1. IN WHAT WAYS DOES YOUR MEDIA
PRODUCT USE, DEVELOP OR CHALLENGE
FORMS AND CONVENTIONS OF REAL
MEDIA PRODUCTS?
Danielle Fletcher
2. INTRODUCTION
In order to make a successful music video, it is important to look
at existing videos, how popular they are and perhaps why people
like the video. There may be some music videos out there that a
large portion of people dislike, so it is good to work out what it is
about the video that people dislike, and to make sure you do not
make the same mistake as their producer did.
Once you have chosen the song for the music video you are
going to make, it is significant to look at existing music videos of
that specific artist. Each artist will have their own style of music
video that they prefer. They tend to keep a similar style so it
seems familiar for their audiences. Some artists do like to switch
it up a little, so do a performance video even if a majority of their
videos are narrative based. Even a producer who makes music
videos for a variety of artists, they will still have their own style, for
example, Marla Weinhoff Studio are the producers behind Taylor
Swift’s ‘Blank Space’ music video. She has a recognisable colour
scheme throughout her existing music videos. This is evident
when you view her website and see her existing music videos
side by side to one another.
3. NARRATIVE BASED VIDEO’S
A narrative based music video is focused on telling on telling a story, often based
on the lyrics within the song. It is one of the most common music video’s to date,
hence why choosing this type of video will gather a large audience.
If a song is apart of the soundtrack to a film, it will often involve clips from the
film, however my soundtrack wasn’t, therefore I had no film footage to include in
my music video.
Artists are usually apart of the story which mine unfortunately did not as I don’t
think Taylor Swift would like to fly over to England to be in my video. Therefore I
converted this convention and simply used actors instead.
Narrative based videos are often fast paced, they include lots of shot types and
cuts throughout the ending in order to build up the excitement. Having a music
video filled with arguments, having loads of cuts in my video allowed the
breakdown in their relationship look successful.
These types of music videos only really last 3-4 minutes, so therefore the story
is compressed into this short amount of time which is something I definitely did!
I chose not to do a hybrid as I believe they can be slightly distracting from the
storyline of the narrative. Hybrid music videos such as James Bay’s
‘Best Fake Smile’ contains both narrative and performance, what I dislike about
this type of video is that the performance becomes too distracting to focus on the
narrative, therefore I did not want to do this type of video. Instead, I decided to
have my actress say some of the lines within the narrative. Also I had dancing
shots placed in between some of the narrative, simply to build the tension with
the fast cuts.
4. BREAKDOWN OF RELATIONSHIPS
Something significant in my music video is the
breakdown of the couples relationship, as the music
used in the video suggests that the couple are
constantly arguing and could therefore be breaking
up!
The theme of the breakdown of relationships is
something a lot of people are going to be able to
relate too and is a common theme in recent music
videos. Even younger audiences who may of not
experienced it yet, they will still be able to learn that
the breaking down of relationships is something quite
natural that many people will experience.
5. SEXUALLY EXPLICIT VIDEOS
A music video which appeared very popular in social
media was Miley Cyrus’ ‘Wrecking Ball’ video, purely
because of the sexual explicit content. Everybody was
talking about it. However, the video is a lot more than just
a women swinging naked on a wrecking ball. Her nudity
displays her as being raw, she’s experiencing an
emotional relationship break up which makes the video
emotionally powerful. Seeing a women almost being
emotionally unstable after a relationship break down is
something I believe a lot of people will be able to relate to,
like mentioned in the slide before.
After researching, I learned that a vast majority of my
target audience are actually younger than the age of 18,
so there is no reason as to why I would make a sexuality
explicit video in which would be inappropriate for my
target audience.
6. TAYLOR SWIFT’S PREVIOUS VIDEOS
Having a look at some of Taylor’s existing music
videos, the one with the most views is ‘Blank
Space’. This is one of my favourite videos from her,
but that may be because of the narrative behind
video. Having a good storyline to the video makes
it a lot more interesting, exactly why I did want to
make a narrative based music video! However, she
does like to mix up the style of music video she
does, so it is good to see her changing it up now
and then.
Currently (16/09/15);
Wildest Dreams - 56, 646, 175 views.
Bad Blood - 528, 695, 036 views.
Style - 279, 587, 281 views.
Blank Space - 1, 152, 075, 459 views.
7. EXISTING VIDEOS.
As the breakdown of relationships is
a significant theme I would like to
portray throughout my video, I
intended to look at some existing
videos with the similar theme. I
wanted to look at how some of the
existing music videos portrayed the
couple, the woman, just generally
how they handle their relationship
coming to an end.
The three I looked at in particular are
Taylor Swift’s ‘Black Space’, Miley
Cyrus’ ‘Wrecking Ball’ and Rihanna’s
‘Take a Bow’. On the next slides I will
discuss what conventions have been
included in their music videos and
whether or not I have decided to use
or convert them.
8. EXISTING VIDEOS.
Take a Bow is a relationship breakdown music video which actually has
quite a chilled vibe towards it. The female character seems quite
annoyed, yet she appears to hold all her emotions to herself, which I
don’t think is the reality of how a girl would feel, hence why I converted
this idea.
Miley took a different turn and decided to explore nudity within Wrecking
Ball which is not something which I believed would appeal to my
younger target audience. The nudity displays the character completely
stripped down and raw, it makes everything SO emotional which is
something a majority of girls would be able to relate to. However, the
nudity is not relevant in terms of my music video. Hence why I decided
to go with the insane character, like in Blank Space.
Blank Space displays the female character discovering her lover is
cheating, and she experiences some mental issues from their
relationship ending, I thought an exaggerated insane character would
make the video seem a little more light hearted. Although it does still
cover some more serious issues such as insanity and alcohol abuse.
Taylor does not really explore issues like the alcohol abuse, perhaps
9. ANCILLARY TASKS
I did some research into
what are the main
things that are often
included on existing
Digipak Magazine
Advertisement.
11. ANCILLARY TASKS
After looking at these three
existing advertisements, I
decided that having something
more simplistic design is a
reoccurring theme that a majority
of artists use. I chose to conform
to this idea as I did not think that
it would be beneficial by
overloading the page with a load
of information. Audiences may
not want to read it, they want
short phrases that they are able
to easily process into their mind.
