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

Evaluation Question 1

KeyAbc - Key media termsAbc - Theories

Our music video follows the story line of a break up between a boy and girl. Throughout the video this girl is obsessing with the boy and doing all she can to get him back. Our storyline follows the convention of a typical music video narrative from indie/rock videos. A video that follows a similar storyline to ours is Taylor Swifts ‘We are never ever getting back Together’. Both mine and Taylor Swifts video follow a linear story line focusing a lot on facial reactions and emotions towards a break up. Our video however, also follows a storyline of a band having a good time and enjoying their music, this has links with Kings of Leon’s ‘Use Somebody’ where both videos follow the pleasure bands receive from playing music and being with each other. This follows a very typical convention of storylines in rock videos. My video has followed Andrew Goodwin’s narrative theory of amplification, as I used the lyrics of the song to convey a message and create a form of story in my music video. I have also used a creative element in the performance of the band this follows conventions of an indie rock video.

Use of Narrative-Storylines

As touched on in the previous slide, my music video does incorporate a cross plot. Not only do I include scenes of break up, which is a typical story line used in videos. I also include numerous band shots, within these shots we see shots of band members and instruments. Again the use of narrative here is following the conventions of typical indie rock music videos. When filming my cross plot performance, I adopted Andrew Goodwin’s theory of amplification. This is when lyrics or actions portray certain moods and feelings of a song. I used amplification when filming my band shots, this shows the freedom and happiness of the band members when they are together doing what they love. In comparison when he is filmed in the scenes with his ex-girlfriend.Green Day’s ‘Basket case’ was my influence for this, because although the band are in hospital, when they perform together they have a feeling of freedom and enjoyment.

Use of Narrative-Cross plot

My music video is a single strand narrative, coupled with shots of the band. The video simply follows a break up narrative between boy and girl, this a long side the band shots. It is a fairly simple narrative to follow, which is typical of indie rock music videos.One of my influences for this came from Gotye’s hit, ‘Somebody that I used to know’. I took influence from the way that video focused on the relationship between a boy and girl, however referred back to the singer actually singing the song, to add to the authenticity of my video.

Use of Narrative-Multi-stranded

My stock characters played an influential role in my music video. There were 4 stock characters in the video, with 2 taking the leading roles. -Lead singer was involved in relationship with girl-Girl who was heart broken over break up with boyfriend-2 additional band membersThe girl and boy played pivotal roles in the narrative of the video. They gave the video meaning and tied the lyrics together well. These characters were used to incorporate Goodwin’s theory of amplification into my music video.My influence from this came from Justin Bieber’s ‘Love Yourself’, he also uses Goodwin’s theory of amplification to convey and message and meaning through the video to his song.

Use of Narrative-Stock characters

My video follows the conventions of gritty realism well in the narrative. Break ups happen commonly amongst our generation and play key roles in peoples lives. It can be a very touchy subject to focus on, however if executed well can be very effective. I decided to use a breakup in my narrative as I know that many of our target audience will have been able to connect well with the narrative. My inspiration from this came from James Morrison’s ‘Broken Strings’ as he too focuses on the stresses and heart aches of break ups.When focusing on stereotypes in my narrative I basically focused on the ways may characters looked and behaved. Both girl and boy were both typical, good looking teenagers. The girl reacted extremely badly to the breakup, whereas the boy seemed care free. This is typically what happens the first couple of days after a break up. I wanted to really focus on the emotions of both characters and try not to completely stereotype them. My band members however were all stereotyped as you typical rock stars. I represented this through appearance and emotions. This is a common theme and convention of indie rock videos.

Use of Narrative-Gritty realism and Stereotypes

My video itself did not include any cliff-hangers in its narrative, as the video simply ended on a split screen of the girl and boys faces reflecting emotions. This typically follows the codes and conventions of a indie rock video as I aimed to keep it simple and effective. Many songs influenced me for doing this, as I believe I had had included a cliff-hanger my video would be very ‘movie like’ and that wasn’t the approach I wanted to achieve.

Use of Narrative-Cliff-hangers

Location-The location I used for my video, follows the codes and conventions for a indie rock video. The band shots are filmed in a warehouse, this is a common location used for rock videos, for example, Lower Than Atlantis’ ‘Get Over it’. Our alternative location was a house/flat were we filmed the break up scenes. Houses and commonly used locations for break up scenes, and go with the codes and conventions of the mise en scene.Props-The props used in our video definitely followed the codes and conventions of an indie rock video. We used instruments, (Guitars, Drums), dressed conventions (Jeans, Shirts, Hoodies) and included industrial equipment in the location to add to the grungy, rocky feel to follow the codes and conventions.Time-Due to all of our video being filmed indoors, time did not really play any part of our video. This is a common feature in most indie rock videos, so again, we followed the codes and conventions of our genre.

