Evaluation Question 1

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

Before starting to create the actual music video I carried out a lot of research to ensure that I had a good idea of the codes and conventions of real media products to the one which I have created. Considering the fact that I have always had a keen interest in music and have grown up listening to many genres of music, I considered myself to have a pretty good idea of the kind of product that I should be creating. I thought that I knew what my music video should look like and how it should be shown; however, after analysing existing music videos I realised that I did not know or understand half as much as I originally thought. People my age tend to see music videos nearly every day but we never stop and think why they have been filmed in certain ways, what camera angles are being used to show what and what is the effect of the mise-en-scene which has been used.

We had to thoroughly research the music video conventions to ensure that we got it right and so that our end product looks like it really could exist in the real music industry. Through the research, I came across a few theories which helped me to understand these conventions more clearly, making it easier to relate the conventions to our own video:

Andrew Goodwin

- There is a relationship between the lyrics and the visuals, with the visuals illustrating, amplifying or contradicting the lyrics.

- There is a relationship between the music and the visuals, with the visuals illustrating, amplifying or contradicting the music.

- Genres are complex and diverse in terms of music video style and iconography

- Record companies will demand a lot of close-ups of the main artist or vocalist
- Voyeurism is present in many music videos, especially in the treatment of females, but also in terms of systems of looking. Some examples are screens within screens, cameras, mirrors, etc.
- there are likely to be intertextual references, either to other music videos or to films and TV texts, these provide further gratification and pleasure for the viewers/fans.

Overall, we knew that one of the main conventions of a music video for our genre would be that the lyrics should relate to the visuals. We have done this on many occasions throughout the music video; there are some examples below:

"just because i'm sorry, doesn't mean i didn't enjoy it at the time.."

-Annabel gets Rich's text through on her phone

We made sure that the word on the screen correlate to the lyrics being sung in the music.

"you're the only thing that i love.."

-Memory of a time when Rich and Annabel were happy together

We desaturated this shot to show that it is a memory and also used a shot where the two of them are laughing and look happy in comparison to the other parts of the video which show how they are feeling in present time.

"a simple mistake starts the hardest time.."

-Rich sees Annabel with another person

We used an over the shoulder shot to show Rich's reaction to him seeing Annabel with another person. We also made sure that he was in the middle of the shot to make it look like he is alone.

The split screen was probably the most important part of the video for us, as it is the part which we took most time on and which we are most proud of.

Here is an example of how split screens have been used in a music video of a similar genre to ours: