Evaluation

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

conventions of real media products?

Conventions of the Medium

During the making and creating of my music video, i was always refering back to the conventions of the medium, within a music video. For most music videos the aim to promote the song to a new or well established audience. They are avertising the song through the means of visual display. So during the filming stage I was always refering back to how I wanted to represent the song through the visuals and I wanted to make it as attractive as possible. I confronted the aim of marketing this song by using the visulas and lyrics to portray the story. Heavy Metal videos normally contain a concept of imagery whether that be through a story or through a montage of clips. This can be seen as a convention of the genre. My music video has layers of montage clips which i caarefully chose to shoot in order to try and portray the visual aspect as clearly as possible. My music video had to be a production with promotes Swarmed's song as well as possible. The song being 20/12 has a sense of the world ending so I used the lyrics to help form the visual side of things. With the song being 3 minutes and 18 seconds long I had to make sure that I follwed the conventions of music video all of the way through. Another convention of a music video is to advertise the track in full and not in sections or a reduced clip, I made sure I stuck to this and used the entire song in order to get the best effect when promoting it.

LocationsThe convetions within my music video associated with location are down to british places because the band are from britain. Though this isnt always the case for Heavy Metal bands, a lot of british bands do film in britain. This is normally due to cost of the video and locations that are eerie and disturbing are normally better looking if filmed in the UK.

The band have a typical british screamer and this is portrayed through the british location choices. Choosing british locations allows the audience to associate themselves with the band and promotes the track and video more through audience's views. The locations that were chosen, are typically used in music videos by metal and deathcore bands. This helped when choosing locations and allowed me to use the lyrics and location to form a strong connection and display an image that was needed to be told. Metal and deathcore are very satanic genres of music and the locations of the shots also had to represent the band, genre and the lyrics. I used editing synchronising to link up the visuals and the music and lyrics.

A forest was used in my music video, which is normally a big thing within the metal community. it also represents a part of britishness through the greeness throughout the country. Britain has alot of green areas and including the forest adds to the britshness of the video.

LightingThroughout my music video, i have used chiaroscuro lighting which shows the contrast between light and darkness. The split of light on the mask in my music video is a common feature of metal music videos, with white on dark or vice versa. As you can see the use of light against dark on my mask and with Asking Alexandria's song “The Black”.

PropsThoughout my music video i used a number of different props, with my main prop being the mask. The inspiration behind the mask was the film 'The Seventh Seal'. The character that wears the mask is 'Death', and death and killing is a common association with metal music because apparently metal and anything related to metal is satanic.

Masks are a big part of attire in metal bands too, with the likes of Slipknot, Buckethead, Ghost, Gwar, Mushroomhead, Mudvayne and Celtic Frost all wearing them. This allows them to create a seperate identity outside of their personal lives and allows them to be and feel different from their normal selves.

I did not try and challenge this convention but conforming with it made my music video fit all of the boxes for a generic metal music video.

PerformanceTypically a metal or deathcore video would be dominated by performance. This is something I wanted to challenge and did so, I made a visual montage of clips that I went out and shot mainly by myself but also with the help of family. There are a few performers in the video but they aren't dominating the enitre video. They only appear in the forest and only do a little bit of acting.

SoundDuring the editing stage, I made sure I edited the footage to beat of the music. (Goodwin) I wanted to have lots of quick and short jump cuts between each clip but also wanted it to join up with the beat of the music. This, visually looks really good in my opinion. I had always wanted the visulas to match up since before I even chose a track. This pre-planned idea meant that filming everything was made that little bit easier because I roughly knew the timescale I needed to stick to.

Titles

In my music video, I didnt use any titles. This is because it is not very common for metal music videos to incorporate titles. Hence why I did not try and challenge this convention.

Narative StructureMy music viddeo is displayed in the form of a montage. This means that the narative structure is all over the place because it jumps about, this is because the story is shown in parts and allows the audience to fill in the gaps with their own imagination and feelings towards the other clips. I wanted to let the audience have their own say for wht they think might happen in the video and this is why i left gaps. This allows the audience to encode their own story by decoding the other visuals to crate the story to fill the gaps.

ColoursIn my music video, I have used lots of different variations of colour thoughout it. I manipulated alot of the footage and changed the balance of colour within each shot. I did this to create different effects, and to jazz up the footage from its boring plain colours. I used lots of bright colours that have different meanings, for example; red which is for blood and danger, green for nature and passiveness and blue for the sense of family (who are covering themselves in ink). The bright colours are a challenge to the conventions of a metal music video, this is because in most metal and deathcore music videos there is a lot of blackness and dark colours to go with the resemblence of death and when the soul has been passed onto the next stage.

Representation

In my music video, I have conformed to the sexualisation of the female gender through getting the two female characters to be dressed in minimal skin coloured clothes and covering themselves in ink. The skin coloured clothes are to show the females as naked. This conforms to the Male Gaze concept by Mulvey where visual arts are structured around a male viewer. The reason I did this was because of a couple of music videos I watched by Marilyn Manson called 'No Reflection' and 'Murderers Are Getting Prettier Every Day'. These two music videos contain the Male Gaze pretty much all of the way through.

Print Production-Intergration of Image and Text

In my Print Production I used text and images to conform with the conventions of most CDs and Vinyls. The use of image and text in my digipak, allows me to promote the artist easier because the target audience could see what the band are like and could then they could see if the can associate the album cover with themselves or not. The text on my the front cover of my CD is in the bottom right hand corner of the front panel. This is so people can see the front panel clearly without it being jumbled and cluttered with text. I wanted to keep the text on the front panel as closely linked as posssible to the metal genre without it being imposible to read, hence why i went for this font. The text on panel 4 is again is one area of the panel(along the top) for the same reason as the front panel. I chose red coloured text to clash with the pink walls in the background. It is very rare to get a colourful metal album. A lot of metal CDs and Vinyls use extensive detail on characters and images but not always a lot of colours.

Magazine AdvertMy advert for a magazine also conforms the conventions in relation to most other magazine adverts, this is through the use of imagery and text. The reason for the advert is to promote the artist, and I feel that I have done a pretty good job at portryaing what the band are like through genre characteristics like the font and imagery. My advert has big and stand out text showing the name of the band (Swarmed) and the name of the song(2012). This to show the audeince who may see this advert what the main reason for the advert is.

Print Productions- IntertextualityThe intertextuality in my CD panels come from some metal bands like Slipknot, Skull Roses and Kiss. These bands all use masks on their front covers of their CDs and this is what inspired me to use the mask on my front panel. All of these bands are close to me and their masks and face paint all hold a reason. For slipknot their masks show a piece of them as they are now and shows people what they are feeling like at the minute. I put the mask in the bust and on a tilt because and the minute I feel like going into hiding and wearing a mask to not be seen by anyone.