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

real media products?

• In our media product, our group developed and challenged many forms and conventions of our music genre. For example, we created a jazzy production that consisted solely of performance and we felt our visuals made the performance look both effective and original.

• The first thing we did was we referred to media theory when brainstorming our ideas together. This was so we could therefore develop and use media theory that allowed us to produce the best production possible. We highly benefited from using various different types of theory within our video because of the fact that it was used as a guideline to how we wanted to utilise these particular theories into our production.

• Throughout this slideshow, you will see how we applied these different theories, in order to make our product genuine and believable.

Synaesthesia The first theory our group implemented into our research and development was

synaesthesia. This consisted of our group listening to the different lyrics and soundtracks that TGFA had produced through his singles. This allowed us to imagine what images we would utilise into this particular video to make it seem effective and original. Overall, this was done in order to help us build knowledge in developing a media product with interesting,but effective visuals.

For example, while our group was producing our pre-production storyboard, we thought that the best way to make our visuals look effective was to close our eyes, listen to the song we were using, and then imagine the visuals we felt would look the most effective for example, one member of our group came up with the idea that we should put a red rose into our pre-production storyboard as it signifies love and would ultimately complement the lyrics of our song – ‘I Feel Love’. We also thought that by including this image we could use it as part of our Digipak because it helped to capture the type of atmosphere we wanted to portray in our production, so we could therefore engage our audience in the most appropriate way.

Moreover, there were various visuals we separately came up with to

highlight different signs. I.e. In one of our shots we had our artist playing the piano in front of all his loving fans to show that he has a crowd of people that love and support his music.

Although, it was very time consuming putting synaesthesia into practice , it was a worthwhile theory in the long term as it gave our group insight in creating ideas from the spot which could be later implemented in our music production.

Ferdinand De Saussure (1980): Types of signs used in productions

Our group had related to the theory by Ferdinand De Saussure on the types of signs we wanted to portray to our audience. These particular signs could have been either singular or plural, which composed of either two or three types. The two signs that our group thought would highlight our music video in the most effective way to our audience were the iconic and symbolic signs. This was because our pre-storyboard highlighted that we wanted to produce a jazzy music video that would draw in the attention of the audience and represent our artist in an interesting and original way. 

We displayed iconic signs throughout the various images that we implemented within our production, i.e. the couple holding hands, while overlooking the river. Symbolic signs were displayed through the imagery of the rose which symbolises romance. Furthermore,

In our media product, we aimed to create messages to the audience about

the concept of love which was focused throughout the lyrics of the song we used in our advanced Portfolio. Our group aimed to produce a performance video which would challenge Ferdinand de Saussure theory on signs, as not all real media products utilise signs within their productions. This was a gap in which are group wanted to form and implement in our media product.

Sergei Eisenstein's Theory on Montage

Sergei Eisenstein’s montage editing technique refers to the use of developing quick cuts between various shots in any video. This is what our group wanted to utilise within our media product in order to create excitement, fluidity and originality. Our group had decided to challenge forms of real media products as the majority of real media products are usually slow paced productions, as opposed to montage related.

From our pre-production questionnaires results, the audience stated that they wanted to see montage editing in the media product we were creating, as they thought it would make it look ‘more unique and effective’. Overall, we felt this technique was utilised in the best way possible. As the results from our post-production questionnaires displayed that our use of montage editing made the video look more genuine and realistic.

However, our groups music production could have been said to contain

some elements of the theory amplification, such as the shot of the rose within our production, which complemented the lyrics within the song. Although, throughout the video, there weren’t that many related conventions towards love, which could ultimately create a sense of disjuncture from Eisenstein’s theory.

Richard Dyer’s Theory

Our group implemented the use of an additional theory from the book called Heavenly Bodies: Film stars and society by Richard Dyer.

In Mr Dyer's book, he describes how the star quality of your performer is created and if there is any element of Utopia.

• From Dyer's theory, our group started to develop and use his concepts by gathering elements of Utopia, which consists of the abundance of enjoyment and heart which our group developed and used throughout our Advanced portfolio. This was displayed through TGFA’s performance and the dancer in our foundation portfolio. Furthermore, other elements of Utopia include the use of energy, and intensity which we also developed and used as a group which is shown through the dancer and TGFA’s characteristics.

