Evaluation question 1

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

2. A2 media product
For my main media text at A2 I created a music video to the cover of ‘Chandelier’ by Madilyn
Bailey with an accompanying digipak and poster.
My music video is narrative based because theirs a story in which the lyrics are telling and the
music video portrays this (which mine does). It based on to girls, one older and the other
younger, the young girl is showing the side of feeling free from addiction and dancing in a large
space because she doesn’t feel trapped anymore and the older girl is in an isolated black out
space looking deeply upset and distressed by all her problems. However, at the end both of the
girls portray the same happy emotion because there’s a clip of each of them smiling to show how
your emotions can change from one extreme to another when you’re involved with addiction and
depression. I showed the two story lines through cross cuts to show the contrast between both
and to help the audience clearly see it’s narrative based and what the music video is trying to
say/tell.
The song ‘Chandelier’ originally sung by Sia but I used the cover by Madilyn Bailey due to
copyright issues, is the song I chose for my music video. After researching the lyrics and looking
into the deeper meanings of them my music video explores the themes of; alcoholism, depression
and partying to excess. I portrayed these sensitives issues in different way. For example, I used
disco lights to give the audience the illusion that it’s like a club and the older girl is flipping her
hair around in a sexual yet stressed out way to show side of partying to excess. Also, I had the
older girl use neon paints and UV lights to clearly show how she was feeling/what the lyrics were
saying. For example, she draws two blue lines under her eyes to represent tears and puts a hand
print onto her neck to show her thoughts of wanting to die or the feeling of being overwhelmed
because she’s an addict. Lastly, our main prop was used by the young girl when she’s dancing in
the abandoned building; a red cloth. The significance behind the red cloth is that red has
connotations of death, pain and danger and by her including it in her dance by wrapping it
around her neck but also flicking it in the air shows the constrast between her feeling like she
can’t handle the addiction but the fight she’s having with it and trying to overcome it.

3. Studying the lyrics of the song
To figure out what genre I wanted to do for my music video I created a mind map
of all the genres I could think of and some song examples. I choose pop because I
wanted a song which was expressive but not boring because I wanted to be able
to relate the video back to the lyrics and this was then my reason for it being
narrative based too. An example of this could be Ed Sheeran ‘Castle On The Hill’
which takes the audience ‘back in time’ to when Ed was a teenager and what
him and his friends would get up to as typical teenagers of Suffolk. For example,
it shows them going to pubs and playing pool, when he had his first kiss and
driving through the countryside. This is a typical example of a narrative based
music video because it tells the story behind his teenage years.
The song ‘Chandelier’ is a very powerful song and I liked how it had a big story
behind it which I could show within my music video. Due to the close research of
the lyrics I knew it spoke about drinking too much and abusing alcohol, partying,
abuse and feeling depressed. The actual music video to Sia’s Chandelier focuses
more on mental health and being stuck in a body that is telling you what to do
and this is clearly shown in the music video through the movement of
interpretive dance. For example, she travels and jumps around a lot which could
be her trying to escape from her body and her making screw like movements on
her head could be her trying to get the bad thoughts out of her head.

4. Andrew Goodwin theory:
1. Demonstrate genre characteristics.
2. Relationship between music and visuals.
3. Relationship between lyrics and visuals.
4. Demands of the record label.

5. Relationship between the lyrics and the
visuals
My music video supports Goodwin’s theory because the lyrics and visuals match all the
way through my music video.
As I had researched the lyrics I knew what it was about and what visuals I could add
to match the meaning and words. For example, the first line of the song is “Party girls
don’t get hurt” this helped me decide on some scenes in my video which linked to
‘partying’, I did this by using disco lights to look like the actress is in a club and
having her move like she’s upset. Another lyrics that matches the visuals is “I’m
gonna live like tomorrow doesn’t exist” and we have the young girl in a large
abandoned building dancing around care free and not thinking about her problems or
worries and just thinking about her dance. I also represented the lyrics with neon
paints, for example she drags blue paint in lines below her eyes when it says “feel my
tears as they dry” to show she’s crying and is hurting a lot. Furthermore, near the end
she gets all of the neon paint and smudges it all over her face and hair, which clearly
links to the lyric “I’m a mess” this shows the chaos she’s feeling inside of all the
mixed emotions and not caring anymore.
Our main prop, the red cloth, represents death and danger and this relates to the
lyric “I’m holding on for dear life”. This is shown by our dancer and her constantly
wrapping it around her neck/head to show she’s wanting to die and there’s not much
left in her to stop her from killing her self, hence the holding on for dear life.

