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

In our video, we wanted a traditional performance to act as a base, in addition to our narrative and dance clips. For the performance, we wanted to challenge conventions of existing dance track music videos such as scenes at nightclubs. Because of this, we wanted to bring a classy and stylish look to the video to contrast with the style of the song. By doing this, we were challenging conventions of music videos for this genre of music. This allowed us to be more creative with ideas for filming including mise-en-scene and camera angles/shots. For our setting, we decided to use our school stage as it brings the idea of a live performance. We also chose this as it has a red curtain. As we were focussing on a stylish look, red brought connotations of royalty and class. We decided that red would be the statement colour of our video as the narrative and dance clips were going to have a black and white effect put on them. We then decided we should focus on the red and therefore brought it through into make-up; bright red lipstick. To link the video to our ancillary tasks (digipak and poster), I also wore red lipstick for them to show that it is a motif of our artists identity such as Lady Gaga who always wears extravagant outfits in her music videos. For my costume, I wore a long black dress and glittery heels to show that the artist is sophisticated. This goes against conventions as in typical dance track videos, the female characters are usually dressed in provocative outfits. As we avoided this, we went against Goodwin's theory of 'frequent reference to the notion of looking and voyeuristic treatment of the female body'. This type of elegant costume is seen in existing in music videos such as Toni Braxton's 'Unbreak My Heart' in which she wears an elegant white dress as she 'performs' to a live audience. As we wanted the performance to look live, I 'sang' into a microphone to give the idea that it was a stereotypical live performance to an audience. This is seen in many existing music videos. One I found in particular was Beyoncé’s 'Love On Top' in which throughout the entire video she ‘sings’ into a microphone in various settings and outfits. Again, this video brings the conventions of formal clothing as her and her backing singers wear suits.

Beyonce ‘Love On Top’

Toni Braxton ‘Unbreak My Heart’

For the story of our narrative, we wanted to portray the relationship of our two main characters. We planned for our narrative to follow Todorov's theory of 'balance - unbalance - balance'.

To follow this structure and bring a realistic feel to the narrative, we wanted the beginning clips to show the couple in their daily life together. For example, we showed them in the kitchen, happy together while Danni made them each a cup of tea. We directed Callum to stand by her side to talk to her and smile at her to make it clear to the audience that this is a happy time in their relationship. Throughout my research of numerous existing music videos, I found that this portrayal of the realistic narrative is conventional. For example, in Beyoncé’s 'If I Were A Boy' video, she and her boyfriend are having breakfast together. Although in this video it shows a corrupt side to their relationship, the overall concept of the narrative is the same; presenting the life and relationship of a couple.

Beyonce ‘If I Were A Boy’

In addition to the performance and narrative scenes, we had clips of contemporary dance which appeared throughout the video. We felt that these dance clips added a dramatic feel to the video as the lyrics and pace of the music is fast and upbeat. We wanted the dance clips to look simple yet effective so we concentrated particularly on the mise-en-scene of these clips. We used the school's dance studio as our setting as it is a basic room with all round black curtains. For the lighting we had only one spotlight on our dancer who we had dress all in black. We got this idea from John Newman's 'Love Me Again' video as we found that it looked effective and theatrical; the idea we were aiming for. As we had decided to keep only the performance clips in colour, we added a black and white effect to these clips making our video look organised and professional. When filming these scenes, we focussed on using a long shot as we wanted the audience to concentrate on the dancing, not particularly her facial expression. Again, this follows conventions of existing music videos as it allows the audience to see the performance in its entirety.

John Newman ‘Love Me Again’

Goodwin’s Theory

Andrew Goodwin said that in music videos it is likely that there 'is a relationship between the lyrics and visuals'. The lyrics of our song are 'Waiting All Night' by Rudimental are very repetitive, for example "I've been waiting all night for you to tell me what you want". As we wanted to follow Goodwin's theory by having our visuals link to the lyrics, we directed Danni to 'wait' on the prom for her boyfriend, Callum. Not only did this allow our video to link to the lyrics but it also sets up the start of their conflicting relationship as she shouldn't be waiting around for him; he should already be there. We decided to film this from behind her, looking onto the beach as it hides her emotions making it unknowing for the audience to understand how she is feeling therefore adding ambiguity. It is conventional for music videos to link their lyrics to their visuals as it helps the audience understand the lyrics more. For example, this is seen in Katy Perry's video for her song 'Thinking Of You'.

