EVALUATION QUESTION 1

By Hayley Millross

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

Andrew Goodwin’s Music Video ConventionsMedia theorist Andrew Goodwin devised 6 conventions which can be commonly found in modern day music videos. These include:

1. The relationship between the lyrics and the visuals

2. The relationship between the music and the visuals

3. Particular music genres may have their own music video style and iconography

4. The artist may develop their own star iconography in and out of their videos

5. Likely to be reference to voyeurism (the act of sexual looking)

6. Intertexual reference, either to other music videos, TV texts or films.

Titles At the beginning of our video, we used a title sequence to state the name of the song. We specifically picked a font that fits in with the genre. Therefore, the font is bold white bubble writing dominating the frame. We gained inspiration from Skepta’s So Alive music video. The video features a title sequence stating the artist and the feature N-Dubz, another well known grime/rap trio which fans of Skepta may recognise from other projects. Grime artists may decide to add this effect into their video as it clearly marks that it is their work and the audience are still able to see the footage from the video behind it. The Skepta title uses a zoom in transition whereas our In The Bag title uses no specific transitional effect. The frame also happens around the title in our video whereas in Skepta’s, the way to view the frame is through the titles. So Alive by Skepta ft N-Dubz

Screenshot 1

Location & Setting Our location of the music video was a house party. We took inspiration from the self produced music video for Selena Gomez’s Birthday. This video was actually taken from her 21st birthday party so it added authenticity to the piece whereas our party was made for the soul purpose of being for the video. This of course came with some faults. It was hard to invite people on such short notice so the number of people there for filming made it feel like less of a party than first anticipated or hoped. Also, due to the time of year we were filming in and the weather on the day of shooting, we had significant problems with the lighting which is an essential element of a party themed video as low lighting fully captures the bright coloured lights, glow sticks, balloons etc. Our video was filmed in a sun room so that allowed reflections to be visible and the late afternoon light to come through whilst filming.

Birthday by Selena Gomez

Screenshot 2

The Scenario Scenes

To add a comedic element to our video, we decided to incorporate three scenarios with three of the girls from the party with “The Womanizer”. We took inspiration for human interaction scenes on a sofa from JLS’ Do You Feel What I Feel video. However, in this video, it is not done in the same context or manner as in our video. Our video therefore contradicts Andrew Goodwin’s convention of the lyrics matching with the visuals as we can see through the scenarios that the womanizer doesn’t in fact “have it in the bag” as the song states. In contrast, the human interaction scenes in JLS’ video do fit in with the lyrics and meaning of the song. Do You Feel What I Feel by JLS

Screenshot 3

Lighting

As stated in a previous slide, our biggest fault was the lighting. Circled in the screenshot in red are the areas in which our lighting faulted us. As you can see, the video commenced shooting in the late afternoon and due to the weather, it made it a grey/blue sky clearly visible through the large window in the sun room. The second lighting fault could have been the lamp circled in the right hand side of the screenshot. Although not a massive bother, it did hinder the lighting and made it seem more yellow in some shots. Lighting is key to a party themed media piece as it has to portray the potential craziness of the situation.

Screenshot 4 (with annotations)

Style

Artists of the grime genre have a specific style that music fans can easily determine. We used this particular style in our video with our performer. Our main motif and the item that makes our artist recognisable to the public is the snapback as it clearly portrays the genre of music our artist is emanating. It is the common item of clothing that people see on an artist within this genre. In Wretch 32’s Don’t Go video, the first we see of him is with a profile shot of him looking away from the camera. This is common within the grime and also in some hip-hop and R’n’B videos. It is to show off their profile to the audience and also capture their style and possibly their motif.

Screenshot 5

Don’t Go by Wretch 32

The Use of Ambient Sound

We used ambient sound at the beginning of our music video. This was to add an atmosphere to the party and to also greet “The Womanizer” as he entered the room. It uses the conventions of a grime/rap music video particularly videos with a party/rave scenario because it amplifies the party feeling and sets the scene further past the general setting and location of the video.

Screenshot 6

Dancing Scenes

It is conventional of the grime genre to have the main artist in the centre of the frame with backing dancers or extras from the video filling the scene behind them. This is to highlight the egotistic popularity of the singer and make the artist seem like the biggest part of the party. However, the artist in our video is more of an onlooker into the overall concept of the video.

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Pool Table Scenes

Many artists like to show off their extra skills within their music videos. This is more common in videos which portray a more relaxed atmosphere to show that the celebrity in question does have downtime to themselves and shows that they are still humble. In our video, we show our artist playing pool as fillers from the lip synching and the scenario shots.

Screenshot 8

Alcohol Consumption

To emphasise the party further, we decided to use fake alcohol in the form of both cups and shot glasses. There are also two more shots of two of the party guests consuming the shots. The still image of the shot glasses shown over the introduction of the song show an element of the party before the audience view it for themselves.

Still image of shot glassesAlcohol used within a scenario

Screenshots 9 and 10

OUR ANCILLARY TASKS

Magazine Advert

The magazine advert for our music video project uses an Intertexual reference. We took inspiration for the colour scheme, photo effect and title of the album from the film “The Godfather”. Our motif which is the snapback hat is featured in the advert. This links in with Andrew Goodwin’s convention of star iconography as it clearly displays the genre of the album through a simple item of clothing and is something people can recognise no matter what media form they are using to view the artist. Magazine adverts promoting music of the grime/rap genre typically display the feature tracks on their album. More predominately, they display the collaborations with other artists. This method of promotion then grabs the attention of not only fans of the album’s artist but also the fans of artists in which they collaborate with.

Digipack

We decided to make the Digipack similar to the magazine advert to create an image easily associated with our star persona. The series of photos used on the Digipack feature our motif, the snapback hat, and hand poses that fit within our genre and are typical poses used on other grime artist’s album covers. It again involves the same intertextuality seen in the magazine advert with reference to the Godfather film as inspiration for both the title and the front cover photo. We thought that the term “The Godfather” showed our artist to be self confident in their image and feel like their creations can inspire their fans.