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

The genre of my music video ‘A Certain Romance’ is indie. There are a variety of conventions that are associated with this genre. This genre can relate to the clothing of the artist or the characters in the narrative of the music as they have the indie look, wearing clothes such as a skinny jeans and a checkered shirt. It is also associated with love, as many song are about relationships, such as the Arctic Monkeys song ‘A certain romance’.

As the Arctic Monkeys haven’t got a video for ‘A certain romance’ it was more challenging to make my own music video, as there was wasn’t an original video to get any ideas from, or to look at the quality of the real product. This also means I cant compare and contrast my product with the real product because it doesn’t exist.

The indie genre music video’s usually have a narrative, just like the Arctic Moneys video ‘Why’d you only call me when you’re high’ which is a narrative to do with romance. In this video, the male character, keeps is out but he keeps thinking about this girl, and texts her, suggesting she important to him and there is a connection between them.

This video includes the artist from the band being in the narrative but he doesn’t lip sync. Therefore, if some people are unfamiliar with the band, then they might think he’s just an actor.

In relation to my music video ‘A certain romance’, it contains most of the music video conventions to do with the indie genre. First of all, the music video is a narrative, just like the other song ‘Why do you only call me when you’re high’ by the Arctic Monkeys.

My video is also about romance, as a boy starts of his day in a bad mood, then meets up with a girl, enjoy spending time with her, and ends his day in a good mood. Therefore, my video is associated with love, which links in with the indie genre. My video doesn’t point out an artist as there is no lip syncing, although some indie genre music video include the artist singing, not all do. For example the music video for ‘Why do you only call me when you’re high doesn’t involve the artist and band singing or playing.

In my video the main character also wears indie type clothing, as he wears skinny jeans, and a knitted jumper. Therefore this convention also associated with the indie genre as the clothing create that type of style, which many people would recognise as the indie look.

According to Andrew Godwin, a media theorist, a music video should represent the song itself, as both a form of advertisement and as a message within the song. In relation to my music video, the music represents the songs name in general as its about a couple who have a small romance going on, and the name of the song is ‘A certain romance’. Therefore, the music video overall gives a message, representing it as ‘a certain romance’.

In my music video I have also used other conventions that some music videos have in general, not just the indie genre ones. In my video there is cutting on the beat, as in the post-production of the video, I edited a shot of the main character opening his curtains. In this shot the character opens his curtains and as he does this the sun shine fills his room with bright light for a moment. As this was a good shot and it happened at the beginning of the song where the instrumental introduction is about to finish, I edited the moment he opens the curtains to repeat quickly several times so he opens the curtains with the beat. It seems as if the music, from the electric guitars in the songs, make him opens the curtains with the repeated beat.

In terms of editing, the first half of the video is in black and white. This links well with what happens as it highlights the narrative, where the protagonist is in a bad mood the video is in black and white to suggest his day isn’t going well. Then the video colour changes to colour once the female character speaks to him and they go out. This effect adds quality to the narrative of the video, which is an indie genre convention.

In general, most music video have the ‘female gaze’ where the camera is focused on the female artist or character. In a indie genre music video such as ‘Why’d you only call me when you’re high’ by Arctic Monkeys, the focus is on a male character (artist) although he is thinking about a female even though she isn’t shown as much. In my video, there is also more of a ‘male gaze’ as the camera focuses on the male character, and then gets the female characters attention who then texts him in order to go out.

As in the indie genre there isn’t a specific male or female gaze, this could mean I borrowed the convention from another genre such as pop and then subverted the convention by using a male gaze instead of a female. For example, a pop song such as ‘All that matters’ by Justin Bieber has a music video where he as the artist is singing is focusing and singing to a female character.

In relation to my video this is an example as I could have borrowed the convention of the ‘female gaze’ from the pop genre and then subverted it to a ‘male gaze’.