The document discusses the conventions used and challenged in a music video for the song "20/12" by the band Swarmed. It summarizes how conventions of the genre like promoting the song, using British locations, chiaroscuro lighting, masks as props, and editing to the beat were followed. It challenges some conventions by using a visual montage rather than focused on performance and incorporating diverse colors rather than just dark tones. The document also discusses how conventions were followed in the print productions like placement of image and text on the CD cover and magazine advert to effectively promote the artist within genre norms.

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

2. Conventions of the Medium
During the making and creating of my music video, i was always refering back to the conventions of
the medium, within a music video. For most music videos the aim to promote the song to a new
or well established audience. They are avertising the song through the means of visual display.
So during the filming stage I was always refering back to how I wanted to represent the song through
the visuals and I wanted to make it as attractive as possible.
I confronted the aim of marketing this song by using the visulas and lyrics to portray the story. Heavy
Metal videos normally contain a concept of imagery whether that be through a story or through a
montage of clips. This can be seen as a convention of the genre. My music video has layers of
montage clips which i caarefully chose to shoot in order to try and portray the visual aspect as
clearly as possible.
My music video had to be a production with promotes Swarmed's song as well as possible. The song
being 20/12 has a sense of the world ending so I used the lyrics to help form the visual side of
things. With the song being 3 minutes and 18 seconds long I had to make sure that I follwed the
conventions of music video all of the way through.
Another convention of a music video is to advertise the track in full and not in sections or a reduced
clip, I made sure I stuck to this and used the entire song in order to get the best effect when
promoting it.

3. Locations
The convetions within my music video associated with location are down to british places because the
band are from britain. Though this isnt always the case for Heavy Metal bands, a lot of british
bands do film in britain. This is normally due to cost of the video and locations that are eerie and
disturbing are normally better looking if filmed in the UK.
The band have a typical british screamer and this is portrayed through the british location choices.
Choosing british locations allows the audience to associate themselves with the band and
promotes the track and video more through audience's views. The locations that were chosen,
are typically used in music videos by metal and deathcore bands. This helped when choosing
locations and allowed me to use the lyrics and location to form a strong connection and display
an image that was needed to be told. Metal and deathcore are very satanic genres of music and
the locations of the shots also had to represent the band, genre and the lyrics. I used editing
synchronising to link up the visuals and the music and lyrics.
A forest was used in my music video, which is normally a big thing within the metal community. it also
represents a part of britishness through the greeness throughout the country. Britain has alot of
green areas and including the forest adds to the britshness of the video.

4. Lighting
Throughout my music video, i have used chiaroscuro lighting which shows the contrast
between light and darkness. The split of light on the mask in my music video is a
common feature of metal music videos, with white on dark or vice versa. As you can
see the use of light against dark on my mask and with Asking Alexandria's song “The
Black”.

5. Props
Thoughout my music video i used a number of
different props, with my main prop being the
mask. The inspiration behind the mask was
the film 'The Seventh Seal'. The character
that wears the mask is 'Death', and death
and killing is a common association with
metal music because apparently metal and
anything related to metal is satanic.
Masks are a big part of attire in metal bands too,
with the likes of Slipknot, Buckethead,
Ghost, Gwar, Mushroomhead, Mudvayne
and Celtic Frost all wearing them. This
allows them to create a seperate identity
outside of their personal lives and allows
them to be and feel different from their
normal selves.
I did not try and challenge this convention but
conforming with it made my music video fit
all of the boxes for a generic metal music
video.

6. Performance
Typically a metal or deathcore video would be
dominated by performance. This is
something I wanted to challenge and did so,
I made a visual montage of clips that I went
out and shot mainly by myself but also with
the help of family. There are a few
performers in the video but they aren't
dominating the enitre video. They only
appear in the forest and only do a little bit of
acting.

7. Sound
During the editing stage, I made sure I edited the footage to beat of the music. (Goodwin) I wanted to
have lots of quick and short jump cuts between each clip but also wanted it to join up with the
beat of the music. This, visually looks really good in my opinion. I had always wanted the visulas
to match up since before I even chose a track. This pre-planned idea meant that filming
everything was made that little bit easier because I roughly knew the timescale I needed to stick
to.
Titles
In my music video, I didnt use any titles. This is because it is not very common for metal music
videos to incorporate titles. Hence why I did not try and challenge this convention.

8. Narative Structure
My music viddeo is displayed in the form of a montage. This means that the narative structure is all over the place
because it jumps about, this is because the story is shown in parts and allows the audience to fill in the gaps with
their own imagination and feelings towards the other clips. I wanted to let the audience have their own say for wht
they think might happen in the video and this is why i left gaps. This allows the audience to encode their own story
by decoding the other visuals to crate the story to fill the gaps.
Colours
In my music video, I have used lots of different variations of colour thoughout it. I manipulated alot of the footage and
changed the balance of colour within each shot. I did this to create different effects, and to jazz up the footage
from its boring plain colours. I used lots of bright colours that have different meanings, for example; red which is
for blood and danger, green for nature and passiveness and blue for the sense of family (who are covering
themselves in ink). The bright colours are a challenge to the conventions of a metal music video, this is because
in most metal and deathcore music videos there is a lot of blackness and dark colours to go with the resemblence
of death and when the soul has been passed onto the next stage.

9. Representation
In my music video, I have conformed to the
sexualisation of the female gender through
getting the two female characters to be
dressed in minimal skin coloured clothes
and covering themselves in ink. The skin
coloured clothes are to show the females as
naked. This conforms to the Male Gaze
concept by Mulvey where visual arts are
structured around a male viewer. The
reason I did this was because of a couple of
music videos I watched by Marilyn Manson
called 'No Reflection' and 'Murderers Are
Getting Prettier Every Day'. These two
music videos contain the Male Gaze pretty
much all of the way through.

10. Print Production-Intergration of
Image and Text
In my Print Production I used text and images to
conform with the conventions of most CDs
and Vinyls. The use of image and text in my
digipak, allows me to promote the artist
easier because the target audience could
see what the band are like and could then
they could see if the can associate the
album cover with themselves or not.
The text on my the front cover of my CD is in the
bottom right hand corner of the front panel.
This is so people can see the front panel
clearly without it being jumbled and cluttered
with text. I wanted to keep the text on the
front panel as closely linked as posssible to
the metal genre without it being imposible to
read, hence why i went for this font.
The text on panel 4 is again is one area of the
panel(along the top) for the same reason as
the front panel. I chose red coloured text to
clash with the pink walls in the background.
It is very rare to get a colourful metal album.
A lot of metal CDs and Vinyls use extensive
detail on characters and images but not
always a lot of colours.

11. Magazine Advert
My advert for a magazine also conforms the conventions in relation to most other magazine
adverts, this is through the use of imagery and text. The reason for the advert is to promote
the artist, and I feel that I have done a pretty good job at portryaing what the band are like
through genre characteristics like the font and imagery. My advert has big and stand out text
showing the name of the band (Swarmed) and the name of the song(2012). This to show the
audeince who may see this advert what the main reason for the advert is.

12. Print Productions- Intertextuality
The intertextuality in my CD panels come from
some metal bands like Slipknot, Skull Roses
and Kiss. These bands all use masks on
their front covers of their CDs and this is
what inspired me to use the mask on my
front panel. All of these bands are close to
me and their masks and face paint all hold a
reason. For slipknot their masks show a
piece of them as they are now and shows
people what they are feeling like at the
minute. I put the mask in the bust and on a
tilt because and the minute I feel like going
into hiding and wearing a mask to not be
seen by anyone.