Evaluatin Question 1

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

 

We created three different media products for our course work, which all mainly use conventional aspects of real media products. We created one primary media product and two secondary media products, which both link with the primary media product. Our primary media product was a music video, using the song ‘Meant to Be’ by Chelsea Watts. Our secondary media products were a digipak, for the soundtrack that the song belongs to, and a promotional advert for the soundtrack and song. Our music video mainly consisted of conventional aspects whereas our digipak and advert developed conventional aspects of real life media products.

Music Video

The song we used for our music video was a pop song, about a break up and so we decided to make a music video with narrative instead of making an abstract music video, as this was more conventional. The narrative was linked to the lyrics of the song, and so was also about a break up and how the artist was dealing with it. This links with Andrew Goodwin’s Six Features of a Music Video as there is a relationship between the lyrics and the visuals. An example of this is when the artist, Chelsea, is lying on her bed as the lyrics ‘as we lie here alone’ are sung. Another example is when Chelsea is throwing playing cards at the camera as the lyrics ‘you’re not into playing games’ is sung. This links because playing cards are a type of game. Carol Vernallis states, in her music video theory, that whatever is happening on screen will match with whatever the song and lyrics are about and so this is conventional of a real music video, as most narrative’s match with the lyrics/meaning of a song. An example real life music video could be Hair by Little Mix. In this music video, one of the artists, Leigh-Anne, is going through a sort of break up. When she finds out that her boyfriend is cheating on her she calls her friends to tell them. This is done by using the lyrics of the song as her dialogue and background vocals, by other members of her group, is used as their responses.

 

Another convention we used was focusing on the artist. We used many close up’s of Chelsea and had no one else star in the music video, which showed that she was the main part of the video. This also links with Andrew Goodwin’s Six Features of a Music Video as focusing on the artist is one of the features he explained. A real life example of this is Ariana Grande’s music video for Dangerous Woman. This is because throughout the whole music video, the camera focuses on her and there are many close ups of her. This also ties in with Carol Vernallis’ theory, as she thought that close up’s of the artist were an important part of a music video.
 

In most music videos, there is change of costumes/outfits as the music video progresses. This is usually to show that the artist/character is either in a different place or it’s set at a different time. An example from our media product is when Chelsea changes outfits to show that it is the evening (wearing a dressing gown) and that it is day (wearing casual clothes). She also wears a different outfit when singing in the field and when looking in the mirror. This is a conventional use of usual media products. An example from real life music videos could be Black Magic by Little Mix. In this music video the artists are playing four girls who are very shy and nerdy, so they dress in typical ‘nerd’ clothing. They then use magic to become more confident in themselves, and to show this newfound confidence, their costumes change into something more fashionable.

 

We used a lot of break in narrative, which is also a convention that most music videos use. In our music video, our breaks in narrative were when it went from clips of Chelsea in her house to clips of Chelsea in the field singing. An example of this could be in the music video Castle On The Hill by Ed Sheeran. The narrative in the video is about Ed when he was younger, and shows him messing around with his mates but throughout the video, there are occasional breaks of narrative to a present day Ed who is singing the song.
 

Most break up music videos end being in the same state as the beginning and usually ends up with the character being sad, but we decided we wanted the artist to be happy. This meant that the music video slowly progresses from the character being sad to being OK and quite happy. We used flowers to represent the mood of the music video, so in the beginning the vase were slowly losing flowers until there was only one dead one left, but this quickly changed. As the mood of the song and music video became happier, the flowers quickly started coming back. This represents that the characters mood was slowly going down but when she realised they could get back together the mood become happier. This develops conventions a little, as it still has a typical narrative of a break up song at the start, but then she becomes happier.
 

We challenged conventions as we did not use male gaze for our music video. A lot of music videos by female artists have the artist wearing revealing clothes or doing things that would attract a male’s attention to them and objectify them. We decided not to do this as it didn’t go well with what the song was about, and we didn’t think it was necessary.

Digipak and CD Cover
 

For the CD Cover, we used mid shot of Chelsea holding a pink rose. This links with the music video, as there are also pink roses in the video.  This is conventional because most CD covers for songs match with their music videos for consistency. A real life example of this is Little Mix’s album, Glory Days. The cover photo is from the same place that their video for Shout Out To My Ex is shot. This links the video with their album cover. We also did not use any male gaze on the CD cover either, as we wanted it to link with the music video and there was no male gaze in the music video.

 

We developed the convention of putting lyrics in a separate booklet insert, in the digipak. Instead, we put the lyrics of ‘Meant to Be’ on the same insert of the digipak, instead of in a separate booklet. A real life example of a lyric booklet is in Little Mix’s album, Get Weird. It has lyrics of every song in the booklet, but we decided we only wanted lyrics for Meant to Be as it was the main song, and the song that links with the music video and promotional advert. 



Meant To Be Lyric Insert

Get Weird Booklet

Another convention that we developed was adding more than three songs to the track list of a CD cover for a single. Usually when a CD comes out for a single song, it usually has a few extra songs with it, and sometimes even none. We decided to develop this and add four extra songs, making there to be five songs in total on the track list.

 

Magazine Advert
 

We decided to use a picture of the CD cover on the poster, to actually show the product instead of just speaking about it. This is conventional because a lot of artists put the CD cover on the advert. An example of this is Adele’s promotional poster for 21.
 

The background picture for the advert was from the same photoshoot as the CD cover picture, which helps link the two media products. This is conventional as most promotional adverts do this too. An example of this is Rihanna’s promotional advert for LOUD. We also developed the convention of the picture being a close up/mid-shot of the artist. This usually shows that the artist is the main thing you should be focussing on, but we decided we wanted to use a long shot. This was so we could also include the nature side of the picture, which helps link with the music video. This links with the music video because there are lots of shots of trees in the video. LOUD is also an example for close-ups/mid-shots of the artist.