• The star quality is also implemented across both portfolios from the use of the star image which is shown through clothing and their performances.

As, TFGA our music artist faces the challenge of being a successful Indie artist overtime, it's vitally key that TGFA reflects upon Dyer's theory in Star quality in order to progress in the music industry through the significance of image and star potential. Artists that are signed up to major labels have an advantage in being heavily promoted in their star image.

• Andrew Goodwin continues to develop Dyer’s theory on the star system by explaining the ways in which star-texts intersect with video clips. The purpose of a music video according to Goodwin, is to promote and sell CD’s and especially maintain the star image of any artist. The audience must now be encouraged to identify with the performer and consider the conventions that have helped to create this ‘Romantic visual’.

• In different ways throughout our production, we have applied Goodwin’s theory, as our audience understood and identified the conventions of our music video, such examples can be shown through the visuals within our music product such as the rose and the picture of the couple looking over the sea. These particular still shots created this ‘romantic visual’ that was needed to enhance meaning on the concept of ‘love’ throughout our product. We wanted to achieve this because we had had negative feedback from our audience, which highlighted that various parts of our video lacked elements of interesting visuals that were needed in order to fully engage the audience’s 100%. By gaining this negative feedback, we were able to make improvements on our video via Adobe Premiere 2.0. Although this was very time consuming in the short run, it would allow us to make changes that would help us to improve our production significant and able us to get the best grade, we feel, is possible for people of our media caliber.

Intertexuality – Julia Kristeva (1980)

• Our group's research and planning for our foundation and advanced portfolios had been constructed through the use of the intertexuality theory constructed by Julia Kristeva.

• When putting this theory into practice, our group gathered many intertextual references through the use of watching various YouTube videos of classic films and real music videos. These existing references from real media products gave our group ideas that could be developed further in our planning stages for our media products.

• The intertextuality references played a key importance in helping our group determine what genre to choose, implementing a narrative or performance based video, the locations chosen, synathesia references for our music video and lastly the Mise en scene.

• Example changed the way u kissed me • Madonna

Intextuality references for Research and Planning

• Our group referred to many forms of intextual references from the technology of You tube. Firstly, we watched Madonna’s music called Frozen in class and as a group we engaged to complement use the synathesia theory whereby , we heard the frozen soundtrack and we would write down the visuals that we came up with. By developing are synathesia skills, it helped are confidence ilistening to the song I feel love in order to develop visulas which would later be used in our pre storyboard.

• Example - Changed the way you kissed me video was used for intexual research into the black and white effect.

• Katy Perry – California gurls video was researched for the use of watching the lip synching quality.

Advanced Portfolio Challenges

• One convention our group gathered from our research and planning for our advanced portfolio is that we could challenge real media products by creating better lip syncing. From research we found out that the minority of music videos implement bad lip syncing and as a group we felt we could challenge other real media products by making our lip syncing more effective and accurate in order to create a perfect media product.

• Our groups advanced portfolio had consisted of a variety of locations which were unique and different which challenges existing real media products which have minimal locations and are quite dull.

• The choice of song is one which is catchy, unique and repetitive within the soundtrack and the lyrics. Our Advanced portfolio had created and developed a much more exciting video as an end media product. Real media products are a success down to the success of the lyrics and the soundtrack.

• As a group we felt we had matched existing real media products and entail had challenged a minority of major label music products in comparison to our music product in which we felt our group achieved and created a very successful music video, even through our group’s lack of funding.

• In addition, our Advanced media product could be said in challenging existing real media products when it comes to the lighting of our music video. Our Advanced portfolio had implemented a use of lighting which was not just colour but also consisted of black and white filming.

• This to a large extent may have challenged real media products as they only do one or the other. Additionally, our group also implemented a use of variety of camera angles and shots which had been developed over both  portfolio's which created more emphasis upon our media products. This challenges existing real media products to sum degree as some real media products don't implement a variety of camerawork.