QUESTION 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and

conventions of real media products?

Morgan Roux

Andrew Goodwin stated in his theory that conventional music videos show a relationship between the lyrics and visuals, with the visuals typically amplifying or illustrating the lyrics.

Our music video has a direct relationship between the lyrics and visuals making it a conventional music video. The song lyrics consist of a boy describing different types of girls that are available to his friend who is newly single and is looking for a new ‘Girl’ The lyrics are very descriptive and we were able to use, find images which suited each girl described creating a slideshow of images as if the two characters were flicking through girls profiles. For example “Sarah’s into S’N’M” we used a photo which illustrated the lyrics as closely as possible.

“And Sarah’s into S’N’M”

“Megan likes the older men”

“Suzey can’t keep her mouth shut”

Continued…We also physically showed the lyrics visually, In the opening scene the lyrics are being typed out into Facebook chat as if it was a conversation between friends. San Cisco have taken a similar approach in their music video ‘Awkward’ however they have shown the lyrics through text messages this screenshot (bottom right) show the lyrics in speech bubbles however both ours and San Cisco’s agree with Andrew Goodwin’s analysis and show a direct link between lyrics and visuals.

Secondly Goodwin stated that in conventional music videos there is a relationship between the music and visuals which similarly to the previous statement amplify the lyrics.

There are several examples of this in our music video, for example at the end of the music there is a build up and a climax is reached. To reflect the fast pace, and high energy of this section in the music we thought the best way to show this was through hand held camera work with lots of cuts making the footage which is being watched jumpy and energetic matching the fast paced music. This screen shots show some of the different angles and distances we filmed at to helping create a exciting visual to match the music.

Continued…Similarly to Example’s music video ‘Midnight Run’ he has used filters to change the colour of the image to signify the change in music. For example in our music video throughout the breakdown we used warm colours to show the calm mellowness of this section in the music however when the colour begins to change into a colder blue colour reflecting the drama on screen and the change of music to a more fast paced climax the darker image at the build up also reflects a typical grime music video as it creates a ‘grungy’ feel. Example similarly darkens the image at the climax in his music video making this a conventional technique.

Goodwin also noted that record companies will demand a lot of close-ups of their star/performer.

The band are not featured in the video. This is typical of the genre of music we are looking at so we purposely didn’t include them in the video. However we have two main characters in the video John and Mike who play the two characters in the footage. The both take up a lot of screen time, however John the character in the screen shots on the left has more close ups so perhaps this promotes him as the star in this music video. This challenges Goodwin’s analysis being our music video challenges conventions as we aren’t promoting a star.

Voyeurism is also another feature which is usually present in conventional music videos.

Voyeurism is a heavily used in our media product. The opening shot is of Mike’s house as if your standing outside looking at it. The close up shot of his bedroom window suggests that we are about to see something we might not be permitted to. The setting for the video is a teenage boys bedroom and we are looking over mike’s shoulder as he browses Facebook, the camera zooms in as he scrolls down so we can see the chat box and him talking to his friend on Facebook, moments like this excite audiences as they are able to look in at a private conversation. Close up shots were important to use whilst filming to create voyeurism as your right in the shot with them almost as if your invading someones personal space.

Continued…Another element of voyeurism is listening in on phone conversations. This is one of the most commonly used forms of voyeurism used, both Lady Gaga and Taylor Swift have used it in their videos. It gives the audience permission to listen in on private moments and creates a sense of intrigue and mystery to the audience. Due to the fact that we have heavily used voyeurism throughout our music video I definitely think we’ve conformed to convention.

Intertextual references to other music videos, TV shows, books, movies etc.

Our Digipak uses several intertextual references. One of which is the fireball we created was taken from the well known game ‘Street Fighter’. We gave the fireball a pixelated effect to look close to the imagery used in the game. The band is named after a move from this game so we thought it was essential to include as it added comic value as well as please. We also pixelated the image we created to make it look closer to a video game.

Continued…

The idea for the black background with the heads was stimulated from The Beatles album. Despite the fact that The Beatles is completely unlike Hadouken! We have loosely based our digipak around their album cover with the heads coming out of the black, dark shadow.

Continued…There is similarly strong intertextual references between our album cover and Queen’s albums. The portrait of Mike is the same idea as Queen’s superimposed heads as it has a similar blurred effect that we aimed to create with our image. The grid like effect we used is similar to another Queen album due to the more formatted layout of the heads. Our magazine, digipak follows conventions as it has quite in-depth references however they may not be noticeable to everyone.