My answer for Question 1 media evaluation.

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

2. Referencing
• Throughout my music video, band website and album packaging I have
included references to pop culture as a means of creating a comedy element
to my media product as well as providing insight into the subtext that my
media product holds about the Self-fulfilling prophecy.

3. Referencing
• I used forms and conventions of real media products when referencing. My
media product as a whole includes numerous pop culture references,
including references to the myths of vampires. As the main character in my
music video is a vampire, I wanted to use mise-en-scene to reflect that and
also add a comical element to 'Lights out'. Vampire myths are perpetuated
throughout cinema and since the beginning of literary myth 'Dracula'
(Written by Bram Stoker) they have been adapted into means of scaring
audiences and making them laugh. I aimed for the latter in my visual
referencing and at some point made visual jokes by beginning with a
vampire reference (such as the vampire sitting up straight in bed with her
hands in claws) and then developing it into a menial everyday activity (when
she then yawns and stretches).

4. Influence
• In some respects, I deliberately conformed to the conventions of real media
products because I have been inspired by such. I have a number of blog posts
on my influences for the concept of my music video: it tended to be that of
the alternative/indie genre, but more specifically I have been influenced by
the music video directing style of Richard Ayoade. Richard Ayoade has been
known to use tragicomic concepts in his music videos along with peculiar
characters or dispositions. For example, the music video to ‘Heads Will Roll’
by Yeah Yeah Yeahs includes a dancing werewolf who performs for a crowd of
people before chasing after them and killing them all. The blood however is
depicted as red glitter and the guts are made of felt, making it a comical
music in spite of its implied gore. I was inspired by a concept such as this as
I wanted to make a music video that made people laugh, but equally
included dark undertones and an ultimate demise.

5. Enigma Code
• Roland Barthes constructed a media narrative theory based on the
observations of real media products. He coined the term ‘enigma code’ in
explaining narratives whereby he audience was left guessing about the
narrative or its conclusion. My media product uses the enigma code in its
ending as the audience are left guessing why the vampire killed the girl and
its creates mystery about the character of the vampire, who was depicted as
a friendly and happy up until the ending of the music video. Although the
Enigma Code theory outlines how an enigma is created and eventually,
throughout the narrative, the mystery is solved and loose ends are tied up in
the story, I still applied the mystery that the Enigma Code describes for the
same reason: in order to keep my audience guessing.

6. Uses and Gratifications
• I considered the Uses and gratifications theory when planning the concept
for ’Lights Out’, as with real media products, I considered how my audience
would use my music video, whether they would simply view it for
entertainment purposes: getting aesthetical enjoyment or escapism from it,
or if they might utilise my media product further than just passive
enjoyment. I constructed my media product deliberately so that people could
enjoy the music video at face value and, without analysing its meaning, still
laugh at it and have fun watching it. However I also included subtext within
the music video so that viewers who wished to use my media product for
different reasons could do so. I had predicted that my music video would
attract a primary and secondary audience: my primary audience being
viewers who use my music for entertainment purposes, and my secondary
audience, who would be more active with my music video, deciphering the
meaning I encoded within the text and using it to gain information, perhaps
about the effects of social stigma and the consequences or labelling groups.