Q1

1. Q1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of
real media products?

2. Title
One thing that a lot of music videos do to begin their videos is have
the title of the song. This is the first thing that people see so it
needs to set a good example of the artist. What I noticed a lot of
them had was minimalistic title cards that add a cool and sleek feel
to the video from the outset. This will make people have a positive
initial impression of the artist and will set the genre to be a more
alternative one because it’s not excessive. I decided to use a glow
behind my title, similar to Skepta’s ‘No Security’ video, which would
make it look like a street sign and attract people who are attracted
to a more urban subculture which corresponds with the theme of
my video and my digipak and poster. The use of the underscore
between the words corresponds with the use of that in the poster
and digipak creating a link so that people will be able to recognise
the album if they’ve only seen the video. This also has
connotations of computers and technology so would indicate to the
audience that the music is electronic.

3. Performance
I wanted to make sure that my music video was definitely a video
that accompanied and complimented the music and would be out
of place without the music. I researched what other music videos
featured and I saw that either instruments or singing was used in
the video to compliment the performance of the video. Since my
song is instrumental, I decided to a performance of the bass in the
video. I thought that this worked really well at accompanying the
music because it clearly isolated one of the instruments and
focused you on the performance of the song. This progressed it as
a music video rather than merely a video with music that is
unrelated to the song making it more engaging and a video with
more of a purpose of focusing on the artist as well as the narrative.
I decided to not crop the shots with the bass and make them black
and white to make sure that they had a difference to narrative
shots. I used the conventions of music videos in this case by
having a performance of the song in the video.

4. Narrative
One of the conventions of music videos is to have an element of
narrative running throughout the video. I decided to have this too to
make a video that people will be engaged with and want to watch more
because of characters that they care about. My video is about the
music of the video being like a drug in the world of the video. The
protagonist is sad which is shown throughout by the use of him being
black and white. He thinks that the drug will make him happy but when
he has it he sees the world as being sad. The use of the music being a
narrative point is a familiar one that has been used before such as in
Fatboy Slim’s video for ‘Ya mama’ where the music has an effect on the
world that the video is set in. I think this works well because it adds
intrigue of the surreal world as well as promoting the artist. Lots of
videos side for either narrative or performance and rarely feature a
mixture of both so I decided to break that convention to allow me to tell
a story as well as showing the performance to promote the artist.
Radiohead’s video for ‘Just’ had a similar combination of performance
with narrative.

5. Scribble Effect
A common trend that features in lots of modern music videos is
what’s known as the ‘scribble effect’ where there are scribbles
features on the frames of the video. This features in the videos for
‘Angels’ by Chance The Rapper and ‘Where are U now’ by Jack U. I
like that this effect shows the music visually and creates a graphic
pleasure for the audience so I decided to use it. I thought that this
would be a perfect way to show the ‘effects’ of the music in the video.
I did this by using the paint tool on after effects and drawing over it
frame-by-frame. I also used it on the shots of the instrument to make
it seem more interesting and make people engage with the music
more. I feel that I developed on the convention of scribbles by using
it excessively as a narrative point of the video. Usually it is just used
for the odd second to highlight something but I decided to use it for
people’s whole faces as a way of conveying the music and assisting
the narrative. I felt that this was a good convention to follow to create
a more interesting and enjoyable video for the audience therefore
promoting the artist.

6. Aspect Ratio
I looked at lots of music videos and realised that something
simple that a lot them did to make it look better is change the
aspect ratio to make it more visually pleasing. I feel that this was
used well in the music video to ‘Love$ick’ by Mura Masa. This
made it have a more cinematic look and made it seem more
polished and professional. I decided to test out doing the same
and I saw an immediate improvement. The footage looked more
professional and clean therefore making people think it looks
better and have a better thought of the artist. I looked at the
ways that a lot of music videos do and I saw that a lot of them cut
off the sides like in ‘What If I Go?’ by Mura Masa and ‘Swang’ by
Rae Sremmurd. This gives a more vintage feel but I decided to
go for cutting off the top and bottom to make it reminiscent of
movies and cinema and reinforce the idea of the narrative being
important.

