such as, low angle shots which are seen mainly in rap genre to show the thug life in a good light however I used them to show that the artist is a good person for his beliefs on how the world should be and how society should view things

Page 4: In what ways does your media product use, develop and challenge real media texts

Children are innocent?Most music videos use adults in music videos because of the inappropriate content that may or may not be in a certain video, however I challenged this because I used children to show the innocence of love, I also used children because I tried to represent the fact that the younger generation are growing up fast and more and more children are loosing out on a normal childhood because of fame. I also used children because they love, even at young ages and at this age it is just emotion and no desired get in the way; it is built into us and may even be in our genetics as well as it being in humanity. Famous children cannot just ‘play out’ and have a private life because of the press and what is expected of them. For example willow smith’s song ‘whip it’ is very sexual in the lyrics: ‘whip it real good’ and in the dancing and positions she is being filmed in. I don’t think that this is good to be exposing children at such a young age to this kind of ‘love’ which is why I challenged this convention and didn’t film the actors in a sexual way all throughout my video. I also used children for a light hearted feel because children naturally make people smile and bring happiness and therefore using them meant that the ‘deep’ song would have a heart lifting feel to it, instead of loosing the viewers attention by being to depressing.

Page 5: In what ways does your media product use, develop and challenge real media texts

Mise en sceneCostume - I used different costumes each time I called for the actors, this showed diversity and complied to conventions that in music videos there is a range of costumes. It is also to show the style of the artist and the genre of the music video, which in this case, would be RnB. I used the artist clothes to develop the conventions, at parts in the video he is wearing black to show attitude due to the RnB genre and red to suggest love and desire and blue, suggesting sorrow and sadness; all to reflect the lyrics and strengthen the relationship between the lyrics and the visuals, complying to Andrew Goodwin’s theory. The colours all have their own story behind them and meaning which will let the audience in to the artist story and make them have empathy for the artist because they have a subconscious insight to his feelings. There is also a theme of colour running throughout the lyrics of the song where he sings ‘green girl’ and a ‘blue man’ which is why I wanted my video to be colourful in the clothes.

Lighting – during the hot tub scene the lighting was low key because it was dark outside, this portrays romance and attitude. I got them to be moving about while I shot this as to escape the sexual tension because they are only young and I also told them to both stay submerged however this just seemed to be like they were playing and that they were both hunchbacks which was not what I was aiming for. This was the problem that I came across with using children, I had to be careful to what I was filming, especially in this scene which was why I couldn’t have got them in ‘romantic positions’ which is what I would have preferred if the actors I was using were old enough. I have filmed in high key lighting for a lot of the time, especially in the opening shots because of the good feeling that the high key lighting brings and how it will make the audience feel while they are watching the video. I aimed to pull at sadness and sorrow however leave the viewer feeling that they have just witnessed a love story which ended on a good note because, for me personally, this is what the song did for me. I also used back lighting to show mystery and attitude because we could only see the artist's silhouette while he was on the tree, it was also, again strengthening the relationship between the lyrics and the visuals because we couldn’t see his face and as he lifts his hands up to the sky which has reference to ‘blind’. In the ancillary texts this was the same, I also used high key lighting because of the happiness that is conveys to the audience. However on the magazine advert there is more of a dusky feel to the image because the lighting is artificial and it is inside which suggests attitude, complying to the conventions of the RnB genre.

Page 6: In what ways does your media product use, develop and challenge real media texts

Back lighting

Black and red colours signify love and attitude

The blue coloured top suggests sadness and the direct mode of address helps the audience empathise with this sadness

The mid-shots show that he isn’t wearing any makeup and you can see all 3 different locations here. I chose to have different locations because of the conventions; all videos I looked at had different locations and used different costumes and I wanted my video to be just as successful.

As you can see the props I used came with the settings, for example, the tree that my actor was sat in and the bed he was sat on and the fence he was sat on were all already in the settings which meant that it looked natural and the objects were true to the setting, this amplified the true lyrics.

