1. In what ways does your media
product use, develop or
challenge forms and conventions
of real media products?
2. conventions you discovered
when researching music videos?
The codes and conventions of music videos are the
different techniques used to construct meaning in
them.These techniques can be divided into two types;
technical and symbolic.
3. Technical Techniques
Technical Techniques are how meanings are conveyed
using technical equipment e.g the way the way camera
angles are used, different types of shots, sound either
diegetic and non-diegetic sound, the pace and style of
editing, also the genre. in the music video psychosocial
by slipknot there general image is key to there music
video as its monstrous and appeals to there audience.
This is why the focus through out the music video is on
them using a lot of close ups of there masks. They also
use a lot of time editing, there's a lot of slow motion
used which is quite disorientating, with some clips speed
up to create a psychotic feel to the characters in shot
referring back to the title. They also use a lot of overlays
to create a almost ghost effect with inanimate/dead
objects which is connotates there monstrous image.
4. Symbolic techniques
Symbolic techniques are ways of showing meanings
beyond what you can see for example through, facial
expressions, gestures, poses and mis en scene. for
example......in the music video do it like a dude by jessie jj
she often portrays her body language in a way a man
would referring to the title of the song, groping her
crotch and testosterone filled facial expressions.
5. why do we have codes and
conventions in music videos
This is so the audience can become familiar with a particular
genre, as they get use to recognising the different
conventions within that genre it makes it easy to know what
your going to get from generic music videos of this genre. It
also helps to build a structure that the audience can
understand and familiarise with.The conventions are great as
they ensure the lyrics of the song fit in with the video to
relate genre with content.
6. Colours
Shown through almost everything in a music video,
lighting, costumes, hair, makeup, locations, the way the
camera is angled also plays a part in positioning the
colours we see in music videos. Colour’s are used in
everyday things and we generally see the use of
colours throughout music videos displaying normal
things. However colour can also be used to represent
a feeling or mood or to signify a certain thing. For
example some videos can be in black and white
showing no colour’s, this can be a way of showing a
time lapse like flash backs, and suggest something that
happened in the past. It can also be purposely done
to show an emotional scenario and connotate a
emotion in some way black can be related to
anything dark , depressing or even old, another great
colour is red it can connotate love, danger and even a
country like England. Lil B - Black And White is a
great example as the use of colour relates to race
and resembles the honest tone of the song.
7. Notion of looking
Notion of looking elaborates upon stereotypes and labels
that you may associate with a certain artist or group.
These stereotypes are usually taken advantage of in many
music videos in order to appeal to the target audience
,the portrayal of the stereo types are often exaggerated
or further stylised to become clear and attractive to the
audience.A great band for this is N Dubz relative to there
stereo type of singing “chav” Music there dress sense
portrays this too. for example Dappy’s hat became a
iconic fashion figure for his target audience ,which leads
us to star image.
8. Star Image
Dyers Theory
dyer said that The terms "pop performer" and "pop star" have become interchangeable in media
terms they are not the same thing,the distinction be made between those who are simply known
for performing pop music and those who are known for being pop stars, who have an identity or
persona which is not restricted solely to their musicianship. what dyer is saying is that in media
texts based on persona a person can be portrayed simply for there talent for example in a music
video they will just play there instruments and the focuses is on the band entirely however if there
is a pop star element there will be a focusses on a certain aspect of the individual lead vocalist
,seen mainly with solo pop artists in there pop music videos or pop bands like the script focus will
be on danny, with a pop artist there will be a certain aspect of them which makes them different
and more appealing then every one else for example lady gaga and david bowies obscure styles are
portrayed in all there media texts.
9. The Style of music videos
Performance
PerformanceVideo is when the music video consists mainly of the artists
performing in the video.A good example of this is Decade -Its Good To Be
AVampire were the video shows the artist continuously performing the
song basically in a garage and there is no narrative what so ever or any
other scenes in the video.This style of music video isn’t as common, in pop
music as it is for videos played on Scuzz which these are key(rock genre) as
music videos that are solely dedicated to performance are not that popular
in pop music because target audiences would not be able to engage or
relate with the
video, however this example has used lighting to display the performance in
a creative way making it more interesting to watch, which most
performance videos in any genre usually do.
