Q1: In what ways does your media products use, develop or challenge

forms and conventions of real media products

Korima Begum

Vernallis believes that the usual rules of ‘continuity’ editing are broken in order to keep a music video entertaining and interesting. Continuity editing is something that is usually found in TV and film.

Edits that are used are very obvious to make it clear to the viewers.

Jumps cuts are often used in music videos

Base tracks are used to give the video a structure

Camera moves in time with the music

This video of Right There by Ariana Grande proves this theory as it follows the conventions stated above.

http://youtu.be/fhcpubAVdmc

Vernallis’s Theory

We decided to follow Vernallis’s theory as it would help us create a structure for the song.

Main ideas we took from this are:

- A lot of edits

- Use of base tracks

- Jump cuts

We were influenced by Our Song by Taylor Swift as it had many base tracks and a lot of jump cuts and other edits which make it clear to the viewers that it is a music video. Also it is a song within the same genre of the song that we are making a video for so we felt that this would be great to use for inspiration.

http://youtu.be/Jb2stN7kH28

The main ideas used from this…

Andrew Goodwin believes that pop videos are built around the song and don’t follow a traditional narrative as novels or films

Pop videos use the singer as both the narrator and a character

Singer often looks into the camera to involve viewers at home

Rely on repetition

Has closure; climax created which then fades into an end

There are three types of relations between song and video; illustration, disjuncture and amplification

An example of Goodwin’s theory being used in a music video is Lost Without U by Robin Thicke - http://youtu.be/0DdCoNbbRvQ

You can see the use of repetition in the guitar base tracks and a few base tracks within the verses as well as the singer looking into the camera.

Goodwin’s Theory

We followed this theory as our music video showcases Eva (the artist) looking into the camera numerous times to engage the audience.

We also used a lot of repetition as we had a lot of base tracks that we cut between throughout the video.

However, we also challenged this theory as we didn’t have a narrative for the video. We decided on portraying our video through disjuncture as we felt that as our artist is new and want to focus on selling her talent. We wanted to do this by focusing solely on her and her performance of the song. Therefore we felt a narrative wasn’t really necessary.

How we used this theory…

Mulvey believes that when a female is performing in music videos, it is usually seen in the point of view of a male. This view is seen as being ideal across all videos. This representation is often seen in many Hip Hop and R&B videos however it is not only subjected to those genres.

In order to create this ‘ideal’ vision of a woman, a lot of thought is put into what she wears and her make up and her posture in the video.

Quite often you would see women in very provocative clothing and acting in a sexual way towards men to get their attention or you would see close ups of certain aspects of their body for men to focus on.

A video that proves Mulvey’s theory is Blurred Lines by Robin Thicke Featuring T.I. & Pharrell . This is because you can see girls parading around in skimpy clothing being as seen as objects of pleasure for the men.

http://youtu.be/yyDUC1LUXSU

Mulvey’s Theory of Representation

We decided to follow Mulvey’s Theory so we could attract our wider audience (men). We decided to dismember aspects of Eva’s body which would this apply the ‘male gaze’ on to it.

Taylor Swifts video ‘Tim McGraw’ influenced us on our decision to do this as you can see Taylor laying in the grass as the camera pans up and down her body. We thought this was a great execution of the male gaze and it was done in a very classy and subtle way so we thought we would use this idea in our video.

http://youtu.be/GkD20ajVxnY

How we used Mulvey’s Theory

Nicole Scherzinger – Try With Me - http://youtu.be/R7sYiTyBjTY

Rihanna – Only Girl In The World - http://youtu.be/pa14VNsdSYM

Florence and the Machines – Rabbit Heart - http://youtu.be/GF6kBNLTvaU

These songs used their location and scenery in a very effective way. I liked the way the flowers were incorporated into the videos because it looks very elegant and sophisticated. Although in these videos flowers are used (something we were initially going to do) we will be trying to create the same effect using leaves to fit in with our autumnal theme. I liked the angles used in Nicole’s video as they stood out to me and looked very interesting. These shots influenced some of the shots used in our music video too. In Rihanna’s video you can see flower petals floating around and we thought it would be a good idea to do this with leaves so it can tie in with our theme. In the Florence and the Machine video I liked the filter used in the video. We will try and use a filter like this on our music video as it would bring out the greens even more and give a little yellowish tint to make it seem a little vintage-ish.

Other Videos That Influenced Us

Screenshots from the videos on next slide