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

The song I’ve chosen for my media product(music video) is Tupac’s ‘No Changes’(1998), released by Interscope because it conveys different message to the audience than Tupac’s other songs. The genre of the song is Hip Hop which raises both political and conscious issues which are subgenres. Stuart Hall states that media texts give different readings so it was important to identify the messages in the song and consider how best to portray them by viewing other similar music videos. I viewed many Hip Hop music such as 50 Cent’s ‘Up in the club’ including different scenes where he is very powerful as shown by his wealth and body which is filled with tattoos- this mostly is associated with gangs; this showed the development and cultural changes that have been made in the 2000s as Hip Hop has become mainstream and more aggressive and violent.

The subgenres of my chosen song challenge the dominant, political and social aspects of African Americans and this is shown in my music video: I included a video about a death of a African American who was killed due to racism and was killed by a gun; this is a very big problem in America even with a Black president, it is out of control and many artists like Tupac and Biggie talk a lot about gun violence and how it will become a bigger problem to society.

Youtube has helped to make music videos accessible to audiences and therefore highlight conventions of Hip Hop and music videos like Ice Cube’s ‘Gangsta Rap’. This music video shows hatred towards the government for blaming African Americans for crimes that they didn’t commit and challenges the belief by showing footage of crime and police brutally. He also inspired me with the style of his music video which is very fast paced and he shows a lot of energy when performing. There are different types of shots like close-ups to show the artist's emotions and rage; the video follows a narrative unlike modern Hip Hop music videos which follow Goodwin's theory of narrative as most generic videos include sexual discrimination of women and the artist being the centre of attention by being overpowering and by showing off their wealth and looking very intimidating with some people wearing bandannas that relate to gangs- they don’t really conform to any narrative. My video would be post modern as it stands out from any other Hip Hop video and Hip Hop music now has completely changed and my video is the complete opposite compared to others as I didn’t discriminate women or the music did not include any swearing which challenges the genre as many people associate Hip Hop with negative views and find it inappropriate especially for younger audiences who are heavily influenced by the media so they may be influenced to swear or be violent.

I used resource pages like wikipedia to understand and acknowledge the origins of Hip Hop; the music style was created to get people’s messages to a demographic; mainly by people who are deprived and oppressed due to their social background and ethnicity. The music ‘No Changes’ is not an original piece; the music was created by Bruce Hornsby and The Range(1986), the genre of the music is soft rock. Although the lyrics are criticized by many due to the hate and anger, the music is melodious and subtle enough to make it sound less offensive. The music was written by a white American who talks about the struggles of social classes where the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. Many Hip Hop artist use similar melody and manipulate it to create more of an upbeat tune with a faster tempo; Tupac uses Hornsby’s melody to changes the style of the music to get his message across, whilst Hornsby targets generic issues about social class, Tupac targets a specific groups - African Americans as he talks about the impact of oppression and the pressure on African Americans. Unlike Hornsby, Tupac’s lyrics show more hate and anger, stating that African Americans should stand up; people may not find his music appropriate even though he uses the same subtle melody. Using other classical Hip Hop videos as inspiration and keeping to the original view of the Hip Hop genre has allow me to hybridise the two forms of media text to create a final media product. Tupac’s version of the song allows me to create a fast paced video with different transition like straight cut to quickly move from scene to scene but the fast beat allows my artist to show a lot more energy- this is a development of the genre as the rap scenes will show different shots which will make my video look more exciting.

Using different platforms like YouTube and Blogger has given me the advantage to present my creative pieces of work in a professional manner; this includes all my pre-production like my research into different institution and a more in-depth research of the Hip Hop genre as well as post-production work like my digipak and music video/poster. I used the convergence of social media especially Blogger to use it as a way of marketing; E-media is a popular type of platform which is used to interact with the audiences as well as the audience interacting with the producers, and many people would be eager to use it due to the proliferation of technology where they can access their social applications on numerous devices and follow the artist (@M_M). This is shown on the music poster; the poster includes social media icons like twitter, instagram, soundcloud and Itune, using different types of social apps will attract more audience, making it easily available and accessible to a wider range of audience as many audience have different preferences so the artist would be widely open to people all over the world. I believe that this was the best way to present my ancillary text and my music video, as my artist is not a recognised star and is new to the industry, he is not recognised by the mass media but only by the targeted audience; stars like Rihanna are signed to major record labels and have created their own trend therefore, they are well known hence why they have been constructed by the company to create sales and profit in accordance to Richard dyer’s Star theory.

Unlike Rihanna, my artist does not conform to any trend; he is not noticed like other stars. However, due to social media and online music sites like SoundCloud and YouTube, these marketing strategies will help my artist to be noticed as well as the music poster and digipak being a support to promote the music video. To help my artist to become more noticeable, I used an image of my artist for my music poster and digipak of my artist; the image was taken on a camera during a camera shoot. My inspirations for the digipak and music poster came from groups like N.W.A and Tupac himself. These groups have different views and were constructed to have an aggressive, honest and intellectual persona with a poetical flow which is an awareness to the audience about the struggles that African Americans go through. I’ve created an image of my artist to portray a ‘normal’ person who is intellectual and this is shown through his fashion sense as well as the lyrics of the song; many Hip Hop artist like 50 cent or Drake would wear branded clothing with big chains but that does not convey the preferred meaning that I want to give to my audiences. Therefore, I’ve also taken the inspiration from the artist Jidenna; he is a very classy man who shows power and intelligence through his clothing. However, an aberrant reading of my artists may perceive to look like a criminal as the front cover of my album is like a wanted sign; he does not have any sign of expression, with a serious look to him which would make him look intimidating. I’ve manipulated the colours and used effects like film grain to create an old type of album cover but I used ideas from another artist called the weeknd whose music poster looks like a wanted sign.

