1. Evaluation question one -
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and
conventions of real media products?
The artist myself and Jamie chose ( Mirrored Theory ) mainly produces drum and bass music, along
with dubstep. Considering the song we chose was Drum and Bass, we decided an appropriate course
of action was to look into music videos belonging to the same / similar genre. My knowledge of this
area was relatively broad compared to Jamie’s as its a personal favourite genre of mine, but i’d
never paid a huge amount of attention to specific characteristics and conventions of the genre in the
past. After viewing some appropriate media texts through the use of YouTube and other video
hosting sites, me and Jamie picked up on a good number of new, known conventions as well as the
ones we expected.
Andrew Goodwin suggested these were characteristics of music videos, so we applied them to our
own.
1. Music videos demonstrate genre characteristics – Within out video we used our knowledge of the
genre characteristics to shape our video. These included the use of quick editing, a confusing
narrative / narrative of one being confused, fast paced action coupled with slower sections,
pyrotechnics and action. These would help our target audience identify with the style of video, and be
comfortable with it. ( and hopefully enjoy it )
2. There is a relationship between music and visuals – This was paramount in our video, and shaped
the majority of it, especially the editing. As the song has no lyrics, the relationship was formed with
the timing of cuts to match drum beats, urban style to fit the genre sound and characters that
represented the genre and our audience could relate too. Cuts and visual effects were closely linked
to the audio.
3. There is a relationship between lyrics and visuals – This factor was a hot topic when planning the
video. As the song itself had no lyrics there was no way we could link the visuals and non-existent
lyrics. Me and Jamie had the option to add lyrics but decided not too out of choice. This was to allow
us to create a narrative more open to interpretation and somewhat added to the confusion. We
didn’t want lyrics giving influencing people what was meant to be happening. The lack of lyrics gives
the audience the freedom to form their own opinions of the events within the video.
4. The demands of the record label will include the need for lots of close ups of the artist and the
artist may develop motifs which recur across their work – This was somewhat irrelevant within our
video for a number of reasons. First off we of course didn’t have the pressure of a record label at all!
Second, our video was concept driven, and didn’t need the artist within it to portay the narrative.
Close up shots of our main protagonist ( Nelson ) were used in some cases, but this was more of a
audience relation tool. We did consider a Cameo appearance from the artist within the video, but
decided this would look out of place and touch with our video.
5. There is frequently reference to notion of looking – This played a key role in our video especially.
Our main characters story focuses around his lack of control, and being observed or even stalked by

2. something ( whatever the audience wish to interpret ). The idea that he is also in some kind of dream
state was suggested, and as we know when we dream, we often observe in the third person rather
than first. Nelson also appears to be running for much of the video, and this adds to the sense that he
is being watched, and followed. We did challenge this convention to some degree, placing a Femé
Fatal as our main opposing character to our protagonist. A female character stalking a male character
is often considered unusual, as it is commonly the other way around. I would personally suggest some
of the shots of our Antagonist ( Becky ) did somewhat sexualize her, though not neccisarily
intentionally. The position in which she stand in some of our long shots show her standing in a
seductive way. The video generally has a mixture of voyeuristic shots and suggestions, so it follows
this convention to many degrees.
6. There is often intertextual reference – During our research we took a huge amount of inspiration
from the works of The Prodigy and Pendulum. Our few inter-textual references often nod to certain
videos such as Invaders Must Die by The Prodigy. We referenced this in some costume similarities, the
use of the black and white (desturated) visual elements of the video. Our pyrotechnics were also used
in a similar fashion.
The Music Video:
During the planning stage of our video, we had to make the difficult decision between three types of
video: performance, narrative or concept based videos. Me and Jamie both agreed that performance
based videos ( without being of a real, live and large scale performance ) often became stale quickly,
and the audience can lose interest. However, concept based videos ( especially of the type we had
studied) tended to offer a great selection of accessible conventions, exciting narratives and interest
and anticipation levels were always high. It also allowed for much more fast paced editing suited to
our song choice. We also agreed this would be an enormously challenging but also rewarding, so we
went for it! (and ended up very happy with the decision).
Location:
Picking a location that was accessible, safe and suitable to our
video concept was somewhat of a nightmare. With our original
video concept we could think of nowhere actually suitable at all
off the top of our heads. After much researching, google street
view scouring and questioning residents we eventually stumbled
upon the ideal location for our video – an Abandoned house in
Bintree (Norfolk). This location screamed out to us as appropriate
for our genre conventions, the capacity to be damaged and have
mess made etc if necessary. This house also had strong
similarities to the houses featured in ‘ Invaders must die’ and
‘Propane nightmares’ by The prodigy and Pendulum respectively.
We also used it as an extreme contrast to the flicker between the
run down and modern house shown in our video. (See right
picture)

