QUESTION 1I N W H A T W A Y S D O E S Y O U R M E D I A P R O D U C T U S E , D E V E L O P O R C H A L L E N G E F O R M S A N D C O N V E N T I O N S O F R E A L M E D I A P R O D U C T S ?

The Medium

The music video is a form of advertisement, when looking at my music video I had to be aware of this to assure my video targeted the specific audience making the video specific to my audience. My music video had a strong comment on abuse within relationships, showing the pressures of life and the pain of this love eventually lead to the characters suicide, the music fit in with my video due to having a indie-pop form of music, whilst being sad showing the pain the protagonist is going through. Due to this comment on domestic violence the audience can sympathise for the main character and begin to look into the issues surrounding abuse. My music video promotes and markets the song Here We Are,

but also promotes the artist due to the comment on a serious issue.

My video follows the usual length of a music video standing in at 3:46, conforming to the length of many music videos, I felt that this was important due to the message my video was trying to send and by having it this length it allowed more of an audience interpretation.I’m marketing my product in order to promote the music for Michael Reeve this is effectively an advertisement for Michael Reeve.

I didn’t use the whole of the track as I felt the song began to lose its intensity towards the end, meaning it may of taken away the emotion which was currently undertaking. Due to this I thought it was important to cut it off earlier keeping the

audiences intention and allowing a more developed video.

Media Language of Music videos

I’ve followed Goodwin’s theory of the relationship between music and video “I've no answer, no easy cure, For the pain that we endure, Help me now, Don't say what I'm waiting for” my video takes quite a literal sense to these lyrics, clearly representing violence that the female character has endured blatantly showing this. The idea of violence links to both the lyrics and music video within the song ‘Breezeblocks’ by Alt J. the lyrics are quite literal saying “hold her down with soggy clothes and breezeblocks” showing clear relationship to the video, for me this was very important as the audience could begin to understand how cynical the male character is.

Music Video - Locations

My music video is one of a British convention, due to this I decided to keep the locations in typical British locations. For example, the house used was one of a ‘typical’ English household, this was important as it showed the rawness of the singer. This wasn’t a main focus for my video, but was still crucial in showing the consistency of my video. This overall stops my video from swaying from it origin, allowing the location to focus on my target audience.

The song ‘Here We Are’ doesn’t leave an obvious direction for the location of the video, the video could take many directions, however I felt that the enclosure of all my shots not having one outside shot appears to take away the characters freedom showing how she is trapped with the abusive character, that is why her walking out the door is such a pivotal moment as it shows potential for change. not having the shots outside also allows the location to become an opinionated subject meaning that the true outcome of the female character can’t be truly identified, adding mystery to the video.

GENRE AND INTERTEXTUALITYThe artist Michael Reeve said his genre was indie pop, following from this we used many similar conventions to this genre, for example dim lighting keeping the mood similar to one of a typical indie pop video. This is related to artists such as Vance Joy, often using lyrics speaking of love. I followed artists such as Jack Garratt mixing beauty with pain, for example the sound of music is wholesome but the video expresses pain and hardship contrasting nicely between the love and destruction, connoting with the idea of domestic violence.

I used conventions from the group Alt J who are known as an indie rock group, I followed their idea of confusion and abuse within the breezeblocks video. Only using shots inside and having an image of the protagonist leaving, this helps leave confusion throughout the audience and gives them their own interpretation to what is happening.

NARRATIVE STRUCTUREMy narrative structure is linear with flashbacks, I used flashbacks during the protagonists dancing to show the abusive character, representing how much pain and destruction he has caused. By doing this the audience could understand that even the thing that she loves has still been overthrown by the abusive boyfriend heavily due to the pure pain he has inflicted upon her. At the end of the video I reversed the whole video to show everything flashing before, representing this life before death. However by showing her walking out the door at the end and returning to her face it is possible for the audience to interpret her as living by doing this it leaves more of an open narrative for the audience watching.

REPRESENTATION

My video follows certain stereotypes, for example the male character appears to be controlling over the female protagonist and is always within her mind, this makes her appear as more of a passive character. The reason for this was more for a statement on the issues of gender dominance and sexism. Within the video we challenged this hyper sexualised representation of the female character, we did this by focusing more on the emotion she was feeling so the female protagonist wouldn’t be objectified and the audience would be able to see her as an important character for showing many issues surrounding media platforms. We tended not to use stereotypical props for setting as we wanted to the focus to purely be on the characters, allowing them to be heavily represented in different ways.

SECTION 2Print Production

PANEL 1My panel 1 was heavily inspired from the advertisement for the film ‘Black Swan’, the idea of

the cracks on the face represents her as being torn apart due to the way she is being treated by the male character. Because both poses similar story’s, I thought that although they have different reasons for having an edit like this, each have reasons for doing it.

David Bowies album cover also inspired this, this was due to the quite simple look to it, by doing this due to his facial expression we almost get an understanding of what type of music will be within the album. By doing this it is easier to target the specific audience I was aiming for, not misleading the type of music that the album would posses, also sticking to the indie genre that are in the songs.

Albums such as Kiss’s ‘Crazy Nights’ also have similarities to my album cover following this cracked theme I was going for, showing a distorted image and broken look. This was another inspiration for my album however, I believed that specific cover didn’t comply with the genre I was representing meaning I didn’t follow it completely.

PANEL 2 + 3

This panel is very clean , showing the male character watching over the protagonist. By doing this it makes the target audience feel scared for the protagonist, enticing people to listen as it gives them the opportunity to find out what this image means.

I decided to have one image for both panels, by doing this it keeps consistency within the image assuring that the image doesn’t look distorted. I challenged the often

used convention of lyrics, company credentials or artist details. By doing this I felt it would add mystery to the album, and its simplicity catches the audiences eyes, due to the contrast of colours within the image

PANEL 4 My panel 4 has similarities to my front panel both being black and white,

again keeping regularity assuring that the panels fit one and other. I decided to blend the track names on her face meaning the image wasn’t overthrown by the song names contrasting them nicely, I believe in doing this I challenged the look of most album back covers, showing originality within my panel 4. By doing this I believe it conforms to the indie pop genre, meaning the image is nicely blended. This image contrasts the front image nicely, taking more of a developed view as opposed to the clean look of the front panel keeping the album’s look interesting.

I originally planned to follow David Bowies album back cover, however although I followed the black and white image, I felt that blending the lyrics and the image together would give the album more versatility, not complying to the stereotypical album look.

MAGAZINE ADVERTMy magazine advert followed the look of Taylor Swifts opening image in her

video “style”. This image shows the male character overlooking the protagonist, making the audience question who the character is and what is going to happen. Due to the ‘pop’ cultural look of the image it conforms to todays modern contemporary magazine adverts. Using a shot of each of the performers makes them overall more recognisable and allows audience members to gain a connection with the female character.