I’ve used a simple layout, using the same colours consistently for my music poster and digipak; the colours used were black and red. The colour red has different connotations, it is a colour which is emotionally intense. However, there are different reading which the colour red gives, the colour red can also connote danger; I have intentionally used this colour to show danger as well as deep emotions; my artist is a victim of oppression and inequality as he is an African American, he may not show any type of emotion in the image but the colour represents both his emotions and the danger that he has experienced: he has experienced happiness, sadness and anger; this is also shown the video but the colour is significant as it breaks the rules of the generic use of the colour as the colour is also a connotation of love but my artist has not experienced that and this is shown in the video when the victims have experienced police brutality. In addition, the colour black is very significant as intended to use it to give two different meanings: one is to connote death and the other is to connote power; I did this to show my audience that there have been many deaths in America and this is reinforced by my digipak as it has designs of bullets holes which shows that America has many gun crimes and gang wars as well as police using the weapon as a force of oppression. The power is shown through his voice and the meaning of his lyrics but I have used the colour black to represent the deaths of many victim.

My music video is a narrative based Hip Hop video, although my video contains some footage of performance: I have included a performance scene of someone playing a piano during the intro like Hornsby does for his intro; the piano was also used during the chorus as a filler and it was used as a break from the narrative of the music video. My music did not conform to any conventions like having material objects like cars or money, no generalized conventions were included especially women in a sexual way which objectifies them. My video included conventions like my video being fast paced, my artist has a high energy which makes look aggressive and can be intimidating- this also shows that my artist has some power with low angled shots with the camera looking up at him. I added different things associated with the ideology of Hip Hop like equality, social awareness, peace and this is shown during the chorus scenes where I have included groups of different identity: People of different race and gender have banners would convey different meanings to show people that their identity matters and that there must be equality in order to achieve peace. I used medium shots and close-up shots to show the emotions of those groups of people: I captured different types of emotions to like anger and sadness to show my audience that there is still evil in this world and many people are affected by evil; this evil is war, poverty and violence and this is shown through many short footages of real life events. These footages are embedded into my music video to help the disrupt the equilibrium of my narrative but they are also there to reinforce the lyrics of the song and to create a stronger visual representation of what is going around in the world. Videos like Akon ‘Ghetto’ does similar things as well as keeping that black and white effect to show his a sense of realism that there is bad things that go on around the world.

In reference to Gauntlett's web 2.0: audiences and producers ‘unite’ and consumers can become producers and this has helped me to construct my video as I have created a audience research survey about the ‘ideal’ Hip Hop video; in consideration, I have taken into account that my video would be a solo act with a narrative and some form of performance. However, the conventions of Hip Hop that people would like to see where things like flashy cars, big chains, pretty women, drugs and alcohol. When I first thought about my video, I did not want it to be too generic and these postmodern videos are quite offensive to females: exposing them to only pleasure the male gaze; videos like 50 cent’s ‘up in the club’ portrays women as a sexual object as well as calling them a ‘female dog’; in the society we live in, this is not socially acceptable therefore, I didn’t want to portray women sexually but as someone who has equal rights and who has their own identity which they are proud of. Even though Tupac only talks about an individual race, he also talks about racism: I wanted my video to include as many types of races of both gender to show that war and racism impact everyone; I also wanted to show my audience equality in other ways I did this by including females and males; in the video, they are holding up posters with different messages: I also came up with the ideo the use the hash key ‘#’ next to the messages, my intention was to create trends which the artist can post along the media products like the poster and music; these trends would become popular and this will help to attract more audiences and it will help with the construction of my artist to become a star as people would know that he is different and he cares about different matters of controversy so more people would appeal to his ideology and this will help him to become more famous as he will have the support from his loyal fans.

I believe that my video is successful to convey a message of peace and equality and this is evident from my video with different people with different identities coming together in a peaceful manner to show my audience that, people should make a difference and be aware of what is occurring not only in America but the world. I also believe I have represented the artists in an appropriate manner: he is an ideal person the carry the message of making a change to the problems; he educates the audience through his lyrics and through footages of real life events that have occurred in the past as well as the present day to reinforce that there has not been a change; we should stand as one and make a change. I’ve taken inspirations from jidenna, even though his style of music is different, they both share the same agenda but Jidenna does not make the music seem serious whereas my artist is serious and wants to send a message to the audience so they take it as an awareness but at the same time, to enjoy the music so they do not take any offense. I believe I was successful at doing this as I did not want to add too many footages of real life events as people may not like things like footages of violence so I’ve used more footages focussing on my artist to convey the message. However, by using footages of violence and crime, I was able to reinforce the conventions of Hip Hop but my artist also reinforced the conventions with his body language: using his finger to portray a gun and point it at the camera. Adding those types of convention helped me to challenge the genre and conventions of Hip Hop as many people are used to the generic; I wanted to make it different.