7. Manipulation of Images
I decided to cut out the protagonist and put him in black and
white. Something that I’ve noticed is that some videos edit
and manipulate images to add a more surreal feeling to
them. This is very prominent in Tame Impala videos such as
their video for ‘Mind Mischief’ to show his imagination whilst
with the woman in the video. It is a good way of showing a
concept in a video where there is no speech. I decided to
cut out my character in black and white to portray that he is
sad in a happy world. I think that this makes a more
interesting video to watch because it’s different to real life. I
think that it also useful as a storytelling device because it
explains the character without any dialogue and the black
and white connotes sadness and darkness to the audience.
This follows the conventions of many music videos to use
effects making a more surreal and interesting viewing
experience promoting the artist as being creative and
captivating.

8. Editing to the Music
To make sure that the video complimented the music I made
an effort to make sure that all cuts were to the beats in the
music. This made sure that the end product was a music
video rather than a video with music. This is common in lots
of music videos such as ‘Star Guitar’ by The Chemical
Brothers and ‘Are You Trending?’ by Vessels. It is used to
make the video a piece of the music where it would look
strange with different music. This makes the video far more
engaging and enjoyable. This will make sure that the
audience aren’t distracted by the video so much that they
don’t focus on the music which will promote the song more
widely and hopefully allow it to sell more. It also makes a
more satisfying experience seeing the video cutting to the
music making people have a more positive view of the video.

9. Subtitles
In order to portray the narrative more easily I decided to
use subtitles for the speech in it. I’ve seen it in Fatboy
Slim’s ‘Don’t Let The Man Get You Down’ and ‘Just’ by
Radiohead but not in many other music videos. It is
something that isn’t used very often in music videos
however I broke this convention because I felt that my
narrative needed a little more explaining just incase
people didn’t fully understand it. I felt it was necessary to
make sure that the story was being told to them in a clear
way so that everyone could follow it. I thought that it was
quite a good opportunity to be able to have an extra layer
of story in something that’s usually restricted by its lack of
diegetic sound.

10. Magazine Poster
For my digipak I clearly stated who the artist was and the album
title which allows people to find the album from the advert. I
found that most posters I had researched had the artist in a large
font to draw the eye to whom the album is by so fans will
recognise it and potential customers will learn it and be more
inclined to look it up. I also found that many of the posters I had
looked at said something about the album being out to display the
purpose of the poster. I therefore have ‘OUT NOW’ in capitals
and a large font to tell people the purpose and displaying the
information of where they can get it. I broke the convention of
having the album cover on the poster which a lot of posters have
by having the characters on the poster. This image is an obvious
link to the album cover meaning people will recognise the album
but I felt a progression of the cover would create a more satisfying
and interesting universe surrounding the artist which would be
better for the fans. The use of the sales details on the bottom is
usually used and it shows the reader how they can buy the album
and where it is available from so there is more ease in buying it.

11. Digipak
The digipak has the name of the album on the front cover which is
what most albums I researched had. This communicates to the
customer what they looking at and will make sure that it will stand
out and tell people who are looking for the album what they are
looking at. The tracklist is on the back which is seen on almost
every album cover so that people know what they are buying and
that the songs they are like are on there. It also allows people to
skip through to the songs that they like when listening to it on a CD
player. The inside covers have more photos which is usually seen
on a digipak because it is a rewarding experience to see more
about the artist. Digipaks are usually sold as collector's editions of
the album so I wanted to make sure that it wasn’t just plain and that
fans would be happy. For this reason I also added lyrics to make
sure that fans would be satisfied. Usually digipaks have a photo of
the artist in them but I decided to break this convention. Blank
Banshee is a quite secretive artist and usually wears a mask when
he performs so I thought it would be the most appropriate to not
include him in any of the pictures on the digipak.