3. Here is a video me and Jamie made of our initial set visit:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCMEHXLqrQo
The house itself was perfect, but even more helpful still, the surrounding area was perfect. On the
same piece of land was an abandoned and very run down barn, used for our final showdown. On top
of this, across the road was an abandoned town hall that was boarded up in the middle of wasteland
looking area that was overgrown. This meant all our filming could be done in a small area, and
nothing looked out of place liked we’d jumped from one place to another (except where intended).
This location really represented the feelings of our main character, put across the tone for the entire
video and to top it off matched the conventions of our chosen genre. It was a fantastic find.
During this not-so-easy location hunt, me and Jamie learnt a lot
about how much a music video relies on its location to carry the
narrative, tone and overall effect of your video. It really is a make
or break factor of the entire of the video and we believe it really
helped make ours the successful video it was. The location itself
also gave new inspirations for the video itself, and also helped
dictate some of our favourite camera shots such as the window
shot (Right). The adaptability of the location also allowed us to be flexible in our shooting, and we
managed to efficiently capture the majority of our footage in one main shoot!
Camera shots:
From studying numerous other videos of our chosen
genre (drum and bass), me and Jamie both started to
notice quite a few trends with camera shots. Mid / long
shots seemed to be used a fair amount in these videos to
create a sense of isolation, and to give the viewer an
impressions of the area as a whole. Me and Jamie
selected a shot from ’Invaders must die’ to analyse and
compare to our own use of this shot. This video as a
whole particularly gave us a lot of inspiration, as we loved
the whole tone and style to the video. The Invaders shot
(top) shows the protagonist standing motionless in the
sea, which moves around him. I believe this represents his
feeling of being alone and his hopelessness. The sea is the
events happening around him, without his input – he is
simply present. The contrast between the bottom half of
the shot and the skyline shows a clear divide, perhaps a
conflict within himself. We used a similar shot in our video, wherein Nelson was standing still in the
middle of an empty piece of overgrown land. This was then coupled with some jump editing so he
jumps between areas of the field, still motionless. This shows his lack of action on a situation, and
that he is observing events rather than acting on them. His jumped movement from one area to
another shows his conflicting views of the situation, and his ability to only observe it from different

