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

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

2. The Stone Roses- Waterfall
It was my task to create a promotional package for a song of my
choice and after thinking about what song I wanted to do for a
while I decided on Waterfall by The Stone Roses. I did this
because when briefly analysing the lyrics I was intrigued by
the messages and values within the song. Straight away, I
thought of my final shot, the burning of the Union Jack. This
was because it was the strongest way I could possibly get the
message across to my audience; if they did not understand
throughout the video they would certainly get it at the end. In
this question, I will analyse my media products on how
effective the use of challenging, developing and using
conventions are. Additionally, I will use comments from my
audience feedback and show how they sometimes had the
same ideas as me and at other times didn’t. Originally, I had
planned to create a performance based video. However, after
researching into the genre’s conventions, I found that
alternate rock/madchester music videos tend to use a mixture
of performance, abstract and narrative techniques; which
influenced my decision to do the same.

3. Lyric Analysis
When analysing the lyrics I found that the message behind
the song is that the beauty of Britain is slowly
disappearing through modernisation and that Britain is
‘baby America’ (far less superior). The lyric in the song
“she’ll carry on through it all, she’s a waterfall” is not
about a girl at all, but in fact a reference to people in
general; suggesting that even though Britain’s beauty is
fading, the public will just take it in their stride and not
do anything about it. Furthermore, one lyric in the song
implies this more than the rest, which is “see the steeple
pine, the hills as old as time. Soon to be put to the test, to
be whipped by the winds of the west.” This west is
referring to the USA and how Britain is ’under the
thumb’.

4. Cinematography
Cinematography techniques are a convention of music
videos in general, rather than genre specific conventions.
The main convention I have stuck to in my music video is
the use of a close up during lip sycning, as you can see
below my product compared to Meghon Trainor’s ‘Lips
Are Movin’. This convention was extremely important to
my video in particular because it shows the importance
of the song’s lyrics; which further helps the audience
understand the message the song is trying to portray.
Meghan Trainor- Lips are movin My music video

5. Mise En Scene
The mise en scene in my product was mostly conventional to my chosen genre; however there were a few
things that challenged conventions successfully and effectively.
The Stone Roses’ guitarist, John Squire, is an influential artist who has taken inspiration from the famous
abstract expressionist painter, Jackson Pollock. Pollock was famous for his paint dripping technique,
exactly the same as Squire, and therefore the band use the paintings on their album covers, instruments
and even clothing. Due to this, I decided I would like to include the iconographic imagery in my music
video, which I did. On the shot where the actor is dancing in front of the paint splattered wall, and when
the actor is biting down on lemons the Pollock's’ ‘One number 31’ painting in the background.
Furthermore, the lemons are also iconographic of the band, which is because Ian Brown, the lead singer,
met a French man who was a part of the 1968 student uprisings in Paris. The man told Ian that to
withstand the effects of tear gas being thrown at them; they had to bite down on lemons. This story
clearly influenced the band as they made lemons a visual motif for themselves; therefore I wanted to
include the story in my video. There is also a Stone Roses poster with a lemon on in the background of
one of my shots.
To add to the element of continuity, I reinforced images of the band and some of their posters throughout my
video. This was not a convention I found when researching, however I felt like it was a necessary
requirement for me to include in my music video.
The location of my video was important and conventional; this is because it shows not only what the band
stands for, but how Britain is fading through modernisation. For example, most of the video is filmed in
an urban environment, which represents what Britain is becoming, but some of it filmed in a rural
environment (field), which represents what Britain used to be. The urban location shows what the band
stands for as they were brought up in a working class family in an urban environment, and are anti
establishment. Furthermore, one of the locations in my video was a studio, which is where a band will
spend most of their time so I thought it would be a good idea to film elements of performance in a place
where it happens in reality to further add to the realism of my product.
Costume was another factor I had to control when creating my music video. Conventionally, I dressed my
actor and actress up how a band member of the genre would dress. For example polo shirts, leather
jacket, parker jacket, blue jeans. I believed it was important to follow this convention in order to add to
the element of realism in the video.
One way in which I challenged conventions is the way I included a cut take of my actor taking the camera off
me and filming me. Personally, I have never seen it done in a music video before and was unsure as to
whether to include it over doubts about it being effective. However, after adding it and getting opinions
from many fellow peers, they all told me that it was an effective way of challenging conventions.