High key lighting (before editing)

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Make up – the male I used in the video wouldn’t let me put any make up on him to make him look more tanned because he claimed it would make him look like a girl and when asking permission to film the young lady, her guardian said that she didn’t want me to use makeup because if her skin condition and therefore I couldn’t use any, however this played to my advantage because of the message behind the lyrics being that it doesn’t matter what is on the outside because the lack of make up only amplified this message . This was the same for each piece of my production.

Props - I also didn’t use any ‘bling’ or, apart from the hot tub, any specific prop that shows wealth because I don’t believe that it is the appeal of wealth, especially to woman, seeing as though my main artist is a male, that sells the record its the music and this is also why I got the actor to mime the lyrics as though he is the artist, because I believe that the audience should be sold because of the lyrics of the song and the emotion that they conjour. On the floor on the grass I saw that there was an abandoned duck that was in the place where I had been filming and I therefore included it in my music video because of the fact that it will have once been new and beautiful and it had been abandoned like the man that the song speaks of who is broken and was left by the ‘green woman’, especially because we had just moved into the house and the duck had been abandoned by the previous owner.

Setting - he sings about green a lot in the first verse which is why I have filmed so much in a green setting, to strengthen the relationship between the lyrics and the visuals further. However I don’t hink that the outdoors-y green had exactly the right effect that I wanted it to have, as a result it seems as if the locations are random and don’t fit with the theme of the song and lyrics. On the other hand Frank Ocean tends to do this in his videos as I pointed out in the research so my choice is therefore justified as so fit in with his other videos from which I have taken inspiration. In the digipak I used images from different locations. This is because I wanted to challenge conventions due to the usual, for example, Rihanna and Beyonce images being shot in the same location. I believe that Frank Oceans music deserves an unusual introduction because it is an acquired taste in music. I still tried to convey the same feel of serenity and uniqueness through each of these different images to keep the same house style throughout each of the media I produced.

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Form I used the form amplification mostly because I wanted the visuals to suggest and amplify the lyrics without directly representing. I therefore used symbolism through costume because of the colours and I tried to convey that a story was being told from the heart rather than the visuals over powering the song and giving it a whole new meaning. I tried to enable the audience to relate the lyrics to themselves by making the video slow and passive. I also did this because I think that the video just amplifies the song because it is mostly about the music and the video just needs to carry it by using technological convergence so that it can reach to a mass audience and therefore increase sales. I also used some narrative by also using a woman in the video; it was implied that there was history between the two in the video because of the lyrics at the beginning: ‘green girl’.

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The male gazeI also followed the conventions of Laura Mulvey’s theory by using a woman in the video and filming her against the wall with her hair being moved by the wind is stereotypically sexual. She is not being provocative however she still has sexual appeal to the males target audience demographic which is also a convention of the RnB genre. In the establishing shot at the beginning the camera sows that the woman is lower down that the actor playing the artist because he is sat on a fence. This shows that the male figure is viewed as more important than the woman just like how women are stereotypically viewed among society. Alternatively the camera angle, when she is leaning against the fence is slightly a low angle shot, this gives her power which contradicts the theory because, through the heterosexual males eye, women are less than men in status. Also in the hot tub where she is also filmed she is not shown to be under the males arm or shown in a sexual light which suggests that women as a whole aren’t sexual objects for men to have which sheds light on the artist and on the RnB genre for not spending time with her in the video for that reason. It also shows equality amongst women. On the other hand because it is one of Frank Oceans songs and he is gay, people may over look this because they might just assume that if it was a man in the hot tub then it would be a different story, but while I was filming I didn’t think of this and my intentions at the time were to contradict the male gaze theory and not to be looking through the eyes of a homosexual male.

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Direct mode of addressThe look on his face on the magazine advert shows no direct mode of address. This contradicts conventions because in many shots in current music videos the artist looks at the camera because of the record labels want for close ups of the artist to market them. The best way for them to be marketed is if they can make the audience have empathy for them by ‘making eye contact’ with the audience. This is because, I think, the fact that he isn’t looking at the camera shows that he is sad, and over thinking things in his head, in his own little world. However I do request that in some scenes of the music video that the ‘artist’ gives a direct mode of address because then the audience feel more involved in the narrative in the video and the feelings behind the lyrics. I made sure that I included images using direct mode of address on the digipak because then it is like the artist is looking at the audience, inviting them in, i think this works on my digipak.


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