4. angles and viewpoints. This give the audience a chance to see his conflict, and relate with his
indecision. This kind of shot was used in various videos including ‘Crush’ by Pendulum. It
exemplified many of the emotions and conflicts within our character.
Tracking shots also appeared to be a main part of videos such as Invaders must die, and they added
not only to the sense of voyeurism, but also kept the video fast paced and interesting. The narrative
was based around a lot of movement, especially a sense of fleeing. Following the character having
the camera low to the grass really gave a sense he was being stalked. These tracking shots were
often combined with point of view shots to give the view of the follower of Nelson. Not seeing who
was following Nelson during these shots also added to the Mystery and suspense –they were
intended to make the audience question who or what exactly was following him. (Linking to
Goodwin’s theory of Voyeurism).
Our video somewhat surprisingly featured a large majority of static shots. This allowed us to get
some good clear shots of exactly what we wanted , and also this was necessary due to the pace of
our editing. Due to our fast paced style of editing, we managed to avoid the static shots becoming
boring and out of place. If we’d have used shots such as tracking and panning shots too much
between fast cuts they would have become difficult to view and ended in a poor quality result. As
such, we decided to use cuts and effects to give this fast paced feel to the video, rather than the
camera shots themselves.
In the finished product we wanted to include camera sots our audience would be familiar with in the
drum and bass genre, while not feeling like a copy of other such videos. We wanted ours to be as
unique as possibly, while still being relatable to our audience. I feel we achieved this pretty well from
the feedback we got to our video.
Mise en Scene:
Lighting:
Lighting within our video was again something me and Jamie really had to think about. It was
important for setting the mood and tone of the whole video, and lighting each reality / non reality
scene wasn’t easy to do especially with lack of professional equipment. The lighting in Drum and
Bass videos tended to be dark, slightly if not entirely drained of colour, with some areas of high
contrast High colour / no colour). Taking this into account, we used lighting heavily to differentiate
our contrasting locations between extremely light and vivid, and very dark and dull. This represented
his dark and light side. On top of this, many shots use a combination of no colour, with high light.
Me and Jamie intended this to show a blur between Nelsons two conscious states. In one of our
opening scenes Nelson’s surroundings and himself are drained of colour, but light is shining very
brightly above him. This is when he is asleep in his illusionary world (confusing, I know) to show he is
only partially in his dream like state. This was complicated, but the shots ending up looking great,
and hopefully put this feeling across.
Costumes:

5. From our research into Drum and Bass videos, and also influenced by target audience research, we
deducted that most costumes’ consisted of functional yet urban influenced style. We did struggle at
firs to think of appropriate costumes, especially for ‘The friend’ (Jack) who represented Nelsons
reality. We decided the best thing for this costume was to let Jack wear some of his everyday
clothes. This was for two main reasons. Our target audience was in fact people like Jack himself and
as such, they would relate his costume with their own style. The second was that if Jack dressed in
modern ‘believable’ clothing this would allow viewers to identify that Jack was part of the real world.
Nelsons clothing took a large amount of inspiration from the main character of ‘Invaders must die’
and ‘Propane Nightmares’. His clothing was a mixture of practicality (Warm, hooded jacket, jeans)
and urban style (High top shoes, modern clothing). This clothing is also from Nelsons own wardrobe,
so allows the audience to identify with him even more. The hood also gave Nelson a sense of
mystery and protection. We used the protection element of his hood to also portray some finer
elements in the video. For example, when Nelson was running from the house, his hood was pulled
away from his head. This was intended to exemplify him revealing his scared emotions and losing his
protection from his stalker, and fears. This once again allows our audience to relate to how he is
feeling.
Becky’s costume was much harder to decide on. We originally wanted her to look very seductive,
and lustful. However we decided in the end to make her look slightly more rugged, and dangerous.
Her clothing is once again modern, and makes the audience think her ‘believable’ and she might be
considered an unsuspecting villain. This is a similar idea to the in the video ‘Crush’ by pendulum. The
female character is seen as the source of the main character losing his sanity, and she is mainly
wearing her everyday clothes.
Props:
Props didn’t play a huge role in our music video, as the story was mainly driven by the actions of the
characters in the video. The lack of props also helped give the sense of desolation and wasteland in
the video, reinforcing the dystopian surroundings. The only props we used to follow the
conventions, such as the use of pyrotechnics. Many objects and areas of the house were used for
this to symbolise the house burning (a part of Nelsons mind) and also to show the violent and
dangerous nature of characters and themes within the video. These shots also added a sense of
excitement and keep the audience engaged and interested, and to stop all shots looking the same.
They were useful in timed edits to time fire with the drum beats of the song. The other essential
prop was the knife used by Becky at the end of the video. This knife was wielded by the woman,
which challenges the conventions of videos such as this wherein the male is usually a dangerous
character. This prop was intended to bring a danger element into the video, and raise tensions
within the audience. This added to the excitement and pace of the video. All other props were
found on site. The use of rubble was used to create the run down surroundings of the house and
barn, and the use of the brick Nelson throws at the wall showing his entrapment portays his
desperation to escape.

