QUESTION 1 - GENRE
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
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Below I have included some ways in which my media ancillary products include forms and conventions used by real media products, I have done this in a comparison format, there is more detailed analysis on the textual analysis pages. some points I would like to add are the fact that i used two fonts similar to the conventions of other posters and digipaks aswell as the size of the text of each product for example the name of the artist being big on the poster.
Another way in which my media product could conform to real media product conventions is by using professional publishing wesbites such as ISSUU to publish my posters, as well as use platforms such as social media to post my products on for promotion for example like the hunna have done to promote their album.
4 - Beat matching visuals: This is where the beat of the music has a direct effect on the visuals for example if the song is a club song, the visuals should match this with quick cuts and the visuals changing on the drop of the bass, This is something we will aim to do but this can be quite hard.
5 - Voyeurism: Voyeurism is used in a few slightly different ways in media texts for example in film, hitchcock famously speaks of voyeurism and how this is how the killer sees his victims whereas in goodwin’s case voyuerism is seen in a slightly different sense, a sexual sense. Using sex appeal of the artist/video to sell it. By using sex appeal to sell the video by portraying usually females in this light (this triggers male gaze spoken about in my research), we see this used on mass in the pop genre music industry, this element of good wins theory is one that I would like to subvert to show that a music video can be successful without this and can be successful by using a important message and using representation of sexuality as an awareness tool rather than a sexualisation tool.
6 - Inertextuality: Intertextuality is the concept that one media text informs or references another, for example a film referenced in a video game. These can be subtle or direct, for example We see this in my preliminary task and wayne’s world. This is something that I would like to continue into my main product, i would like to reference the concepts used in videos such as same love - macklemore and the original video for the song i have chosen girls like girls - hayley kiyoko, giving subtle nods to ideas they have used within their own work.
THEORISTS, CONFORMED? SUBVERTED?
GOODWIN
Goodwin spoke of 6 criteria for a successful music video, below I will speak about if I have conformed or subverted these.
1 - Genre Conventions: I believe within my construction tasks I have conformed to the concept of genre conventions this is evident through my intention to follow genre conventions and also through my audience feedback, which clearly identifies my construction tasks to be part of the indie genre. We used genre conventions throughout our piece and also intertextuality at times to the genres professional works. For example, more abstract out there editing is used within the genre, we see this in our own editing with much smoke bomb overlays as well as a section of our video being completely in reverse similar to used in breezeblocks (alt J).
Not only this but we see many indie videos being, of course, a hybrid of performance and narrative but mainly narrative based, therefore we have this in our own video.
2 - Star Representation: Goodwin believes that including star representation within a music video makes the text a more appealing text. as each artist adds a unique style to their video and therefore, in turn, promotes their image to the public. an example of this is in Ariana Grande's video focus which the label has used a number of close up shots to connect the audience to the artist. A way we will do this within our own text is by making the audience empathise with the artist through the narrative in which they play the protagonist. In a similar way to how halseys star image is created in new americana, this is how we went about constructing our star in our own work, we did this by identifying themes of star in new americana and portrayed these in our own work, for example we saw that audiences clearly pick halsey out as the star of the piece due to the fact that she features in most shots and especially the long duration shots, she also is always the center of the screen mainly and in focus, not only this but this is the character we see alone most often in isolation, therefore she stands out to us, therefore we constructed out shots in a similar style showing our character in isolation throughout the video, another point that we used to construct our star, was the use of blue hair (mise - en - scene) this assisted us in not only connoting our binary oppositions but also allowing us to further make the star stand out, in the same way halsey has blue hair.
3- Visuals matching lyrics: This is whereas the lyrics are sung, the visuals either directly connote the lines or contradict the lines. we see this within our music video in a number of places, as I had planned to use this I believe that I carried out this element of goodwin's theory well and this helped to make my media product that of the standard of a professional media product.
we see this within the first few seconds of the opening where the artist sings boys (00:07), we see a contradiction of lyrics as a female is the visual but the lyrics sing boys.
0:56 - here we see a girl looking at the two girls sat on the sofa talking this is paired with the lyric saw your face heard your name which supports the visual.
1:45 - here we hear the female singer sing the lyric 'imma take your girl out' this matches the visual of a girl kissing a girl, therefore, connoting the lyric
2:08 - here we hear I'm real and I don't feel like boys, this is paired with the visuals of a girl throwing a pillow at the boy.
2:14+2:28 - here we a contradiction of lyrics and visuals with the lyrics being got to get with you and we see the girl and boy fighting which is the opposite of this.