6. Examples of relationship between the
lyrics and the visuals
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Ke4480MicU&index=10&list=PLD7SPvDoEddYd3OLS9T2ZT4eGc1iTwYG4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zGcUoRlhmw&list=PLw-VjHDlEOgvtnnnqWlTqByAtC7tXBg6D&index=14

7. Relationship between the music and the
visuals
I show a clear relationship between the music and visuals within my music video.
Cutting to the beat:
When the song’s climax comes our dancer becomes more fast paced and I add in more clips of the party
scene and neon paints because she is moving her head around quickly and looks more frantic. Similarly,
when the song slows back done again the dancer goes back to moving slower and her actions being less
abrupt and the disco scenes her hair whipping was put into slow motion. Cutting to the beat is a typical
feature for relating the music and visuals to ensure your music video looks authentic and flows with
ease.
Pacing:
Again when the songs tempo increased my editing increased in speed too and I would add in more clips
of the multiple different locations and scenes to show the intensity that the song has gotten to in which
links both music and the visuals. Nearer the beginning of my music video, it’s slow paced typically
because it’s only just introducing the song and an example of my video following this slow paced music
is the close up of my older actress and she’s lip syncing the words and looking upset to show the sadness
and to link to the calmness of the pace.
Mood:
The lighting in my music video is a big part of creating a certain mood. For example, the low key
lighting clearly shows the intense sadness and distress of our actress and this is featured a lot during the
slow paced parts of the song. However, when the lighting has colourful disco lights and the natural
lighting in the abandoned building shows the feeling of freedom and trying to escape and this is a more
of frantic feeling so I these more to the climax part of the song.
By having a clear relationship between the music and visuals it gives a clear idea of what the video is
about for the audience and makes my music video look realistic and seamless.

8. Examples of relationship between the
music and the visuals
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEuQU6a90Pc

9. Genre Characteristics- Genre
My music video supports and challenges Andrew Goodwin’s theory of genre.
Sia’s pop music videos are all very similar within who’s in it and what’s included
within it. For example, Sia is never present in any of her music video’s because
she wants the focus on the song and lyrics and not her singing it and to do this
she includes either one dancer or multiple dancers to tell the story of the song
and the lyrics. This supports my music video because we use a young girl to
dance in an abstract location to show the story of the lyrics. This is an example
of an conceptual type of video, which are normally seen as very unique or even
unusual because this draws in the audience and has them question the music
video.
On the other hand, pop music videos are typically very upbeat and follow the
themes of happiness or involves a love scenario. A real example of this is, Justin
Bieber ‘Beauty And A Beat’ ft Nicki Minaj, this is very colourful and full of
excitable dancers and actors enjoying themselves at a waterpark. Whereas, my
music video is mostly low key lighting, black clothing and the mood is very
negative.

10. Genre Characteristics- Colour
I used colour to show a location or to convey meaning. For example, the disco
lights to make it look like she’s at a club, the neon paints to show her sadness
and pain and the red cloth to show death but also the graffiti in the abandoned
building are also very colourful. However, my music video does challenge
Goodwin’s theory because my video never goes into black and white because
even though black and white does have conventions of negative emotions I felt
that it wouldn’t tell the story I wanted my music video to tell because I wanted
my audience to be able to see that it’s about partying too much and the disco
lights and paints do this well.
A real life example: Amy Winehouse ‘Back To Black’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJAfLE39ZZ8

11. Genre Characteristics- Camera Shots
Camera shots are another important genre characteristic to attract viewers and have
the audience enjoy the music video. My dancer travelled a lot throughout the building
and instead of using just a hand held camera I used a shoulder rig to enable me to get
a perfect flowing tracking shot. A tracking shot is very effective in a music video
because it gives the feeling of a POV shot for the audience because it’ll feel like
they’re following the dancer around themselves which makes the video visually
interesting and pleasing to watch.
Close-ups were a common camera shot throughout my music video. My close-ups were
used mostly with my older girl when she’s putting neon paints on her face because
the lyrics are about quite sad topics by having her lip sync close to the camera it
emphasises her emotions to the audience better and adds more depth to the video
but also the audience will be able to see the patterns being drawn better.
In the abandoned building, the camera shot we used mostly was a wide shot and to
achieve this shot I put the camera at the back of the room we were in on a camera
stand to make sure it would stay still and there was no wobbly camera movements.
The wide shot enabled me to capture a lot of the dance and also show the size scale,
in that the building is very big compared to her which shows her being very
vulnerable. Furthermore, the wide shot allows the audience to see the smaller details
in the building which they hadn’t seen before, for example, broken glass, graffiti and
even skulls.