6. Editing:
Arguably the editing in our video was
the largest contributing factor in shaping
how out video conformed to
conventions of other similar media
products. The editing was fast paced,
and timed with the drum beats. This was
common in many videos of this genre,
such as those from ‘The Prodigy’,
‘Pendulum’ and ‘Gemini’. The editing
took an enormous amount of time
containing hundreds of cuts, video layers and effects. (See above) This was intended to keep
the audience interested, the pace fast and give people who enjoyed the genre what they
were used to seeing in other videos of the same genre. This took a huge amount of time and
effort, and we hoped the audience would recognise this!
Me and Jamie both agreed a main characteristic of editing within Drum and Bass videos was
timing cuts or deliberate actions to key drum beats and prominent sounds used in the song.
We feel we achieved this. We worried to begin with that with such fast cuts the audience
may struggle to see exactly what was happening, but this was actually part of the plan – to
add to the confusing, and to be able to relate to Nelsons madness and confusion.
We also took another editing idea from ‘Invaders must die’ using jump cuts to make it
appear as if Nelson was jumping around a location without actually moving. This is also used
in invaders must die and accompanied by
an appropriate sound. Our version of this
technique was used with timing to a synth.
This effect made the world Nelson was in
seem unrealistic, and so pushed the idea he
was delusional or dreaming. (See right)
We also added some reversed sequences to
show the flow of events within the video,
ending on the original shot of Nelson in the
run down house. This was to suggest the
idea once again that the whole of the
situation was actually just in Nelsons head.
This made the viewer question what was
happening within the video and whether it was real or not.
Using the desaturation filter we made a contrast between the reality and the dream, and
this followed the colour conventions of Drum and Bass videos. Our reality sequences used

7. bright colourful shots, and these were also edited to amplify their significance even more.
The dream sequences were drained of colour almost entirely to contrast the two states
significantly. The editing process proved to be a huge part of forming conventions of all
videos of this genre.
Ancillary Products
Digipak:
Before producing my digipak i studied some from similar artists. The main theme i noticed
was a lack of appearance from the artist on any of them. Instead, a theme from one of their
videos was used for all sides of the digipak. This was often based on one of their concept
based videos, which worked well for my digipak also. The layout of these digipaks was also
fairly simple, featuring one main picture with only a small amount of text on ( either the
artist name, or album / single name ).
Often in other genres the artist is featured in the digipak but with our chosen genre this was
seldom the case. I decided to conform to this convention as it also allowed me to use
original images from our video. I decided to manipulate some of the images on my digipak
to match the feeling and editing of the video – Nelsons blurred face showed his confusion
and conflict. My digipak also featured Mirrored theory’s logo behind where the cd would be
mounted. Often some kind of recognition such as this for either the artist or the album is
displayed (such as the use of an insect for the ‘Invaders must die’ album. I decided to adopt
this feature too, using Mirrored Theory’s own logo.
I kept the colour theme of our video , drained of colour and mainly black and white,
alongside the contrast of Mirrored Theory’s own colours he used for his YouTube video
uploads and album cover. This allowed current fans to recognise it as his own, while giving
my own creative twist to the cover.
I linked my magazine ad to my digipak very closely, and
used the same image as the centrepiece as i did for the
cover of the digipak. This kept a consistent theme
between the two and would also allow fans to link the
two. In magazines such as Kmag i noticed all adverts
had some kind of symbol or theme to relate it with the
album artwork. I kept the logo consistent between the
digipak and magazine ad, to give that same type of
recognition.
The use of faded, worn away text for ‘I dare you’
written on both the digipak and magazine ad was to

8. give them a rugged, urban feeling. This would hopefully connected directly with the target
audience. This was accompanied by some bright eye catching text that contained quotes
from appropriate sources, and also a link to his twitter. These would all be appropriate to
attract the audience we targeted. This was a convention that i found on many other digipaks
and magazine ads.