Q1 Evaluation

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

Setting• The setting that I decided to use is conventional as it followed the

idea of a luxury, travelling, sunny location. This can be seen in many music videos similar to my genre, for example, in I Need Your Love by Ellie Goulding and Calvin Harris, the camera follows them to the sunny, luxurious beach very similar to our location. In my final product, we used the setting of Brighton Beach on a sunny day, as well as using some colour correction to brighten the mood. This connotes the messages we set out to play in our final product of a good vibe, showing a good time. However, I think we have developed the traditional setting for a music video in our genre as we used a British beach scene which could be seen as quite gritty, which connotes the independent value of my song. Therefore, I think this setting is conventional as it is very similar to many music videos in our genre, however, we put a bit of our own twist on it.

Setting continued• In our second setting, we did a performance

narrative in the studio, showing the artist producing the song. This can be seen throughout the video as a way to cut up the other narrative and identify the artist’s image. I believe that this slightly challenges typical music videos for my genre as the performance narrative is normally in a setting like a club, where ours is instead in a very secluded and intimate studio. Overall, I think this is slightly conventional as it shows a location in which an artist may perform in, and there are a few music videos where the artist is performing in a studio.

Characters• The characters featured in my production could be

considered conventional, for example, the use of an attractive, lead, female character could suggest the male gaze, using a female character to stimulate male audiences into being drawn into her beauty or in many cases, sexuality. However, I have challenged this theory by not overly sexualising my female character and keeping her fully clothed, unlike the majority of music videos in my genre. I think this has given a classier and more respectful feel to the music and the video as a whole.

Editing• The editing I used was conventional in the sense

that it helped create artist image. In the majority of videos I analysed in my genre, I found that editing was commonly used to cut to performance aspects of the artist to create a natural relationship between the artist and the audience. Whilst editing, I used a lot of cuts to scenes where the artist was producing/performing the track in the studio. This creates a conventional looking video as it looks as if it is like any other video in my genre where the artist’s image is enforced through editing to cuts of performance narrative.

Editing continued• I also edited the video to match the audio, making

it look fluent alongside the audio, giving it a conventional and fluent aesthetic. For example, the sweep up is matched with the waves coming in to the beach and parts where toms are hit in the song to create a pre-chorus effect, I used black flashes on the screen to mimic the sound by cutting out parts of the video. This created a conventional looking piece as it fits tightly with the audio, much like many other music videos I have analysed from my genre.

Narrative• The narrative I used connotes a clear and distinct

view of having a good time and having a lot of juvenile fun. This is something seen in many music videos similar to my genre, for example, Ke$ha’s Blah Blah Blah features her going on a night out to a club and getting drunk and going a bit over the top, something considered juvenile and fun. My narrative shows a couple falling in love and getting all excited and a bit over the top on a day out e.g. rolling in the beach and pushing slush puppies in each others faces. This connotes the same narrative as found in many other music videos of my genre and creates a conventional feel to the narrative.

Costumes• The costumes used are considered modern

fashion, something that all artists want to try and represent themselves with as it makes them look relatable to and modern audiences, especially younger audiences, therefore these types of costumes are conventional as it will create a positive artist image. These types of costumes can be seen in videos such as Porter Robinson’s Lionhearted where he wears skinny jeans and a coat similar to the artist.

Titles and fonts• The fonts I used in my production were not

conventional, instead they challenged conventions. Most fonts used in this genre are fun or wild, but Adobe Caslon Pro is a very formal and smart font which gave an effective and professional looking result for my product. I am happy that I challenged this convention as it made my product stand out a bit, rather than it looking too generic.