“'Cause when I'm with him I am thinking of you(Thinking of you, thinking of you)

Thinking of you, what you would doIf you were the one who was spending the night”

“I've been waiting all night for you to tell me what you wantTell me, tell me that you need me

I've been waiting all night for you to,Oh, oh, tell me what you want yeah”

Goodwin’s Theory

Goodwin also said that in music videos it is likely that there 'is a relationship between the music and visuals which will illustrate, amplify or contradict the music'. AS our chosen song is upbeat and fast paced, it was important for our visuals and editing to match the beat of the song otherwise there was the chance that it would look out of sync and unprofessional. In order for our visuals to match the music, we used tools on Adobe Premiere such as 'time stretch' which allowed us to speed up this particular clip as it was originally very slow. Fast cut editing is conventional of existing music videos such as Beyoncé’s 'Countdown’.

Beyonce ‘Countdown’

The video starts with a happy relationship. Equilibrium.

Later, another girl walks by and Callum seems to know her. Because of this, Danni hits him over the head with flowers he bought her and the conflict starts. Disequilibrium.

At the end of the video, Callum goes to Danni’s house and apologies. She forgives him and they are happy again. New equilibrium.

The video starts with a happy relationship where everything is normal. Equilibrium.

The boyfriend then gets into an argument with his next door neighbour who is the complete opposite to him. Disequilibrium.

The two girlfriends then decide that they should switch boyfriends and a new equilibrium is found.

Todorov’s Theory: ‘Balance – Unbalance – Balance’

Todorov, in 1969, had a theory in which he believed could apply to any type of film including music videos. This theory is known as the 'balance - unbalance - balance' theory. He believed that all films followed the same narrative structure. They all go through stages called the equilibrium, disequilibrium, acknowledgement, solving and new equilibrium. We decided to use this structure of narrative in our video as it easy for the audience to follow for a short amount of time. This structure of narrative is seen in All American Reject’s video ‘Gives You Hell’.

Digipak

Throughout my research of existing media products, I found it very difficult to find existing digipaks that I could analyse and use as exemplars. However, as a group we found a digipak which we found effective and wanted to use as inspiration. This was The Lumineers. With this as inspiration, we decided to develop on this and took into consideration our artist's brand identity. We had created our artist to be authentic and original who sees music as real and important, not just materialistic. Because of this, we wanted to keep our digipak simple yet effective, following conventions from existing media. For example, we kept the housestyle dull using dark colours such as black and grey including costume. However, on the inside cover and photos, we had 'bursts' of colour representing a less serious side to our artist. For the CD artwork, we took the idea from Beyoncé’s album '4' as she has just her initial on it. To develop on this, we linked our artists name (Emilie and the Emeralds) to the colour scheme and had a green 'E' on the CD.

Poster

When creating our album advertisement poster, we took inspiration from two existing products. These were Florence and the Machine's poster for her album 'Lungs' and Beyoncé’s 'I Am...' advertisement. We took our colour scheme ideas from the 'Lungs' poster as again; it was dark colours which would link with our digipak effectively. Again, we did develop on this by contrasting dull colours with bright ones to give our poster an edge. We challenged the convention of having the album title at the top of the poster as we thought it would be more effective to have the release date here. As the album cover is the dominant image we came to the conclusion that we didn't need to state the name of the album twice. When analysing both posters, we saw conventions of giving extra information about the album such as reviews and other singles that would feature on the album. We found this effective as it persuades the audience to buy it and is useful to those who may not necessarily know the artist but are familiar with the popular songs.

Beyonce ‘4’ Album Advertisement

Florence and the Machine ‘Lungs’ Album Advertisement