The media product challenges conventions of real music videos in several ways. It portrays a darker storyline of bullying rather than resolving conflicts. It uses intertextual references by recreating famous movie scenes to show the protagonist escaping through films. Performance clips advance the narrative rather than just exhibiting the artist. Editing matches the beat but varies in pace across the video to set different moods. The color grading and letterbox format aim to give the video a cinematic feel.

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

2. Narrative & Characterization
Our main influence for our music video was Eminem ft. Lil Wayne – No Love. This music
video also portrays a young student battling with the issue of being bullied, however the age
of our victim was a lot older in comparison. They share similarities where they are both
bullied publicly at school and aren’t seen to have any relations with any other students at the
school. In attempts to subvert parts of the “No Love” music video, we decided to modernise
what the victim was fighting back for, in the “No Love” video, the protagonist is fighting back
for his cap whereas we had our victim lose his camera and laptop, showing a distinct
contrast in the two protagonists upbringing. As well as this, we also subverted a “happy
ending” which is seen in Eminem’s music video where the victim fights back against his own
bullies and defeats them. The stark opposite occurs in my edit specifically where the piece
ends on a shot of our victim sat in dismay at the school gates, dreading yet another day of
his torment. The shot is also on a canted angle, connoting that his world has permanently
been “thrown” into turmoil. This decision to challenge the “happy ending” concept was made
in our planning stages due to us feeling like it portrays a much stronger message by not
overcoming this hurdle within his life. Instead of resolving his issues he has in his life, we had
our protagonist escape through the reenactment of famous movie scenes (Taxi Driver &
Rocky). This was reinforced in my edit by having a slide at the beginning of the piece
explaining the definition of “escapism” to help the audience make the link whilst watching the
video. Furthermore, the deeper effects if bullying was exemplified in my edit where on the
words “100 million pounds of shame”, I cut to a shot of the victim laying on his bed seemingly
staring into space, directly following his brutal beating by the bullies. Connoting such levels of
shame within the song lyrics as well as the visual meaning.

3. We also took inspiration from Hoodie Allen’s music video titled;
“Movie” in which he recreates famous movie scenes such as the
famous “here’s Johnny” scene from The Shining. However, the
narrative of this music video is simply just recreating the scenes
with no real purpose, something we evidently challenged
The final shot of my edit Protagonist fighting back
One recreation in “Movie”

4. Performance Clips
Throughout my edit, I intertwined my performance clips alongside the
conceptual clips to create our artist to be a “televised bard”. This is where the
artist also expresses the same feelings and themes that is seen within the
conceptual clips, in this case, emotional trauma and bullying. This then
therefore enhances the storytelling within the video. This is similar within the
“No Love” music video where Eminem and Lil Wayne visually cohere to what is
happening to the protagonist during the conceptual clips. We also developed
on Andrew Goodwin’s theory of a “relationship between lyrics and visual” by
having our artist perform in such locations as a rundown boxing gym where he
performed into a broken and shattered mirror, connoting the lines of “Battle
Scars” being present metaphorically as well as physically. We also made a
decision to challenge such music video theories like “Commercial Exhibitionist”
as well as the “Electronic Shaman”. The commercial exhibitionist is also
extremely prominent in our songs genre (hip/hop) so to stray away from this
theory challenged a strong convention. We decided not to include either of the
two theories due to not wanting to portray our artist as completely unrelative to
the main protagonist, hence why we developed upon the Televised Bard
theory. Furthermore, in the genre of hip hop, the exploitation of the male gaze
theory is also extremely prominent within the genre, however, we again
challenged this as we felt it would not coincide with the rest of the music video.

5. Shot of artist staring into the broken
mirror
Eminem also portraying the Televised
Bard
An example of Commercial
Exhibitionism
Artist performing within the decrepit
boxing gym

6. Editing
Within traditional hip hop music videos, the editing is faced paced to keep
up with the fast paced lyrics and the fast paced lifestyle that is
predominantly portrayed in these videos. Such an example of this is the
music video for “Rich Gang – Lifestyle”. I decided on my edit that I wanted it
to take a slower paced video as a whole yet at certain moments of action,
such as the bullying scene, I wanted the editing to pick up to show brutality
and how the protagonist’s life is thrown around. This is also known as
match on action, where two or more frames show continuity through what is
happening within the scene. I showed this during the bullying scene where
3+ camera angles of the protagonist being bullied were spliced together at
such fast pace that the viewer is still able to understand what's going on, yet
is overwhelmed with the action on screen. I also wanted to match the
editing to the beat as I feel that the beat within the song is the main sound
that people subconsciously listen out for so to match a cut or a transition in
time with the beat seamlessly feels like the visuals are completely in time
with the beat. I also tried matching some editing decisions with lyrics within
the song, for example, when the lyrics mention “100 million pounds of
shame”, on the word shame I cut to the protagonist on his bed who seams
to be ashamed of what’s happened to him.

7. Editing Continued
Within my video, I also colour corrected in numerous different ways
to create different effects during different scenes. Throughout the
video, I wanted to create a cinematic experience for the viewer as if
what they were watching was a 3 minute movie. I managed this by
adding the colour correction effect on Premiere Pro which allowed
me to experiment with the Shadows, Highlights and Mid-tones. I
achieved my film look by lowering all of these only slightly, creating
an almost grey filter on the video, which can also connote the bleak
time that our protagonist is experiencing within the video. As well
as this, I added a “letterbox” effect where the screen is cut off by
black bars at the top and the bottom of the screen. I feel that this
effect instantly creates a film-like vibe to the video. However, I did
not use this formula for all the shots, such as the time-lapse of the
sun rising, I raised the highlights and the shadows on the clip, to
really emphasise the fact that the sun is rising instead of setting. I
also wanted to include the time-lapse as it portrays time passing, a
key idea that then makes sense of the final shot of the protagonist
having to go through another day at school.

8. The bully scene where match on
action is present
The shot used on the lyric “100
million pounds of shame”
A shot with the Shadows, Mid-tones
and highlights turned down
The time-lapse where the shadows
and highlights are turned up

9. Digipak
Within the digipak, we set out to achieve images for each
panel which help connote feelings of despair and pain
through the artist and hint at some of the story progression
with images of the main protagonist. We achieved the
feelings of despair and pain especially by agreeing on a red
and black colour scheme, which signifies these emotions.
The decision to use images from the same locations as the
video itself creates continuity, a form that we wanted to
adhere to so that the viewer would not get confused whilst
viewing the digipak and the video. We took large inspiration
from album covers such as Bryson Tiller’s album artwork for
Trapsoul. This as well used a slightly deeper red colour
scheme with a image of the artist that is more than able to
connote similar themes and feelings as our digipak.

10. The front and one inside
cover of our digipak
Bryson Tiller’s album
artwork for “Trapsoul”

11. Intertextual Reference
Another convention that we ustilised and based the majority
of our video around was intertextual reference. We adhered
to this by recreating movie scenes within our video. By
filming the recreation of the famous scenes from Taxi Driver
and Rocky, we referenced the movies in a manner of
pastiche, a respectful parody, due to it furthering our story
and progressing our character. By cutting between actual
scenes from the movie as well as mimicking shots and
angles from these scenes, I managed to create enough
continuity for the audience to understand what our
protagonist was firstly doing, then which films he is escaping
within.

12. Shots cutting between both actual film scene and our own recreation.
Also using different opacity, I overlaid both
scenes together.