Mise-en-Scene-Locations/Props/Time

Lighting played a key role in the production of my music video. As I was following the codes and conventions of indie rock, the lighting I needed to use had to be dark and gloomy, to give a grungy, atmosphere. A good example of this is Lower than Atlantis’ ‘Here We Go’. Monochromatic colours are coupled with dark lighting to create a certain effect that very much follows the codes of indie rock.To achieve the lighting effect was fairly simple. The video was set in a warehouse and therefore there was automatic, dark, gloomy lighting, this was helped with certain editing techniques I used to ensure I gained the perfect lighting for the video.

Mise-en-Scene-Lighting

Slow Mo’s-When editing my video slow mo’s were a technique I grew fond of. In my opinion a lot can be said through the use of slow motion and is a great effect to use. I have used it in many ways in my video. For example, when the drums are being hit, this adds to atmosphere and looks extremely good, coupled with effects on each bash of the drum. Another use of slow motion was when I aimed to achieve to show the emotion on the girls face. I used slow mo to signify that everything was slowing down in time for her, so therefore the effect reflected her mood. This ties in nicely with Goodwin’s theory of amplification that the song and lyrics convey a certain meaning and feel towards the viewer.Cross Cutting-I did not use cross cutting as much, however they are seen in my video. Especially when cutting from band shots to relationship shots. This breaks the video up nicely, adding to the single strand narrative and giving the video a meaning. Cross cut’s were an easy technique to use, as it simply consists of placing two different shots together.

Editing-Slow Mo’s/Cross Cutting

When producing a music video. Obviously the soul focus of the video is to have the song playing over it, therefore sound does not play a huge part in the video. However, with mine there is evidence of digetic sound at the beginning of the video before the song has started. Natural sounds are heard, e.g. birds, wind and cars. This sets the scene well, and adds gritty realism to my video showing the watcher that this video is real and has been filmed in normal, everyday conditions.

Editing-Sound-Digetic/Non digetic/Voice over's

Quick cuts-Quick cuts are often techniques seen greatly in multi stranded narrative music videos, to jump from one shot to another. Therefore, due to my video being single strand narrative, there are not many quick cuts, however, there are a few jump cuts as I touched upon in my cross cutting section. My quick cuts are used when jumping between relationship shots and band shots, I fit these shots in when necessary and try to match them up to the lyrics, again linking with the theory of amplification.Fades-There are hardly any fades used in my video, I focused on using harsher editing techniques, such as distortion and blur to add to the rocky feel, this ensuring I was following the codes and conventions of indie rock.

Editing-Quick cuts/Fades

Special effects-To follow the rocky codes and conventions in my video, I included many editing techniques, ranging from, blur’s, to distortion, to slow mo’s. However my favorites and the more unique effects I used came in the form of pumps and a cartoon effects. I used pumps a lot, especially on the beat of the drum, the screen would basically bulge every time the drum was hit. I then used cartoon shots and black and white shots when focusing on the girl’s phone, this reflects faded memories, again another for of the amplification theory here.Titles-I also heavily included titles in my video, I had the song title at the beginning and throughout the song, I used catchy short lines and added text over the video to show these words. I believe this effect worked extremely well and added variety to my video.

Editing-Special effect/Titles

The establishing shot plays a key role in a music video as it sets the scene, It is the first thing people see. In my video I like to believe I have 2 establishing shots, one of the trees with a grey sky backdrop, and then one of a large garage door opening. I believe these 2 shots are effect and follow the codes of rock indie videos, and then entice the viewer in to see what happens in the video. Similar to this would be 5 seconds of Summers ‘Jet Black Heat’. This songs establishing shot consists of an empty beach, therefore not giving anything away and cleverly persuading the viewer to want to watch on to see what happens.

Camera-Establishing Shot

Close ups-In my video I have used many close up shots as I believe they are incredibly important to adding atmosphere and emotion to a video. I mainly used my close ups, when filming faces. For example, my singer saying the lyrics, or the emotion on the girls face. This way a good way to show emotion in the video. However, I also used close ups when focusing on the phone, in particular the text message the girl receives off a random boy the proves to play the key role in the video.Medium shots-Medium shots are good to use when you want to include a number of different props in a shot. In particular, I used medium shots when filming my band shots, this way I could fit all 3 members in including their instrument as well as still being close enough to see them sing the lyrics and play the instruments.

Camera-Close ups/Medium shots

Over the shoulder-OTS shots are a good way to see in the eyes of the characters, as the camera is being held in their eye line, therefore it gives their perspective in the video. I used OTS shots when filming the girl on her phone, apologizing to her boyfriends for example, this is also an example of a close up as the camera is extremely close to the prop.Low angle-Low angle shots are good when adding variety into my music video, I used them commonly towards the end, this was due to the fact that I wanted to create a sense of authority. I filmed the band members form a low angle, signifying that they (guitarist in particular) held authority over his girlfriend knowing that she wants his back.

Camera-Over the shoulder/Low angle