12. Genre Characteristics- Lighting
The lighting in the music video changes all the way throughout the music video.
Firstly, in the abandoned building we went mid morning because we wanted to
use natural lighting due to the large windows and all the broken walls which
allowed good light to come through. By using natural lighting it created a sense
of realism and made it more authentic because it showed shadows and
highlighted the dancer well (could see her clearly). In contrast, for the other two
scenes both were behind a black back drop, one had UV lights to make the neon
lights show up bright and give the effect that they’re glowing and also I used
disco lights which moved and changed colours. By using no other lighting than
the UV lights and disco lights with the black backdrop really enhanced the
brighter colours and made them stand out from the dark background which I
thought looked very effective.
For example, Coldplay ‘Hymn For The Weekend’ features lots of bright colours
due to the theme of being in India and being in the Holi festival but also
portraying the positive connotations. Whereas, Lukas Graham ‘7 Years’ is all in
black and white because it’s based about more of a negative topic and is quite
serious.

13. Genre Characteristics- Editing
One of the edits I did in my music video is enhancing the colours in the disco
light scenes because they weren’t as bright as I wanted and I felt like they
needed to be emphasised more. This made them stand out more because of the
contrast between them and the black background. Another example of me
editing my scenes, again with the disco scenes because she was swinging her hair
and head around the original clip was too fast and looked messy so I slowed down
the video into slow Mo and this made the clip seem more dramatic and you’re
able to see her facial expression better too. An example of an artist using slow
Mo in their music video is Zayn Malik ‘PILLOWTALK’ most of the scenes which are
in slow motion are of all the women featured in the music video and the contact
between him and the women whilst being in each other embrace, this
emphasises their relationship but also could link to Laura Mulvey’s theory of the
Male Gaze and the slow motion is to make the women seem more sexual and in
result attract a larger male audience.

14. Genre Characteristics- Mise-en-scene
Props:
There’s not many props featured in my music video because I wanted the
audience to focus on the dance and what the music video/lyrics are trying to say
and tell. The main prop I had my dancer use is a smaller piece of red cloth which
I had her interpret into her dance and use it to symbolise the pain and battle
she’s having with addiction and depression.
Clothing:
The only clothing which I had in the music video was a oversized black hoodie,
black dance shorts, skin coloured tights and black shoes. This shows her lack of
motivation because she doesn’t care for how she looks and the colour black has
negative connotations, also again, I wanted the audience to focus on her dance
and not her clothing. However, the older girl due you could only see shoulders
upwards but we gave the illusion that she was naked because when you’re naked
that’s when a lot of people are most vulnerable and this is what I wanted to
portray in the video.

15. Demands of the record label- the close
up shot
The last point of Andrew Goodwin’s theory is that to meet the demands of the
record label is to include close ups of the artist or artists.
My music video supports this theory because I use close ups a lot throughout my
video when she’s lip syncing and using neon paints and in the disco scenes.
The main reason I used close ups in my video because the meaning of the song is
highly based on strong feelings and emotions and by using close ups this allowed
me to show the audience clearly what emotion the actress is trying to portray,
which is being upset and the feeling of being overwhelmed. This was done with
the disco light scene because she was moving her head a lot by having it as a
close up the audience will be able to see her face better and see that she’s
moving like that because she’s upset. Also the neon paint scene is a close
because they emphasised her negative emotions by showing her dragging it
across mouth to show that she feels like she isn’t able to tell anyone about her
addiction and the feeling of being alone and when the neon paints are all over
her to show her life being a mess.

16. Synergy
With ancillary products many artists will link them to their music video by using
the same lighting, props, actor ect.
An example of a real media product is The Weeknd ‘Starboy’ his music video and
digipak are very similar. For example, he’s wearing the same outfit, a black
leather jacket and a cross necklace, also the lighting is very similar too because
in the music video there’s a blue hue over him and on the album The Weeknd
himself has a blue hue over him but also quite low key lighting too, like in the
music video.

17. Ancillary Evidence
It’s clear that my digipak, magazine advert and music video all link in some way,
mostly with the neon paints.
For example, my magazine adverts main picture is the girl with patterned neon
paints all over her face, the digipak features two images which have neon paint
on and my music video has a lot of scenes with neon paint too.
My dancer is in my music video and on my digipak, this is to keep the synergy
throughout all the products I have created so my audience can clearly see the
connection between them all and have them seem much more professional.

18. Ancillary Product- Magazine advert

19. Ancillary Product- Digipak

20. Overview
Overall, my music video conforms to a lot of Andrew Goodwin’s theories of a
music video, for example having a relationship between the lyrics and visuals and
a relationship between the music and the visuals.