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

2. The first aspect that Andrew Goodwin identified as a common factor that features in
music videos, was that they demonstrate ‘genre characteristics’, i.e. the video is
specified to the particular genre of the song it is using. For example, some
characteristics we might expect to occur in videos would be:
•A stage performance in metal video, featuring the band playing their instruments
•A dance routine for a pop group, particularly girl or boy bands
•Expensive luxury items such as cars and jewellery for rap/hip hop videos
•Footage of night clubs and dancers for techno/house/rave videos
•Surreal or highly stylised elements for alternative/indie rock videos
Rap/Hip-Hop video Pop video

3. The genre for my video is a hybrid of sorts; a dubstep track with prominent
elements of rock/metal music.
Dubstep is a sub-genre of dance/electronic music, therefore the videos are often
similar in tone and theme as well. Dance videos often typically contain:
Footage of night clubs and dancers, with UV lasers and fingerlights
Frequent shots of the artist performing, often a live DJ setup
Surreal elements or visual effects, emphasizing themes of escapism/euphoria

4. Rock/metal videos on the other hand, often
feature live performances by the artist/group, with
close-ups of the various instruments being played.
The use of editing particularly in metal videos is
often frantic/energetic to represent the visceral
nature of the song.
The artist/band are often dressed in relation to
their genre – i.e. many hardcore bands feature
members with tattoos, styled hair etc.

5. Therefore when it came to my video, I decided to incorporate elements from videos
typical of both genre, reflecting the hybrid nature of the song.
This included using surreal/visual
effects, often found in dance
videos. I implemented these
effects via the Final Cut Express
software.
For the rock elements, I shot a
band performance, featuring
frequent close-ups of the
member’s instruments. I edited
the footage to be frantic/quick as
well, complimenting the
energetic nature of the song
Therefore, while the video borrows conventions from both dance and rock/metal
videos, it subverts the conventions of a music video as a whole by combining the two

8. Given that the track contains a sample of American political activist Mario Savio’s
famous speech at Sprout Hall in the University of California, Berkeley; I felt it was
important to include snippets of him in the video. The black-and-white shots of Salvo
made for an interesting contrast when played alongside the band footage.
The dimensions of the video of
Savio’s speech however, were
significantly different to that of
the footage I had shot on the
camera. Therefore, making the
Savio footage look out of place
when played alongside other
clips in the music video

9. In order to rectify this situation, I experimented with editing the Savio footage using
the Final Cut Express viewer tool, allowing me to edit the scale, width, height, aspect
ratio etc. of the clip. Eventually I found some settings that matched the footage I had
shot.
Therefore, I could seamlessly implemented the footage from Savio’s speech with the
band footage I shot on camera, without the former looking jarringly out of the
place, given that the dimensions now matched that of the latter.

10. Given that the song is primarily a dubstep track, there is not much narrative in the
lyrics given that the genre is based in dance music. Therefore I felt it was important to
reflect that in the video, by instead focusing on the visceral impact of the song, through
editing and visual effects.
A prime example of this was
the use of the ‘earthquake’
effect used during the close-
ups of the Electribe machine
during the wobble bass parts
in the verses of the track.
Much of the editing implemented in the
music video was done to match the time of
the song. The shots would change in
accordance with the hits of the bass drum
for example. The outro of the track
featured heavy use of the ‘Slit Scan’ effect.