Question One

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and

conventions of real media products?

Camera Angles

Few videos pay attention to camera angles.

Some music videos tend to have more concentration put on mise en scene and less on the camera angles, resulting in many videos featuring only mid, long and close-up shots.

However, there are still a lot of videos that have excellent attention to detail in camera angles and feature a wide range of different shots and angles, resulting in a well constructed and easily followed short film to accompany their song.

Alice Anderson

Camera Angles

Mine included a mixture of both close-ups and long shots. This is to show both character emotion and the content of the narrative.

I tried to be a lot more creative with the use of camera angles and added a few POV shots to allow the audience to see through the character’s eyes.

Alice Anderson

CGI and Effects CGI and effects are used a lot in alternative genre music

videos.

This is possibly so that there can be an obvious difference created between this genre and others. The use of special effects allows for more freedom and creativity with the storyline of the music video, it means that aspects of the video can be edited to allow the message of the video (if there is one) to be portrayed easily and for the audience to understand what it is the artists and creators of the track and video want the promo video is meant to represent.

Alice Anderson

CGI and Effects

I didn’t have the suitable programme or knowledge of how to use that kind of editing and the storyline didn’t require CGI anyway. I did, however make use of the green screen to show the news reports.

The storyline I originally had required special effects to make sense which I knew would be impossible so I was forced to change aspects of the video several times due to setbacks. I managed to complete the music video with minor effects such as the green screen, rolling messages as shown above and transitions between a few scenes.Alice Anderson

Lip-Syncing Many promos have the characters on screen lip-sync the words in

the song.

This is mostly done by the artist or members of the band whose song is playing. This is to provide the audience with a sense of familiarity between themselves and what is happening on screen.

It can create a sense of intimacy as the artist sings directly into the camera and to someone familiar with the band it can feel like they are singing directly to them.

Alice Anderson

Lip-Syncing

I didn’t have the time to edit this and instead produced a narrative piece, with the song playing on top of it. This, unfortunately didn’t create an intimate atmosphere as it would have done if I had taken the time to edit it like this but I think, in terms of the content of my video it is better without the singing.

Alice Anderson

Performance

Whereas a lot of alternative genre videos include scenes of performance or, at the very least, the presence of instruments I chose to step away from the music and the band and make a completely narrative video piece to accompany the song.

Alice Anderson

Flashbacks

Many narrative videos in this genre, mine included, revolve around crime. These normally tend to have the criminal as the main character and so the audience sees everything from their perspective, as a result of this many videos, mine included, include flashbacks to how the criminal found themselves in that particular situation.

Alice Anderson

Flashbacks

My music video has around thirty seconds of footage taking place in the moments before my character got arrested, letting the audience know how they got themselves into that situation.

I introduce the flashbacks with a blank title screen informing the audience that the images they are about to see happened in the past. The scene begins blurry with a black border over the top and bottom of the screen to differentiate these scenes from the others. The scene comes into focus when the figures enter the room and the movement begins.

Alice Anderson

Lighting

Lighting and the use of shadows play an important part in music videos of the alternative genre as their storylines tend to be dark and grim and they often have lighting that reflects this.

In these scenes the room is dark with non-diegetic light coming in from the side. This allows shadows to be cast on the actors’ faces, creating a foreboding atmosphere.

Alice Anderson

Lighting

I used both light and dark lighting. I used light (and the absence thereof) to indicate the presence of danger. For example, in scenes with the Detective the scenes are bright whereas in scenes where ‘Liz’ has kidnapped ‘Max’ the scene is very dark.

This is so that the audience can easily distinguish between when something bad is going to happen and when a character is in danger.

Alice Anderson

Mise en scene

The scenes below were set out to give a specific meaning. For example, the first one has a jellyfish in the background to show the audience that she in underwater. She is also wearing a dress with bits of fabric on the arms that move around as though she is underwater.

The second scene takes place in a dressing room, this is obvious by the two reflections in the mirrors and the hairspray in the corner of the screen.

This allows the audience to see clearly what is happening in the scene by taking in the surroundings and clothes of the people on screen.

Alice Anderson

Mise en scene

I had to reshoot some of my scenes as when I filmed them at first I didn’t pay too much attention to mise en scene.

For example, in the above scenes I filmed the left one first and didn’t notice that there is a toy washing machine on the floor as my character picks up a knife. This completely destroys the atmosphere of the video as people might think that the toy holds special meaning to the scene and look at that instead of the action so I had to remove it and film the scene again. Unfortunately, I had to use a different knife as I have misplaced the original.

Alice Anderson

Alice Anderson

Theorists

My music video represents Tzvetan Todorov's theory of narrative, however not in the originally intended order.

Although the video isn’t introduced with a state of equilibrium the video presents the disequilibrium in the form of Liz being left behind by Max whilst robbing a house and the recognition of this in the form of the Detective questioning her about it.

We see Liz try to restore the equilibrium herself by killing Max and Martin who checks up on her, however this further increases the disruption of normality until the Detective restores the video with a new state of equilibrium by finding and killing Liz at the end of the video.

Alice Anderson

Theorists

I also follow the theory represented by Claude Levi-Strauss who claims that all forms of narrative represent two binary oppositions

Good Vs Evil

In my promo video the ‘evil’ is represented by my main character Liz who tries to take matters into her own hands and, subsequently, makes it worse whereas the ‘ good’ is represented by the Detective who spends the whole video tracking Liz down until the good finds and overcomes the evil.

Alice Anderson

Inspiration

My music video was influenced by that of the Halestorm song, ‘Familiar Taste of Poison’. Both videos open immediately with the acknowledgement of disequilibrium with no explanation of how it happened.

In the Halestorm video the disruption of equilibrium is shown in the form of a dead lady, however mine is shown through the antagonist, Liz, getting arrested during a heist before the video begins.

Alice Anderson

Inspiration

Like mine, the Halestorm video is centred around crime and the ‘good’ character wants to find out what exactly happened to cause the disequilibrium at the opening of the video.

Both of the detectives receive no answer from the confrontation between them and the antagonist and must come to the conclusion themselves.

The difference between this video and mine is that the antagonist, Liz, is the main character and we see the video from her point of view and the fact that Liz is murdering characters is not a secret to the detective, the secret is Liz’s whereabouts.

Alice Anderson

Inspiration

In both of the videos the audience is shown the moment detective finds definitive information on their culprit.

In the Halestorm video, it is the moment when the Detective receives the lady’s post-mortem results that indicate she had been poisoned and in mine it is when the Detective finds Liz’s address through her Facebook account.

Alice Anderson

Inspiration

The Detectives both restore equilibrium at the end of the video.

Whereas in the Halestorm video it is when the antagonist gets arrested, equilibrium is restored in mine when the antagonist is caught and killed.