The document summarizes a student media project creating a music video for the dubstep remix of Professor Green's song "Jungle". Key points: 1) The music video challenges conventions of dubstep videos by including a narrative storyline, while also using some genre conventions like visual effects. 2) The digipack and ancillary materials complement the music video by continuing its themes of a dark, urban atmosphere in Soho through use of similar colors, locations, and props depicted in the video. 3) The combination of the music video and ancillary texts is effective as they maintain a consistent brand and mood through visual continuity between the products.

1. 1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge the
forms and conventions of real media products?
Our music video was based on the artist Professor Green with his song “Jungle”.
His genre is R n B and Rap and now is one of the biggest artists in Britain.
However we have gone for the dub-step version of his song so that it would not
be the same and because it is more unique. Dub-step is not a very reputable
style of music as there were no real music videos conventions that we had to
follow according to its genre. This allowed us to be very creative and have a lot
of ideas of our mise-en-scene that are not common, for example, the heavy use
of visual effects such as fade to black and dissolve. Dub-step has roots from
London’s underground urban Dance and Soho; therefore we felt the need to
express this in our music video. We had a large emphasis on both the urban and
Soho settings of Trafalgar Square.
Our narrative structure tracks the established codes and conventions of music
videos by cutting between a narrative storyline that is related to the lyrics of the
song and shots of a performer lip-syncing the lyrics of the song.
Our research on dub-step videos
was fairly limited as we could only
find two. However we analysed the
two videos and both of them were
quiet similar in the sense of effects
and that it wasn’t linear. Of the two
dub-step videos none of them had a
storyline to it. They had flashing
lights and people’s faces popping up
singing the lyrics. Our video has
challenged these codes and conventions and has gone for a different approach
as there is a storyline to ours. From our research dub-step videos are all over
the place and they do not make too much sense. We decided that we wanted to
make the audience understand what was going on with our music video
otherwise they would instantly loose interest in it. On the other hand we have
developed some of the genre’s codes and conventions for example the use of
effects such as fade to black, split screens and making a part of the scene black
and white. We utilised these effects to make the music video more of a dub-step
video.
During our initial ideas as a group we decided that we did not like the approach
of dub-step so in order for us to make our music video as interesting as possible,
we thought we were going to challenge a lot of its codes and conventions. For
example dub-step music videos there are not a lot of vocals in it, mostly just the
rhythm.
When researching dub-stepvideos we found out that they were very fast passed
and the editing was very quick and sharp. We used that code and convention in

2. some part of our music video for example in the beginning of the scene as the
main character is getting ready to go out. We made sure that the shots were
short and concise and the editing was sharp so that the audience would know
what’s going on within the sequence without getting bored. The narrative
sections were comprised with straight
forward styles of shots including
medium shots, long shots close-ups and
also establishing shots. We had to make
some of the shots a bit pacey so that it
would match the song.Following up to
we used many close up shots of the
artist which is emerging to be a big
request from record labels in recent
years. It is used to enforce the concept
of the female gaze.The use of camerawork in our music video follows
conventional, technical and symbolic codes by using a selection of shots to
portray a sense of personal connection between the viewer and the main
character. One way this was accomplished was by using close ups of their faces
and objects of which they were holding to construct a sense of virtual intimacy
that the viewer cannot ever really experience.The shot were the main character
is about to sniff the cocaine is one example of this.We thought it wold be a good
idea to have a main vocalist in our so that the audience could understand what
kind of role he is. The style of presentation was established from film noirs,
which was used to make the audience alert of the character’s cynical personality
when he is under the influence of cocaine.
We created a kind of contrast of how London is, for example on one side we see
the street lights of London at night which shows an encouraging lifestyle. On the
other hand we filmed strip clubs and dark alleyways which may seem like a less
desirable place, contrasting the different place and behaviours of London.
2. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary
texts?
For the digipack initially the group thought that it would be best to take a freeze
frame from our music video however when we did this the quality of the picture
was very bad so we thought that we should take a photographed picture that
would relate to the conventions of the music video.
The combination of our main product and ancillary
texts flows together and are very well linked as
they managed to adopt the key elements of
branding. This wasfirstly achieved in our video as
we tried to differentiate ourselves from
whatalready existed in the current trend of music
http://www.youtube.com/watch
?v=FHp2KgyQUFk&ob=av2e

