In what ways does your media product use,

develop or challenge forms and conventions of

real media products?

Question 1;

Conventions used for my Media products

• Standard shot types were used for familiar reasons such as long shots, medium shots, close ups etc. To me these weren’t as important as they seemed to be in the AS project in which we had to create an opening to a thriller film, because in a music video shot types are determined by the music and don’t have to be easily followed like in films. Though we used close ups like of the phone at 43 seconds into the video in a voyeuristic way to force the audience to look at the phone, thus noticing that it’s ringing. Long shots were used of all three of us walking away from the camera at 2 minutes 56 seconds into the video to establish to the audience that it says ‘No Love Lost’ on our backs, just after the singer says ‘No Love Lost’.

• Lip syncing was a convention which automatically thought of as an essential. It can’t really be twisted or altered to make the video seem more interesting or controversial. Without it the video simply wouldn’t look like it had been thought about and tacky. Lip syncing is a convention used in all music videos which have a singer (band member or not), and if used in the video has to be perfectly matching the music in the background. This is the easiest way in a music video to add a sense of realism and accuracy. In order to get this right, I had to learn the words to the verses and chorus. Then, when it came to filming, we had the music playing at a quiet volume and I simply sung along with it while being filmed numerous times to ensure we had enough varied footage to use when it came to editing.

• Another convention found often in music videos which we used is editing the video so that the visuals change when the beats or the tempo of the music changes. This can be found in almost any video you watch which has a clear beat. This was particularly apparent in our video between 2 minutes 51 seconds and 3 minutes 01 seconds when the song changes into a fast paced drum beat. It was hard to edit but I eventually managed to get a kind of collage of snippets of film all in that one section to go along with the beat of the music. Using this convention simply accentuates the rhythm of the music through the visuals of the video.

Conventions and forms developed in my media

products

• First of all the decision to make the video black and white was influenced by the film ‘Control’ which is essentially a documentary about Joy Division. The whole film is done in black and white, and almost as a tribute or to compliment the film, we edited our whole video to be black and white too, even down to the contrast and brightness. We made sure the video had harsh contrasts which were also present in the film, and we had to edit each single frame to make it the same contrast as the last depending on the light in that particular scene. Additionally as a compliment to the film ‘Control’, we had each word of ‘No Love Lost’ painted on our jackets making reference to the scene in the film when Ian Curtis (played by Sam Riley) walks out of his house, and walks through a tracking shot (with No Love Lost playing in the background as non diegetic sound) when eventually we see his back and he has ‘hate’ painted on his back displaying his attitudes and issues as a person.

Intertextuality was a big focus for us when planning and making the video. This idea has been used before, though we developed it to be used in three main areas and to relate to our chosen song and band.

Direct reference

• Another implied intertextual reference was photographs taken by Anton Corbijn. He took iconic photographs of Joy Division in the same highly contrasted tone of black and white which influenced ‘Control’ to black and white. We took references from his actual images by reproducing the same kind of stances and places in which he famously took pictures of Joy Division.

CD cover

Poster

Same image used, though slightly altered with information on the album at the bottom.

• The music video contained a fictional narrative which most videos do. Though, influenced by French band Justice’s music video for their song ‘Stress’ (which I analysed earlier on in the blog for my initial research), we used this fictional narrative and characters to represent real life social problems of our time. Moral and social issues can be regularly apparent in music videos and digipaks. CD covers especially can convey strong messages about the bands beliefs and moral upstanding (or lack of). In our video, we highlighted the issue of the amount of teenagers hanging around on streets instead of getting an education or a job. This is a real abundance in our society today and we tried to integrate this into the video without making it look too judgmental of those people who are on the streets instead of in school, because after all it’s a music video meant to be enjoyed.

• Lastly, another convention we used which is regularly used in production of digipaks and adverts for digipaks/albums is to use the same image from the front of the digipak on the advert as well. This is shown by Kings of Leon regularly as they use the exact same image from their album for the promotional poster. This is a technique which uses this repeated image to create recognition from the target audience until the image is instantly, easily and widely recognised.

• The idea of a gang in a music video was also a convention which we developed. Gang’s represented in videos isn’t new (especially in hip hop music videos), though we put a spin on it by using a female gang. Loitering on streets and causing trouble is done significantly by males, though by using a female gang it takes the idea further and expands peoples ideas and stereotypes about gangs. It can also be seen as empowering as for once women aren’t depicted as the objects in the bikini’s next to the male singer. This is a typical example of what is usually seen in music videos about gangs:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GllEDACUbNo

• Additionally we develop this idea further by having two black women and a white women. This then also abolishes the racial stereotype which people hold with gangs; contrary to popular belief it’s not just black people causing the trouble.

• Even though the lip syncing convention was used, we developed it further into something else to make it more interesting to the viewer. The interesting thing about our lip syncing is that it is sung by a man originally (Ian Curtis) though is mimed by myself in the video. This idea of mis-matched gender along with the fact that women are representing a male band in the video, led us to the name of our fictional band, ‘Gendercide’. This is a play on words and basically implies that like Genocide we are wiping out the difference between gender’s and their separate roles. ‘Gendercide’ refers to equality and no differentiation within societies expectations for either sex.

Conventions challenged in my media products

• Even though the lip syncing convention was used, we developed it further into something else to make it more interesting to the viewer, and not challenged the way lip syncing is done but challenged the convention of the realism that lip syncing creates. The interesting thing about our lip syncing is that it is sung by a man originally (Ian Curtis) though is mimed by myself in the video. This idea of mis-matched gender along with the fact that women are representing a male band in the video, led us to the name of our fictional band, ‘Gendercide’. This is a play on words and basically implies that like Genocide we are wiping out the difference between gender’s and their separate roles. ‘Gendercide’ refers to equality and no differentiation within societies expectations for either sex.

[ The only example I could find in any other music video of a woman miming to a man’s voice is a snippet in this Temper Trap video for their song ‘Love Lost’. Between 2 minutes 55 seconds and 3 minutes 10 seconds, a group of girls come into the shot and mime along to the lead singers voice. Though this is the only video I could find with this present and it was only for 15 seconds, as the rest of the video is mimed by boys. This shows the rarity of having a women be represented in a music video instead of the man. ]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLTPKKt-pMs