Evaluation question one

Evaluation question one

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  EVALUATION QUESTION ONE 1) In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? Mine and Jordan’s chosen artist was predominantly of the drum and bass genre, and so I started to view, study and analyse music videos of a similar genre, so that I could get a feel of what was included in the music videos of this particular genre, as my knowledge before hand of the genre was somewhat limited. While there were some new conventions that I managed to pick up, most conventions that I noticed were also applicable in other music videos that I already knew about through my previous experience from watching numerous music videos on YouTube. This expanded my awareness of conventions within all genres, and particularly the drum and bass genre. Andrew Goodwin’s theory states that most music videos contain a series of certain conventions within them. These are outlined below: 1)Music videos demonstrate genre characteristics. In our music video we tried to make it suitable for the genre, by matching up Drum and Bass conventions into our video. This meant that the audience would be familiar with the style of video, and not be alienated by it. 2)Relationship between music and visuals was crucial within our video as we wanted to make our video so that it represented the music as closely as possible. By this, we made sure that cuts were in time with the music and so forth. This ensured a fast pace to the video, so at to demonstrate the intensity of the story, and also to keep the viewer entertained. This was our main focus from the start, and we thought it was important to follow the genre’s convention of fast paced action, and this necessity was made even more pertinent because of the absence of lyrics within our video. 3)Relationship between lyrics and visuals was a highly discussed factor within our video as there were no lyrics within our video. We found the track without lyrics, and me and Jordan made a conscious decision not to add lyrics to the track, as we felt that the video would work better without lyrics and would leave it even more open to interpretation (which was a key feature in our plans). 4)Close ups of the artist weren’t particularly necessary in our video, as there are no lyrics so we could avoid this entirely, and bring in our own actors to be focused upon. This meant that the focus was mainly on the story and the music, and this benefits us in some ways as performance based videos can be somewhat boring whereas concept based ones can involve the audience more. 5)Voyeurism is a key aspect of our video, with watching a key notion, mainly watching of the main character (Nelson). This enabled us to do many shots similar to the one above where Nelson is running away, and being watched through a small window by a mystery individual. This adds to the mystery of the
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  music video, andadds to the openness of interpretation available. However we somewhat challenged conventions as we had the male character being stalked and not the female character as usually happens, however the viewer experiences a power struggle towards the end in which the male character emerges victorious. 6)Inter-textual references are present within our video, such as when we rewind the story to show how Nelson’s life used to be, or how it might just be all a dream. Location: Choosing our location was a laborious and long task but eventually we settle on an uninhabited house in Bintree, Norfolk. This house was an ideal location for our video, because we had noticed in Drum and Bass videos that generally they were shot in run down locations in grey conditions (hence the black and white). We investigated this location first via Google maps and then decided to visit for a further look because we liked what we had seen. Then we decided to make our music video flicker between this run down location and a nice, modern house to emphasise the difference we edited the modern one in colour and the run down one in black and white to conform to the conventions of the genre. The link for mine and Jordan’s video of the set is below: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCMEHXLqrQo&feature=related This location offered us a run down house with a barn adjacent where we could also film, and just across the road was a field that looked remarkably similar to a wasteland. Thus, this location offered us everything we needed, and was rural enough so that our filming wouldn’t be interrupted by pedestrians or cars etc. It replicates Nelsons feelings throughout the music video, thus meaning that the audience can get a visual representation of his emotions which allows them to connect more as they can physically see it and become more emotionally involved with the character. Throughout this process of selecting an appropriate location I learnt that this thorough investigative process is crucial to the success or failure of the music video, because without finding the perfect location, it can be difficult to assess the emotions or general feeling of the video from the viewer’s perspective. As mentioned before, me and Jordan spent a couple of hours on set planning what
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  shots we coulduse, and how the general video was going to work. We fitted our video very much to the location, to ensure that it went as seamlessly as possible. This adaptability worked in our favour, as we could then change our video based on any changes we may encounter. This meant that when the day of the shoot came along we were well prepared and efficient and managed to capture all of the necessary footage in a single outing. Camera Shots: Looking and analysing music videos from the Drum and Bass genre, I realised that there are certain shots that appear to be present within a lot of them. This particular medium range camera shot is used in a video I analysed by ‘The Prodigy’ called ‘Invaders must die’ which shows the main character standing in the sea motionless, watching something. This shot is replicated to an extent in our video, and gives an eerie feel to the shot. This video was part of our inspiration and was a video that particularly impressed us, and so we naturally wanted to bring in themes from this video into ours. This meant that we had decided to tap into the Drum and Bass conventions, and we wanted to produce something that linked into what the audience were expecting from a Drum and Bass genre music video; however we also wanted to add our own original spin onto it. This hopefully means that the target audience can identify with the video whilst also appreciating some original input that isn’t typified in the genre. We also identified that tracking shots were important within the genre to build up a background picture and to build up some tension within the video, thus meaning that we decided to include a couple of these shots at the start of the video or when new characters were introduced, thus meaning that we could give the audience a picture of our characters, however we only employed this shots when the music permitted, as for the most part we wanted to enable the video was of a fast tempo, and thus entertaining the viewer. Hence why we used these shots sparingly, to try and keep our audience entertained. We also felt it was important to convey the sense of voyeurism within our video and this meant that we had to employ certain shots of the main character either being followed or watched. This meant that we could show the viewer that this character was being followed, and thus adding to the intrigue of the video. However, for the most part we utilised shots where the camera was relatively static, meaning that we could focus on getting a good quality shot. This would normally be an issue in most music videos because static shots can lead to a boring video,