Narrative
A Narrative music video follows a story line which often relates to
the content of the lyrics .There are two types of narrative Linear
and Fragmented, a linear narrative starts a story at the beginning,
goes on through the middle, and ends at the end. giving the story a
easy to follow and clear narrative however a fragmented narrative
is one that doesn't. An example of a linear narrative is bloc party
talons which has a narrative of the lead vocalist literally running
through a building from beginning to the exit which plays the story
from the beginning to the end.
Mixture
which is a combination of performance and narrative this
is usually found in music videos as it is hard to have a
pure performance or narrative, as this can some times
cause some loss of interests depending on genre, by using
both performance and narrative the video can be made
more interesting and enjoyable to watch for the audience
and is a safe bet in appealing to fans of narrative and
performance based music videos an example of this is
courage my love bridges,as they perform in the scene of
the narrative plus act out the narrative.
Cameo
Cameo is were a band or artist features in the narrative but does not
perform . A good example of this is Ed Sheeran-Drunk were The artists
in this case play apart in the narrative with a cat but does not perform.
10. My musicVideo
how have I used them?
In my music video I strongly focus on colour and star image to create a connection with what the lead vocalist is singing using a lot
of close ups on his facial expressions and eye contact with the camera. I chose a performance based music video all in black and
white to create a focus on the use of lighting and editing, which is often seen in my particular genre of punk rock /pop punk which
is played often on the channel Scuzz which constantly plays these music videos.The up beat tempo of the song is definitely
reflected in my music video as I use quick edits of the video, with cropping and zooming. I also used a circle overlay to portray the
major key in contrast with the minimal colour used in the main image to connate the melancholy tone of the lyrics. the circles
based strongly in the middle of the clip emphasis what is inside of the colour (the musicians)also. I have also tried to create a sense
of band synergy in my music video as some band members where band tees of artists they have played which and are in the same
genre to promote that band as well as there's. Using symbolic techniques myself as the vocalist in the music video I portrayed
feelings and what is being said through my body language and facial expressions a particular lyric I did this well in was “shield my
eyes as we undress” covering one of my eyes and looking down in shame, also during the instrumental parts of the music video the
band members show joy and happiness relating to the tone of the song being in a major key. technical codes I used where that i
used a lot of cropping of bad footage to focus in on the important parts of that shot like rhythmic guitar playing.The use of Star
Image and notion of looking in my media product is key as I asked people to perform with similar dress sense to that musical genre,
i got performers all wearing skinny jeans, band t shirts and checkered shirts being generally stereotyped as the attire of fans of this
genre of music.Also I had the lead vocalist have a elaborate hair style which is related to the punk genre and focused on his star
image.After reviewing my original cut of the video I decided that my video looked too much like a direct rip off of bloc party's
“banquet” so I decided to get feedback from the audience after taking off the video they said something was missing its too plain
with out the overlays and said I could improve my video through editing effects so I thought long and hard about what videos I
liked and aha take on my came to mind and combined both of these videos with a Grundge/punk influence to the video.
11. My musicVideo
how I challenged them/developed them?
Its quite hard to say how I challenged the codes and conventions of previous music videos, but I defiantly
developed on a lot of the codes. The way I believe I challenged the codes and conventions of music videos
was not by purpose but was by accident as we had a lot of inconvenience and people dropping the subject in
my group I had to film the whole music video by myself with no support from media students which caused
my footage to be still and did not have much movement with in the technical codes which is not the norm
for a music video as all music videos have some sort of panning tracking and zooming with in there music
videos mine did not which is defiantly not common then I remembered the music video for “Banquet By Bloc
Party” which also did this too with the use of overlays of just the performers being neutral and having no
emotions with some performance but minimal. I decided to take this idea and develop it because I thought
the images had a unique style and turned the idea into a pure performance based music video with lots of
energy and variation in mood and took out the overlays so my video wasn't a direct rip off of bloc part's
original which i then took and combined it with A-has take on me which I made the video look like a note
pad drawing but almost a dirty version when making the levels on contrast to the maximum with also a
strong filter of sharpen to create this effect.
