Question One.

In what ways does your media product use, develop or

challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Music video genre - Our media products attract certain audiences because the song comes from a particular genre of music, in this case rap/pop/hip-hop. Therefore it uses codes and conventions from that particular genre such as sticking to an ‘urban image’. Because of this, the band will not attract fans of rock music etc.

Narrative- Our music video, have stuck to the literal meaning of the lyrics. This way, the audiences can relate to the lyrics and what is happening in the music video. Here being the main singer disliking his job which is something thats relatable to everyday life.

Form- Our video is very simplistic in a sense that the narrative runs chronologically and there are no special effects or additions that makes the video creative.

Style- There is some band performance towards the end of the music video other than performances from the male and female leads. This is combined with a simple narrative of the male lead getting annoyed at work. The editing pace also contributes to the style of the music video and the pacing of the music.

Construction- In order to create the music video at it’s best, we had to construct the best clips together in the editorial stage. This included seeing which bits we lip-synced the best and which clips ran smoothly when put together.

Events that take place- There is a short simple narrative of the lead singer in the park and in his office getting frustrated with his work. However this narrative is cut up with performances from the male, female leads and the band. There is only one location for the female lead as her part is shorter and less important.

Presentation of the artist- There are many close-ups of both artists to present them in a particular way and make the fans feel as though they are interacting with them. This gives them a particular star image which is portrayed through their performance, costumes and locations.

Typical characteristics of artists performance- For the female lead, she shows lots of confidence and attitude because of the lyrics in her rap. Her expressions and gestures make her come across as an independent woman. The male lead however, is fed up with his work and so shows a different attitude to the female lead. His performance is more expressive in terms of the lyrics and his own persona. These performances are important in terms of portraying the artist in a particular way.

Themes- Our music video includes two different music genres- rap and pop. This has enabled us to do a variety of different locations and scenes in order to establish the artists theme. E.g the female lead belongs to a rap culture and so her scenes would include urban locations such as a wall with graffiti. Iconography- For the female lead we can see that her style is very urban because of the graffiti in the background. This contrasts with the male lead who shows a typical boy-band image of performing in a park and an office.

Music video lyrics and music relationship- For our music video we had stuck to the literal meaning of the video. This way we were able to film scenes that linked to the lyrics such as the office scene, which is linked to the dislike in his work. The female lead however, acts out the lyrics and the location relates to her background.

Camera usage and editing style- In order to match the editing and the camerawork with the genre of the song, we had to pick the best shots that would be most suitable for the music video. E.g when the male lead is frustrated in his office we use a variety of shots to create more drama in the narrative.

Patterns of the music genres- In order to stick to the right genres of the artists we had to use the right code's and conventions in order to make the best video. So for rap, there would be lots of attitude in performance and an urbanised location as identified by the graffiti.

Intertextuality- Our music video shows two typical characters that are seen in the real world. This is clearly identified through the way the music video is laid out. E.g The male lead showing a typical workman in an office who hates his job. Whereas the female lead, represents a particular group of people, here being those with an urban background.

GoodwinOur music video is from a pop/rap genre and so we can expect band performances, the male and female lead performing to the camera and a narrative of some sort. Here, we would see a rap from the female artist and a performance for the boy-band.

For our music video we stuck to the literal meaning of the lyrics throughout the narrative. The lyrics about working are reflected through the visuals of the lead singer working in an office and getting frustrated.

Most of the editing is cut on the beat to sync with the lyric changes and the timing of the music. It speeds up to relate not only to the narrative but also to the beat of the music. The band performance included solo parts of the guitarists, drummer and main singer.

Like every other music video, it would need close ups and good establishing shots of the artist. This is so that it can meet the requirements of the record label and the demand from audiences. The image given to the female artist is very urban and street where as the band gives a typical boy-band image.

There is no notion of looking however the artists do sing to the camera thus interacting with their audiences. The use of camerawork, costumes and locations only show intertextuality and no voyeuristic features. The only references to looking is by the male and female leads singling towards the camera.

There are intertextual references such as a typical worker in an office and a typical urban image of the female lead.

The majority of the music video is performance based by the male and female leads in different locations. For the male lead, there is a lot of narrative as we see him in the park and working in the office, soon getting frustrated.

VernallisThere is a brief narrative in the song about working for long amount of times and in the rap we see what goes on in the rappers mind. The music video has stuck to the literal meaning of the lyrics by setting it in locations such as an office. Our video in predominately performance based with a pinch of the band performance towards the end. This is to focus on the lead singers and the narrative which is broken up throughout the video. This narrative is partial in a sense that we don’t know a lot about the male singer as it its only focused on his dislike in his job. It runs smoothly with him in the park then the office but this is broken up by the band performance and the female lead. We see at the end, the main singer leaves the office with the same hat on as the park scene, this makes the music video go backwards in terms of locations. The narrative and performances are the main driving forces that shape the music video.

The shots in the music video just generally flow from one and another in simple cuts with no effects or tricks. However to speed some of the action up, we have used jump edits and this also gives the music video a bit of an edge. This also speeds up the pace of the music video along with the majority of the video which is mainly cut with the music. The shots are either cut on the beat of the music or the actions echo the slides that are in the song. There is cutting against movement as demonstrated as we see the actions not only in sync with the music but also cut on the beat.

In terms of camera movement and framing, the majority of the shots used are still which establish the artist in a still frame. It’s more the framing and cuts that are linked to the music rather than camera movement and so enables focus on the male and female singers. Because of the small input of camera movement, we focused more on the framing to show what is happening in the video rather that put in some tricks. The camera movements used however, are to either rotate round the artist or make the band performance more exciting to watch such as hand-held shots. The very first shot in the music video is an establishing shot of the male singer in the park which shows him in full before we see him singing to the camera. There are also establishing shots of the office which, again, gives us audiences the background to the character that the main singer is portraying.

The content of the music video is quickly revealed at the start as we see shots of him, not only in the park but also in his office. This is to establish the events in the music video before reaching the main body if the video. Performance wise, most of the actions are not cropped to make the performance look complete and some of these general actions have filled in gaps between the verses and the choruses. We decided which shots to put where in terms of how they flow through performance and location, some are more important as of establishing a location or an artist or the band.