Evaluation Question 1

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

real media products?

•The genre of my music video is an acoustic singer/songwriter style music video.

•This genre focuses on the artist on the artist singing and/or playing an instrument.

•Shots are slow paced, and aim to enhance the song conveyed, as opposed to detract from it.

•Acoustic music videos often aim to make their target audience feel a particular emotion, e.g. Sadness or happiness.

•I used a number of these conventions in my own media product.

During, research, I analysed the music video for Lewis Watson’s original song ‘Bones’. In the video, there are many shots of Lewis alone singing and playing his guitar. This is a notion I incorporated into my own production. Nikki is presented alone singing and playing the piano.

However, differently, I used an inside location, as opposed to an outside location. This was partially due to my wanting to use a grand piano, which was located indoors at my own school. Also, this would enable my outside locations, whereby Nikki would not be presented, to be distracted from the shots of Nikki playing. This is a way in which I broke stereotypical conventions of an acoustic music video. Instead of being present throughout, Nikki was not. In Lewis Watson’s ‘Bones’, he is the centrepiece in the entirety of the video.

In a modern society, whereby new technology and social media is growing, new music videos are able to uploaded much more readily and regularly. Therefore, there is a growing emphasis on choosing quirky and interesting locations in acoustic music videos. This was something I noticed in Passenger’s music video for ‘Let Her Go’. The striking background of red graffiti allows the young and youthful target audience to be directed fully. This was a convention I used in my own video. My broad audience could be targeted with my location of a memorial, whereby the imagery of aeroplanes is clearly addressed and focused on to highlight the theme of loss and grief. It is not a location that has been used before in an acoustic music, and therefore it challenges what has already been done, such as ‘Let Her Go’ does.

From my research, it was evident that conventionally, acoustic music videos use slow paced shots, with fading transitions between shots to create calm atmosphere, and allow the audience to feel reflective towards the themes presented by the artist and images highlighted. I used this concept in my own product, such as my use of pan to showcase the number of poppies at the WWII Memorial in Bournemouth Gardens. In ‘Bones’, there are fading transitions between shows to show Lewis Watson moving from location to the next.

• It is key to follow these conventions, as it enables the audience to gain a sense of familiarity. However, it is also important incorporate new elements to a new media product, in order to make it unique and stand out within the market. This is what I aimed to do, from in the influence of my other existing media product research.

During my research, I came across the music videos ‘Stitches’ by Young Guns, and ‘Gloria’ by Canterbury. Both of these music videos use greyscale throughout without any other colours. I felt that this created a sense of emotion for the individual audience member to gain for themselves. As my audience is broad due to the nature of my key themes, I felt that this would enable my music video to challenge current music video conventions. In terms of Use and Gratifications, it fulfil the use of watching a music video for curiosity, due to this convention I decided to use.

For my ancillary products, I used conventions of existing, and current media products, but adapted this to my own portfolio.

During my research, it became apparent the conventions of digipaks an magazine advertisements is that they work together in harmony. Therefore, this what I carried through to own portfolio, taking inspiration from recently released album ‘Opposites’ by Biffy Clyro. I carried my font through both pieces, as well as using information such as the artist’s website to encourage interactivity to wider media, as well as using reviews from magazines well known by audiences and music critics, for example, ‘NME’.