2:36 - girls like girls like boys do, here we see this lyric with the two lesbian characters lipsyncing (support of the lyric) as well as the lyric nothing new which helps to connote this idea I have spoken previously about of although girls kissing girls on screen is considered taboo it has always existed.
3:10 - Here I used a genre inspired real media feature, voice over, this is used in Halsey's video new Americana at the beginning of the opening, this adds realism to my work and reflects current trends within the genre's industry. We see this done in my video where the music fades out and the arguments voiceover comes in with the lyrics matching the argument as it happens.
3:41 - Here we hear the lyric 'got to get with you' this is paired with the visual of the two girls kissing, i added this in to my final product and hadnt planned to originally include this, but I thought it would add to the meaning behind the text and draw attention to an important interpretation of this line further connoting the point that got to get with you can be between all genders.
3:54 - Here we see a contradiction almost or a sarcasm within the relationship between the lyrics and visual, we see this as the lyric says "girls like girls like boys do tell me if you feel it to?" but we see the dumped boyfriend dripping wet from being in the pool alone and sad, We see the boy clearly not feeling the ideology the singer is presenting.
4:02 - Here we hear the lyric 'girls like girls like boys do nothing new' this is paired with the visual idea of a flashback sequence showing how tiff the protagonist meets her girlfriend who we see at the end, therefore this supports the lyric of the fact that the protagonist liking girls is not a new thing.
4- Visuals matching beat -
00:01 - Here we see the visual light turn on matched with the beat
00:08 - we see a cut of scene to the beat
00:21 - 00:31 - we see the beat change with the visuals of the party goers entering, we see jump cuts of this
1:27 - we see the cut from black to a scene happen on the beat
2:08 - we hear a built up to a beat drop paired with the visual of the girl throwing the pillow at the boy
2:55 - 3:03 - Here we see an example of how I had tried to connote alt j’s video concept where they used quieter beat in the song and paired this with a more static and gentle movement on screen I did this within my own work matching the quieter beats to a studio sequence with heads of the main cast rolling upwards in a sort of build up montage.
3:08 - here we see the switch from the building beat to a voice over of an argument and the cuts in visual match this
3:23 - here we see the beat drop and a corresponding change in visuals to this.
3:44 - 3:50 - here we see a beat per word in the lyrics and my visuals support this, with the girls in the back of the studio shot changing positions with this. this also happens in the flashback sequence in 3:56 - 4:04.
4:14-4:16 - here we see the arms of the protagonist move to the beat of the song as she poses.
we struggled to do this but if we had more time I would go back and work on this skill of matching the visuals to the beat. an example of where we struggled but had intended to do this is 2:46-2:55 you can see some of the cuts matching the beat but some are out of time.
Sexual Gratification + Voyeurism -
In our video we tried to subvert the idea of sexual gratification being a key part of a successful music video, I believe we have successfully proved this. With many videos in the genre basing their videos around subverting mainstream views due to the fact they have the freedom to do so. Therefore we did not exploit our characters for sexual gratification, we did include one kiss between the two girls, this was not aimed for sexual gratification but more as a joke, a parody towards sexual gratification. we show this by following the kiss with the two girls laughing, We have tried to subvert sexualistation we speak about this in the director's commentary.
6 - Intertextuality: There are a number of intertextual references within our products, these are spoken about in the Director's Commentary, there are also some subtle references to the original music video, we subverted the narrative from this music video and tried to develop this narrative into a more realistic representation. Another intertextual reference we have included is using the main character and artist as the same person (same love Macklemore).
Blumler & Katz - Uses and Gratification Theory
I believe that our video not only is an entertainment piece but also has themes of education (we see this as our representations inform the audience on topics they may not be aware of), personal identity (the protagonist is easy to relate to and therefore as we follow her thought process this is easy to follow and understand her personal identity and for people to identify with) and escapism (as the music video contains themes of escapsim itself, for example, the protagonist dreaming about what could happen this could be a form of escapism in the sense that a young person can see someone who is going throuhg the same thing as them and therefore can escape).
Laura Mulvey - Male/Female Gaze
We tried to steer away from the male gaze and female gaze even within our work not subjecting our characters to being sexually exposed we did use a kissing scene between two girls but made sure that the other characters within the piece treat them with respect (whereas in the male gaze, suggests that characters construct male gaze by the way they treat the sexualisation) the kissing is done in an empowering way rather than a sexual way.