6. Editing

7. Split Screen
I followed certain editing
elements from the
original music video,
which shows that my
product uses conventions
from real media products.
In particular, my music
video pursues the
conventions of
psychedelic music videos.
I decided on this as I
knew that it had
previously been
successful, therefore it
would be a success on my
product also.

8. Editing on beat and Lip syncing
I ensured that my video involved editing to the beat of the
song, this is important within music videos to add to the
level of continuity as it contributes to the video looking
in time. I did this successfully as it was something
pointed out on my audience feedback. As was lip
syncing, this is also a convention that I followed. When
in time lip syncing looks really good and was a
convention I needed to include in my video as I really
like performance elements in music videos. It was
suggested in my audience feedback that I didn’t include
enough lip sync in their opinion. This was constructive
criticism I decided to politely ignore; as I believe that if I
added anymore it would have overruled the messages in
the video, which I view as a more important aspect of my
product.

9. Colour/Black and White
My product challenges
conventions of real media
products in a number of
interesting ways. For example, I
have a balance between black
and white and colour, this is
unconventional as in real music
videos it is usually one or the
other. I feel this was an
important factor in getting the
songs message across to the
audience; this is because the
colour represents the beauty,
whereas the black and white is
modernisation taking over. It
was crucial that a balance was
achieved in order to show that it
isn’t too late for the beauty to be
restored.

10. Ancillary Texts and Inspiration

11. Poster
On the advertisement poster for my ancillary
text I challenged, used and developed
conventions of real media products. In
order to use conventions, I made the image
on the poster partly colour and the rest
black and white; this is done in real media
products as you can see to the right.
Furthermore, I developed this convention
by making the effect add to the message my
product puts across. This was done as only
the artist and the post box are in colour;
representing Britain’s ideology, which are
centred. However, the black and white
surrounding the two is representing
modernisation; which is closing in and
trapping the ideology. Additionally, this
effect is also used as it gives a clear
indication to the audience as to what the
main importance within the product is.
I challenged conventions of the poster by
leaving out certain aspects which you would
usually see; such as a track list, barcode, QR
code and the label logo. I chose to challenge
this convention as I ultimately did not feel
that the aspects I left were important in
what my product is trying to achieve; which
is portraying the message of the song as
strongly as possible.

12. Inspiration (poster)
When creating my poster it was difficult
to find inspiration at first. However to
do so, I researched bands of the same
genre and used the layout which I
liked the most. Which in the case of
my poster was a product from the
Arctic Monkeys. I found the simplicity
of their product extremely effective
and was determined for it to have
same effect on my product; which I
personally feel that it did. On the
other hand, I could not put my entire
product in black and white, like what
they have done, purely because the
message of the song would not be
portrayed in the way in which I
wanted it to be.

13. Inspiration (digipak)
The inspiration for my digipak was from
two bands named Arctic Monkeys and
The Libertines. The Libertines
fragmented Union Jack was the perfect
opportunity for me to take influence from
and use it to portray the correct message
from the effectively. In order to do this, I
stripped the flag of it’s ideology (colours)
to force it into looking powerless.
The Arctic Monkey’s cigarette CD was
something I took influence from just
because it looked good. However, I
replaced the cigarettes (meaningless) and
replaced them with guitar plectrums.
This is because The Stone Roses, who
sang the song I created my product for,
were a very anti-establishment and
always made it noticeable that the music
was far more important than the money;
therefore I used the guitar plectrums as a
way to show this.