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

The research and planning process was an important part as it helped to establish the formation of both of my final products. The advance brief clearly stated to create a successful music video and print. In order for me to do this I have successfully researched into a variety of different genre including indie rock bands. It was necessary for me to conduct this research as it helped me to understand the codes and conventions of at that particular genre. From my textual analysis of Beyonce’s ‘Pretty Hurts’ music video I immediately realised that the song did conform into the convention that of an RnB, Pop genre. In Goodwin’s theory it states that each genre has particular characteristics that define it e.g performance element and ‘Pretty hurts’ was in fact a narrative based music video. Although ‘Beyonce’ music is generally R&B, but she also incorporates pop, soul which can be seen through this song in particular with the different tones. Another typical convention is the use of close ups to convey the message, to get closer to the audience. There is a clear reference of this in our music video with the themes of depression that we felt the song conveyed and also our

inspiration from real media product e.g ‘Pretty hurts’. However I noticed that in this particular shot they used the rule of thirds to position Beyonce. I also noticed in the background that it was blurred out making her stand out. Early on in the research and planning I wanted to use this composition into my own work and I think I successfully

met this. I did this by placing the shot in vertical third of the right hand side and by slightly tilting it, which made the shot more intriguing and creative, gave it a more appealing look.

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We were inspired by 1975’s ‘Robbers’ music video, which Gemma examined in detail in her own blog for the research and planning stage. Their music video certainly captured our attention as we decided to use the close ups of the bloody hand in our music video, although it occurs early on in the narrative, referencing an enigma code for the audience. We decided we did not want a build up form, rather a concluding section. I strongly wanted to reinforce the sense of isolation and the battle with depression. We received some criticism regarding this, as one argued from our feedback that they were frustrated that we used a female protagonist for a stereotypical illness. However overall felt that we handled this very well. Despite the 1975 music video being in a different context, we wanted to use it anyway. It

could be argued that dominant focus on a central character in this case two characters is another way of us using a form of real media in our media. ‘The 1975’ front man Matty Healy stated in an interview that the video resembles a Bonnie and Clyde, where the two character are intoxicated with one another, explicitly referencing this with our protagonist depression and intoxication which is the real focus of our media product. Although in our initial ideas were to use flashbacks which would have been a more

accurate depiction of ‘The 1975’s ‘Robber’ video. Moreover the use of silhouette of the protagonist against the natural light is used both in our media product and that of ‘The 1975’. In spite of the fact that there is similarities, it can be argued in total different context, as the silhouette scenes in Robber represents a hopelessly romantic notion of happy moments, whereas in our media product the silhouette reflect the protagonist self struggle of fighting her own demons.

Other professional real media product that I have looked heavily into through the research and planning process included Imagine Dragons ‘Radioactive’ music and Rihanna’s Man down. From these I took inspiration for both narrative and setting. I especially looked at Imagine Dragons ‘Radioactive’ for camera techniques and effects which were important for developing a professional finish. An extreme close up of

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the eye in this shot is a typical convention of the indie rock genre as it conveys emotion and brings the audience closer to the character, however is slightly intrusive. We wanted to use to this in our music video so I filmed an extreme close up of Megan’s eyes to create an intimacy between the audience and the protagonist as well creating a personal connection.

I was inspired by this artist Jade Novah’s who recreated Rihanna’s song Diamond which has a professional look. The video contains close ups and long shot and one with a distorted panning shot that can be linked to in our establishing shot. However I was particularly interested in the bath tub scene, the heavy eye make -up which we originally wanted. Although the video is confusing and does not address some the perceptions of the song, as it took a different approach. This shows why it’s difficult to recreate a well unknown song which has a great video. In addition I believe that we challenged the forms and conventions of this particular genre because it normally focuses on performance aspects

rather than a narrative.

Rihanna- Man Down- Cross cut

The song has a reggae feel which Rihanna was inspired by, the song itself was deemed controversial because of the portrayal of murder. However some argue that argue that the feel a sense of empowering women through the effective portrayal of social problems e.g domestic violence. A Typically a pop genre usually use a cross cut in their music video, as Man down had cross cuts to various scenes of the narrative. As I mentioned in this in my pitch, as I was inspired by the effective use of cross cuts it as it illustrated two parallel actions happening at the same time.

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I feel like we have challenged the indie rock convention by not showing instruments within the video, while generally rock videos tend to either be heavily focused an element of instruments or a visage live performance rather than narrative. As we found out in our focus group many of them placed narrative above performance so we wanted to solely focus on narrative. Our media product does not contain any instruments such as guitar or drums instead we have a centrally focus on the protagonist. The performance element that we have takes place in a controlled studio rather than a natural setting where they

typically set. This can also be linked to the 1975 ‘Robber’ where the performance element is seen when the lead singer of ‘The 1975’ is singing in the video to his female love interest through the microphone. This is the only performance scene in the video just like ours, but it’s within the narrative, the main focus is on the protagonist.

Furthermore during my research I was inspired by Imagine Dragons ‘Radioactive’ music video which I have referenced quite a lot in my research and planning. I was inspired by the lighting that was used, at the beginning of the music video natural lighting is used which creates a good opening; similarly we used this in our opening scene of the sunset and the protagonist. However there are many shots in the video where the lighting in much dimmer and low key. Although lighting was an issue in the outdoor scenes, we were able to control more in the studio, nevertheless we still used after effect to create that blue-ish and grey effect. The lip-synching scene added a contrast to the rest of the video. We have also explored other real media product of the narrative in Pink ‘Perfect’ music video, the narrative is video is a non-linear as it beings with main character at a much older age to a flashback of her as a child. However we were more interested in the ideology, the concept of social expectation and the hidden illness. The video its self is mainly driven by narrative and we wanted the dark themes to come across in our product.

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