Evaluation Question 1.

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

Relating to Andrew Goodwin's theory - Our music video consisted of Amplification as the lyrics connect to our video and adds layer of meaning.



A good example of this is 'Disturbia' by Rihanna, I think it fits with Andrew's theory of Amplification because of what the video displays. For example, the use of mise en scene, costume and make up. Combined they are all dark and dull and lyrically the words are fierce and strong.  Most actions in the video are out of the ordinary. One of the most distinct things is the setting as I   believe the black background links with the lyrics and song name.

In relation to my music video, I think our lyrics and actions in the video successfully use the amplification technique as our video adds meaning that does not oppose the lyrics but adds layers of meaning to the whole video. For example in our video, the way our artist are singing to the useless, worthless boys is shown through their own experience which is presented in the video as a projection shot where the expression on the artist face is because of the bad break up, which is displayed as a separate video behind the artist.  This shows how our lyrics connects to the video and what is presented through it. 


We chose not to use illustration or disjuncture as we want to create meaningful videos as his video is aimed at the boy who caused heartbreak - lots of emotion and attitude to show and portray this to the audience. 

In relation to Carol Vernallis, her idea of continuity is usually broken by the use of editing which our video consist a lot of.

A video which inspired me to use different and unique special effects was Micheal Jackson,
' Leave me alone'. This video was useful in seeing how effects worked and how they make your video look more fun and distinct.



An example of edits we used were special effects - Bad Tv

Colour correction - We used the colour correction effect to make our video brightness and colour stand out more, making certain clips more distinct then others.

Also Vernallis suggest that the use of base tracks changes the convention and breaks the continuity of music video. We also used base tracks throughout our video which gave sense of structure and continuity or repeated locations being differently.

A video which inspired me to use base tracks and how to use them was Beyonce's song  - 'De Ja Vu'

The different use of base tracks made the video have a faster pace, especially in the chorus, which was also the effect it gave to our music video.

Here are a few clips to demonstrate how our base tracks made our video have a good, steady fast pace.

These clips show the first and second verse, with 2 different base tracks in each.

Clip 1 - Camden, near the lake and brick lane 

Clip 2 - Piccadilly circus and Granary square 

I also thought camera work was important, 
and while filming, I was constantly thinking 
about if we had a good range of camera angles. Before going out to film, I looked through a lot of music videos to get some ideas, here are some shots that influenced me to use in my own video.

Close ups, 
High angle shots, 
Medium close ups and 
extreme close ups ( lips )

Did we stick to the conventions of our genre - POP ?

I think we stuck to the conventions of a pop music video. For example, our use of bright lighting and mostly bright costumes. which makes the video stand out more and also appeals to our target audience being mainly youths and young women. Also in pop videos, the artist are usually young and energetic which is the case in our music video with our artist being 17/18. There is usually synchronised dancing in pop videos which is usually performed by females, this is also the case in our video as we had a short dance routine. Lastly, the costume for the singers in pop videos are usually fashionable and vibrant which makes them relatable to the younger audience as fashion is usually important to them.

Here is a clip of a typical pop group doing their dance routine in their music video "move".

So overall, we stuck to the conventions on a pop video.

I looked at Rihanna's Loud album for inpsiration. What I took from this example, was a consistant colour scheme, and to have a photo going across the inside of the album/digipak. Also the advertisment uses the same photo as the album cover which I also did as it looked like it worked well and was the best photo to use as it showed our artist in a good way with our synergy - sunglasses/black shades.

In reference to my Digipak, and advertisement, I definitely wanted to make it colourful and bright to stand out but also to stick to the convention of the pop genre.

Especially for the front covert, I stuck to using 3 colours, Purple, orange and black. I thought particularly the purple and orange were bright. I thought from this you could recognise the genre of the artist being pop. 

For the inside of the album, I used another colourful photo to go across. Even though it does not really match the colours on the front of the album, there is still a variation of different green, blue, white and black shades. Also the natural lighting makes the photo overall more vibrant. 

The advertisement is similar to my album cover as it has the same colour scheme and a very similar photo. I kept it simple and think it illustrates the album in a good way. It is bright and colourful so sticks to the convention of the pop genre.