In what ways does you media product use, develop or

challenge forms and conventions of real media

products?

By Ameera Tayabali

. Our media product uses a performance and illustrated structured video

to try to publicise the band. Firth (1988) was the first to introduce the terms ‘performance’, ‘narrative’, and ‘concept’ structured music videos and explained that performance based music videos are typical for rock videos – an example would be Guns and Roses’s , Sweet child O’ mine (1987).

Our video offers this with a lot of close ups and camera movement to put an emphasis the instruments used, but also offers a story as something a little less conventional. This is good because in some aspects it separates the band from other rock bands.

By using a combination of two, we are trying to capture the attention of the audience, while at the same time, marketing the band as individuals. Using a narrative is a good technique because it incorporates a story for the audience to follow, making the viewing interesting, and means they may need to watch the video more then once to capture everything on the screen.

We linked the two styles by Adding shots with the lead

singer in the house

Another convention of music videos is to create a relationship between the lyrics and the video. Therefore we based the narrative on domestic violence just as the lyrics portrayed. I think this is a benefit because otherwise it may become confusing for the viewer and this way, it is more likely to be remembered because the visuals provide reinforcement for the sound. Our music video also can support Schwichtenbergs (1992) theory, which suggests that males take dominate roles in music videos providing the action and women passively react. However because we film from the woman’s point of view, we show this in a bad light, in the form of abuse, which perhaps, in turn, challenges the conventional norms.

In terms of camera work, performance based structures have a lot of close ups and movement to give a concert feel and narratives have a range of shots to grasp the atmosphere and feel of a song. I think my media product uses these conventions in an attempt to look professional.

The mise-en-scene has a big impact on the overall atmosphere of a music video. My subject matter research showed me how other music videos used techniques to insinuate violence. For example in Ludacris and Mary J Blige’s hit Run away love (2006), they showed alcohol and drug abuse as factors that influence domestic violence. Therefore in our music video we used empty beer cans to convey the image of alcohol abuse.

Ludacris – Run away love

Our music video

Furthermore instead of showing actual physical violence we used techniques we picked up from other videos like using shadows and bruises on the face. Other conventions we used, within the editing stages, were jump cuts from the house to the rehearsal studio. This is typical of music videos and concurs with the fast paced montage generally used.

Research into magazine adverts for music albums, has shown me certain conventions for both the advert and album cover. Magazine adverts tend to have a main image that corresponds with the album or digipak cover. Our ancillary texts don’t have the same visuals however they both do have a relationship with the music video itself, which challenges the conventions of the ancillary texts. Other then that our magazines advert and digipak are quite conventional with the artists’ name and song in the largest font, a trademark logo, the bands website and limited information.

The album cover and the magazine advert both

only have one bold image of the artistThe advert also shows a picture of the album cover to familiarise the

customer