3. In what ways does your media
product develop or challenge forms
conventions of real media
products?
4. Lyrics and visuals
When we picked our song we picked it because of the strong lyrics that we
could display on screen without much difficulty also as rap videos generally
don't have much of a narrative this allowed us to add some content to our
music video. Rap music videos can be more described as a insight into a
lifestyle rather than the telling of a story through lyrics and visuals.
However we used lyrics and visuals to show material things such as clothing,
phones and money. for example when the song said toilet paper in my
pockets he pulled tissue paper out of his pockets. When the lyrics said
“honey on the line” he had the phone in his hand. some of these are
exaggeration of the lyrics but together they bring out a deeper meaning of
what the lyrics are saying and also creates moments that the audience will
remember as their is a visual aid accompanying the lyrics.
5. • To start creating my own media product, I first had to look at
some existing media products. We had to watch and analyse
music videos, cd covers, adverts and magazine covers. We
looked at established artists in our genre of music from the
USA and the UK this allowed us to grasp and understand the
conventions of our video.
• For our media product we analysed camera angles and shots,
editing Mise en Scene and the narrative of our genre of music
videos.
• The videos that were of the rap/hiphop genre as it is
representative of our artist and genre of our song choice.
6. Structure of music video
One of the main key features of music videos is the narrative the story line
however rap music videos often don't have a story line or a narrative but use
lyrics and visuals to display materialistic things such as clothes money etc.
most rap videos focus on girls or the making of money or physically having
money. As we found it difficult and inappropriate to get girls into our video.
This is to do with the male gaze theory which is largely present in rap videos
where women are displayed like objects. We focused on the other two having
and getting money as it is easy to do this as it does not require the
cooperation of people so t took away a lot of hassle.
7. • Before we started filming we had to gather as
much information by doing research to
understand the generic conventions of the genre
we had chosen.
• To do this we looked at a number of music videos
that related to the genre as to gain an insight into
what makes up a successful and professional hip
hop/rap music video.
• With use of the locations we picked we have tried
to stick as close to the generic conventions of our
video
8. Costume
• Clothing (costume) is a very important aspect of any genre of music as it gives
indicators as to what genre the artist is representing as research has found that
people build first impressions in the first 10 seconds of a music video so having the
right attire will allow audience to recognise it as belonging to a genre.
• In a rap/hip hop video the conventions are for the artist to be wearing designer
clothes/baseball cap/dark coloured clothing/hoodies etc.
• We made sure that our artist stuck to these conventions when picking his outfit on
a filming day.
• We made our artist wear dark coloured clothing which conforms to the generic
conventions of rap videos. Throughout the music video our artist was dressed in
blacks and greys staying within the generic conventions.
9. Lighting
• Most hip hop/Rap videos are filmed at night with the use of
additional lights and high quality cameras. Filming at night
brings a greater contrast of colours also having it set at night
it gives a deeper meaning to the words of the song as it plays
on emotions.
• For our music video we chose to shoot during the daytime as
it also gives a meaning to the lyrics and pays on audiences
emotions but in a more positive way this works for our song
as it is about working hard to make money
10. Digipack conventions
For our digipak we stuck to generic conventions of a rap/hip hop artist but more of a upscale artist
who has already been established rather than giving him the look of someone who is just starting
out. He is dressed in a smart casual outfit as i believe that this makes him look more serious
about his music and will appeal to a larger audience of people. Also the clothes he are wearing
complement the setting of the digi-pack. I also played with the grey scale for the digipak pictures
making it black and white and made this a common theme throughout the digi-pack.