3. videos. We noticed that many of the big acts like Beyonce and Rihanna have
music videos that use verysurreal and creative ideas in terms of mise-en-scene,
but no artist/music videohas really explored in visual effects (other than the use
of CGI). Therefore inour music video, we found it important to focus on keeping
a consistent moodof obscurity in the stage of editing, rather than the stage of
filming, which wasachieved by overlaying and modifying colours of clips.
By having adopted the key elements of branding, we were able to
developcharacteristics from the video into the digipak. For example, our concept
of Soho was followed by the use of colours of black and green as it is a colour
thatconnotatesa grim and dark atmosphere. The use of this was also so there is
acontinuation of the mood from what the video gives, to what the digipak
givesbecause both products should complement each other. They should
becomplimenting each other because if the viewer were to buy the digipak
after watching the video, they would be expecting to see the digipak cover
withmise-en-scene that was associated with the music video, whether it be
theuse of colours, location, props etc.
The song that we chose to for our music video
was “Jungle” by Professor Green but it was the
dub-step remix. We looked at the official video
and thought that we should use some of the
codes and conventions of the official video and
apply it and make it slightly different to make
our video more unique. We thought straight away that we had to use props such
as hoodies, gangs, knives etc. throughout the product. Our digipack consists of a
dark background with a hint of street lights to give it a very shady Soho
atmosphere. We made sure to make sure that the colours and the themes were
very similar so that it would flow together however we had to differentiate
certain aspects so that the audience could recognise that each product was
different.
We were not really heavily influenced by any adverts or magazines when we had
to make our digipak however we were influenced by the original video of
“Jungle”. We took the aspects from a scene were we see a gang group with hats
and hoodies. At that point the group came to a conclusion that it would be
suitable if we had the main character of our music video with a black hood on.
We also thought because the theme of the music video
was based on Soho we had to make the background
dark. We also decided that because the singer of our
video was playing pool we should add a pool table with
a black ball and also a sign saying Soho so that the
audience could get a vague idea of what could happen in the music video
without having to watch it.

4. In regard to our digi-pack we created a digi-pack front cover and a back cover
for the song “Jungle”. We also made a cover for a magazine and an inside
sleeve.Our digipak follows several established forms and conventions, for
example,an image of the artist, the name of the artist, the name of the song and
atrack-listing.
We also followed the forms and conventions of digipaks by not usingheavy visual
effects on the image of the artist which you would get in a normal dubstep music
video. It is more common that theimage may be modified in colouration, and we
have gone for that kind of image. However we have challenges some of the
conventions of some digipaks as most of them use bright colours to grab the
viewer’s attention. We have gone for a different approach and went for a dark
background and also dark colours to show the viewers that our music video has
a dark and gloomy atmosphere.
We put the main characters image on the front cover of the digipak so that
viewers will be able to familiarize themselves more with the character and feel
more connected with him.
We are very happy with the final product of our ancillary texts that is shown
above (figure 1, 2, 3, 4). We thought that the colours that we chose were very
well thought out and the background flows very well. From the feedback we got
from the audience, we feel that we did a very good job and it looks very
professional.
From observing figure one we wanted to make the magazine cover as simple as
possible however as efficient as possible. In my opinion I think we have achieved
this very well as the colours and the style of font works very well. The layout
where you can see the main character in a hood on the right hand side of the
page and then a hint of light on the left hand side to give contrast between light
and dark was very much planned out and has worked very well. The images
have been very well edited of the main character. We have sort of challenged

5. the conventions as normally you would see the singer on the front cover
however we have gone for a different approach.
Looking at Figure 3 the background was carefully planned out and it had to flow
with the figure 2. The background of figure 2 and 3 are very similar except there
is a tree on the left hand side. The feedback we got was very positive with figure
3 as the colour chosen was good as it allows continuation from the front cover to
the spine.
In figure 4 we have taken a shot of china town near Trafalgar square were we
film and used it for the inside sleeve. The background corresponds with the
other ancillary texts which are very good and the choices of colours are very
similar too.In conclusion our digi-pack has been very effective as it does reflect
what happens within the music video. It also reflects what might happen in the
music video without having to watch it.
3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?
Our music video was aimed at audiences from age 15-25 of all genders and all
different types of ethnicity because it was this age group that can see
themselves relate to our video more. This age group was chosen because it
appealed to the group the most and Dubstep is fairly new genre and has only
recently been receiving mainstream realisation. The younger audience are more
likely to keep up to date with newer artists and music genres.
The majority of people that I showed the
video to responded and thought that the
video was very good. They thought it
was very well edited and the music
video flowed very well. Location was a
very big part of our music video as it
would define the whole film and we got
feedback from all apart from one, that
our choice of location was very well thought of. The only criticism we had about
our choice of location was when the main character was playing pool, he thought
that the location could have been a lot better as the location looked like a garage
and was covered in boxes.
The majority of the people that we got our feedback from were mainly into R n B
and Hip-Hop and were into a narrative instead of a performance which gave us a
bit of a shock. We noticed that R n B and Hip-Hop music are genres that focs
more on storyline instead of performance for example comparing a music video
of “The Game” and the rock band “Linking Park”

6. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2K0q74jtV8s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVTXPUF4Oz4&feature=relmfu
Many of the audience that observed the music video were not into dub-step
however they all commented that the music really suited the video and they
actually liked the choice of dub-step song that we chose. The majority of target
audience said it was very catchy and entertaining. After witnessing our music
video most of the observers said that they were going to listen to dubs-step
more and wanted us to make more music videos.
Most of the audience thought that we used too much fade to black effects; they
advised us that we should have just let the video flow a bit more or used
another effect. I told them that we tried to put in different effects into it but the
music video was not as efficient and effective as it is now. Having said that, they
came up with the conclusion to remove one or two fade to black effects from
certain scenes just to see how it looked. The respondents also commented on
our camera work and said that the hand-held shots were done very well as they
were steady. A few commented saying that there was one hand-held shot that
was very shaky, which was when we filmed a Chinese shop that had bright lights
on it. They believed it would have been better if we used zoom in that shot.
I presented the digipack and the magazine cover to the audience for them to
hare their opinions on it. They all said that they were very good as each of them
flows together and they can see how it suits the music video. They really
admired the choice of colours used and the type of images and fonts used also.
Not one of them said that they would change anything from it. This proposes
that we put a lot of thought into the layout, the images, the font and also the
colours we wanted to put on it. They all said that it fits the codes and
conventions of our music video.

7. 4. How did you use the media technologies in the construction and
research, planning and evaluation stages?
I used different and multiple types of
technologies during the process of
constructing research, planning and
evaluation. The use of the technologies I
used during these stages helped me to
develop my skills even further as I had to
get used to some of them.
During the research, I used the internet
to help me gain knowledge of codes and
conventions of different music genres and to research different kinds of dub-step
music. Youtube was one of the most popular websites that I used for my
research. It helped us with our textual analysis. We selected the video we were
going to analyse on YouTube because of its wide range of music videos.It
allowed me to look at several dub-step bands and this influenced my music
video as I could observe and take out similar bands even though there were
hardly any dub-step bands. I used Wikipedia and Google as my main search
engine as we did a lot of research on the artist Professor Green since we based
the the music video with a remix dub-step version of his song “Jungle”. This was
very useful to use as we has to do a subject matter. This required us to find
background information about the artist and this improved our knowledge about
the kind of songs and genre he was at. Google also provided us with images and
videos to what we searched, not just web links.We used blogger to post all our
work of research that we did which was very simple to do.
We used Final Cut pro on Mac computers to
edit our music video. This was my first time
using Final Cut Pro as I was used to use
Adobe Premier. However it did not take me
very long to get used to Final Cut Pro as I
found it very easy to use. I feel that Final
Cut Pro is much more efficient than Adobe
Premier as it is much easier to use efficient
effects and keeping the video is sync with
the music was also very simple. We used effects such as split screens and fade
to black. Photo shop CS4and also Adobe
Photoshop Element 10 were another use of
technology of computers that we used to
construct our magazine and digi-pack.
Each member of our group chose which
part of the digi-pack they wanted to do and
we each tried to make it so that each of it
flows together e.g. same or similar use of

8. colours and font.
To film our music video we used a cannonLegriaHF R36digital camera. The
camera was very good quality however the camera man did find it a bit difficult
to begin with however he did get the hang of it. Everybody in the group got a
chance to record so that we could all become familiar with it. We used a tripod
for some parts of the film so that we could get steady shots. The most vital part
of our production was the lighting. We had to
adjust the lighting of the camera because we were
filming at night. I learnt from using this camera
that lighting was one of the main things we had to
adjust before using it otherwise when editing the
video we would not be able to see much.