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  however because ofthe amount of cuts that we would be using; we felt that static shots were necessary. We cut the camera shots so regularly, that we aimed to really get the viewer engaged and focused on our video, and watching it back afterwards it certainly seemed that we had achieved this. Overall, we wanted to fit into the camera shots convention from the genre to make sure the viewer felt accustomed and familiar when watching the video, however because of our unique spin of cutting very quickly and adding effects we felt that we hadn’t conformed entirely to the conventions and this, we felt, gave the video a good, interesting feel to it. Lighting: Lighting was important for us, because the lighting somewhat determines how the viewer perceives the mood of the video. The general convention within Drum and Bass is to film it in dark, grey conditions and to add effects that create a similar effect. Hence, we decided to follow this closely, and hope that the outcome would be that the viewer took in the lighting and realised that the video was a confusing video with a main character who was struggling with issues. However, we were presented with an issue when going back through footage, as some of our shots were far too bright for our liking and so we decided on a black and white setting. Costumes: Studying Drum and Bass music videos I noticed that mostly the characters wear functional, rough clothing that is less about fashion and more about practicality. Previous to this knowledge, we had been struggling to find appropriate costumes for our actors, but this knowledge gave us a focus as to what our costumes should be. We decided on a hooded sweater for Nelson (main character) and jeans and some boots, thus giving him a sense of practicality but also the hood gave him the sense of mystery and intrigue that was required, as our video is quite mysterious in that the viewer has little idea of what is going on and has to almost reach conclusions for themselves. Becky’s costume was harder to decide upon, as were unsure of what we wanted to represent her as initially. However, her role became clearer later on as a stalker / killer, and we tried to bring this across in her costume by making her look a bit ragged, and dangerous. However, this was brought across more in her actual actions than her costume.
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  Props: We decided thatfor the most part, the story was going to be about Nelson and Becky, henceforth meaning our props would be limited as the story would be driven by the actions of the characters. However, there were essential props necessary, as in conventional Drum and Bass videos there appeared to be extensive use of fire, and things being burnt / broken. This fitted in well with the nature of our video as we wanted to show that our characters were violent and volatile. Hence, we used a lot of pyrotechnics within our video. However much of this wasn’t particularly to add to the video, it was mainly employed to add an exciting element to the video, and also to signify to the viewer the danger element of the music video. Also, another essential prop was the knife that we used at the end of the video, which we hoped would really bring some tension into the fight scene at the end, and unusually for music videos it was wielded by the woman and not the man, and this was designed to challenge conventions before they were developed when Nelson overcomes her. All other props were mostly found on site, such as the brick that nelson smashes against the wall, and this really added an authentic edge to the music video. Editing: When editing our music video, we faced an enormous challenge because of our decision to match the cuts to the beat, and the sheer amount of cuts that this would involve. We felt that this was the best option when editing because we really wanted a fast pace to our video, both to fit in with genre conventions and also to ensure that our audience enjoyed the video and remained entertained throughout. We decided to edit our footage very much to the music, and this took a great deal of time that we hoped the viewer would be able to see. The general convention within Drum and Bass is to ensure the video is cut to the beat of the music, and we felt that we achieved this. We were worried that it would be hard for the viewer to follow the storyline, but the video was intended to be confusing to a degree and so this worked in our favour. We also included a couple of rewinding sequences where we went through key parts again. The main reason for doing this was to make the viewer question the video, and whether it was actually happening or whether Nelson was delusional. Also, we wanted to make sure that we highlighted the difference between reality and dream, and this was achieved by making sure the footage was black and white within the dream (which is a favourite convention of drum and bass), and switching with colourful, bright footage from reality.
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  Music Video: When choosingour music we also had to consider what type of video we wanted to produce. We had to consider whether we wanted a performance based, narrative based or concept based music video. We went for a concept video because we felt that performance videos lacked excitement and that narrative based ones followed a story too closely. Hence, we went for a concept based video as we wanted to create a music video that was ambitious and challenged us immensely. Conclusion: To conclude; I feel that our music video challenged, developed and used conventions of real music videos, and we used all three above conventions to try to both familiarise the audience and to add our own original twist to the genre. This was very challenging, and taught me much about conventions and processes of music videos. ANCILLARY PRODUCTS Digipak: When producing my digipak I looked very closely at other digipaks from artists similar to my one (Mirrored Theory), and examined how they had laid theirs out, and what content they had included. But most importantly, I noted what conventions they had mostly followed. I considered their digipaks, mostly ones by the most popular of Drum and Bass artists, such as ‘The Prodigy’ and ‘Pendulum’, and discovered that they usually included a key image on the front, and were fairly basic in their layout. Mostly, they refused to show the artist on the front, instead preferring to show either an original image or an image from one of their videos. This was important because in other genres, usually the artist features on the front and takes priority over everything. However this was not the case in my genre, and generally images on the cover represented the type of music. This is also brought across in the music videos, as typically in this genre music videos aren't performance based and are instead narrative or concept based. When producing my magazine advertisement, I looked at similar advertisements in magazines such as 'Kmag' and saw that most magazine adverts included a background that was mostly dark colours and had certain features standing out. These features were brightly coloured to highlight their significance, and in my magazine advert I decided to highlight 'I dare you' because I felt this would really draw people in and attract them. I used basic colour differentiation to make things stand out, and to make the poster attractive, and this is a general convention of all music adverts, not only Drum and Bass.