The music video challenges conventions by using a sad indie-pop song to tell a story about domestic abuse and its impacts. It follows typical music video length and uses only indoor, British locations to represent the lack of freedom and control the main character experiences. Flashbacks and reversing the video add mystery and leave the ending open to interpretation. The album cover is inspired by films like Black Swan that portray psychological impacts, and blends track names with images to be original. The magazine ad follows a popular style to appeal to audiences.

1. QUESTION 1
I N W H A T W A Y S D O E S Y O U R M E D I A P R O D U C T U S E , D E V E L O P O R
C H A L L E N G E F O R M S A N D C O N V E N T I O N S O F R E A L M E D I A
P R O D U C T S ?

2. The Medium
The music video is a form of advertisement, when looking at my
music video I had to be aware of this to assure my video
targeted the specific audience making the video specific to my
audience.
My music video had a strong comment on abuse within relationships,
showing the pressures of life and the pain of this love eventually lead
to the characters suicide, the music fit in with my video due to having
a indie-pop form of music, whilst being sad showing the pain the
protagonist is going through. Due to this comment on domestic
violence the audience can sympathise for the main character and
begin to look into the issues surrounding abuse.
My music video promotes and markets the song Here We Are, but also
promotes the artist due to the comment on a serious issue.
My video follows the usual length of a music video standing in at 3:46,
conforming to the length of many music videos, I felt that this was
important due to the message my video was trying to send and by having
it this length it allowed more of an audience interpretation.
I’m marketing my product in order to promote the music for Michael
Reeve this is effectively an advertisement for Michael Reeve.
I didn’t use the whole of the track as I felt the song began to lose its intensity towards the end,
meaning it may of taken away the emotion which was currently undertaking. Due to this I
thought it was important to cut it off earlier keeping the audiences intention and allowing a
more developed video.

3. Media Language of
Music videos
I’ve followed Goodwin’s theory of the relationship
between music and video “I've no answer, no easy
cure, For the pain that we endure, Help me now,
Don't say what I'm waiting for” my video takes quite
a literal sense to these lyrics, clearly representing
violence that the female character has endured
blatantly showing this. The idea of violence links to
both the lyrics and music video within the song
‘Breezeblocks’ by Alt J. the lyrics are quite literal
saying “hold her down with soggy clothes and
breezeblocks” showing clear relationship to the
video, for me this was very important as the
audience could begin to understand how cynical
the male character is.

4. Music Video - Locations
My music video is one of a British convention, due to this I decided to keep the locations in
typical British locations. For example, the house used was one of a ‘typical’ English household,
this was important as it showed the rawness of the singer. This wasn’t a main focus for my video,
but was still crucial in showing the consistency of my video. This overall stops my video from
swaying from it origin, allowing the location to focus on my target audience.
The song ‘Here We Are’ doesn’t leave an obvious direction for the
location of the video, the video could take many directions,
however I felt that the enclosure of all my shots not having one
outside shot appears to take away the characters freedom showing
how she is trapped with the abusive character, that is why her
walking out the door is such a pivotal moment as it shows potential
for change. not having the shots outside also allows the location to
become an opinionated subject meaning that the true outcome of
the female character can’t be truly identified, adding mystery to the
video.

5. GENRE AND INTERTEXTUALITY
The artist Michael Reeve said his genre was indie pop, following from this we used many similar
conventions to this genre, for example dim lighting keeping the mood similar to one of a typical indie
pop video. This is related to artists such as Vance Joy, often using lyrics speaking of love. I followed
artists such as Jack Garratt mixing beauty with pain, for example the sound of music is wholesome but
the video expresses pain and hardship contrasting nicely between the love and destruction, connoting
with the idea of domestic violence.
I used conventions from the group Alt J who are known as an indie rock group, I followed their idea
of confusion and abuse within the breezeblocks video. Only using shots inside and having an image
of the protagonist leaving, this helps leave confusion throughout the audience and gives them their
own interpretation to what is happening.

6. NARRATIVE STRUCTURE
My narrative structure is linear with flashbacks, I used flashbacks during the
protagonists dancing to show the abusive character, representing how much pain and
destruction he has caused. By doing this the audience could understand that even the
thing that she loves has still been overthrown by the abusive boyfriend heavily due to
the pure pain he has inflicted upon her.
At the end of the video I reversed the whole video to show everything flashing before,
representing this life before death. However by showing her walking out the door at the
end and returning to her face it is possible for the audience to interpret her as living by
doing this it leaves more of an open narrative for the audience watching.

7. REPRESENTATION
My video follows certain stereotypes, for example the male
character appears to be controlling over the female protagonist
and is always within her mind, this makes her appear as more of
a passive character. The reason for this was more for a
statement on the issues of gender dominance and sexism.
Within the video we challenged this hyper sexualised
representation of the female character, we did this by focusing
more on the emotion she was feeling so the female protagonist
wouldn’t be objectified and the audience would be able to see
her as an important character for showing many issues
surrounding media platforms. We tended not to use stereotypical
props for setting as we wanted to the focus to purely be on the
characters, allowing them to be heavily represented in different
ways.

8. SECTION 2
Print Production

9. PANEL 1
My panel 1 was heavily inspired from the advertisement for the film ‘Black Swan’, the idea of the cracks on
the face represents her as being torn apart due to the way she is being treated by the male character.
Because both poses similar story’s, I thought that although they have different reasons for having an edit
like this, each have reasons for doing it.
David Bowies album cover also inspired this, this was due to the quite simple look to it, by doing this due to
his facial expression we almost get an understanding of what type of music will be within the album. By
doing this it is easier to target the specific audience I was aiming for, not misleading the type of music that
the album would posses, also sticking to the indie genre that are in the songs.
Albums such as Kiss’s ‘Crazy Nights’ also have similarities to my album cover following this cracked theme I
was going for, showing a distorted image and broken look. This was another inspiration for my album
however, I believed that specific cover didn’t comply with the genre I was representing meaning I didn’t
follow it completely.

10. PANEL 2 + 3
This panel is very clean ,
showing the male character
watching over the protagonist.
By doing this it makes the
target audience feel scared
for the protagonist, enticing
people to listen as it gives
them the opportunity to find
out what this image means.
I decided to have one image for both
panels, by doing this it keeps
consistency within the image
assuring that the image doesn’t look
distorted. I challenged the often used
convention of lyrics,
company credentials or artist
details. By doing this I felt it
would add mystery to the
album, and its simplicity
catches the audiences eyes,
due to the contrast of colours
within the image

11. PANEL 4
My panel 4 has similarities to my front panel both being black and white, again keeping
regularity assuring that the panels fit one and other. I decided to blend the track
names on her face meaning the image wasn’t overthrown by the song names
contrasting them nicely, I believe in doing this I challenged the look of most album
back covers, showing originality within my panel 4. By doing this I believe it
conforms to the indie pop genre, meaning the image is nicely blended. This image
contrasts the front image nicely, taking more of a developed view as opposed to the
clean look of the front panel keeping the album’s look interesting.
I originally planned to follow David Bowies album
back cover, however although I followed the black
and white image, I felt that blending the lyrics and
the image together would give the album more
versatility, not complying to the stereotypical
album look.

12. MAGAZINE ADVERT
My magazine advert followed the look of Taylor Swifts opening image in her video
“style”. This image shows the male character overlooking the protagonist, making
the audience question who the character is and what is going to happen. Due to the
‘pop’ cultural look of the image it conforms to todays modern contemporary
magazine adverts. Using a shot of each of the performers makes them overall more
recognisable and allows audience members to gain a connection with the female
character.