Evaluation question 1

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

We got the idea for our band sequence from a band called Sum 41. This is because they use band sequences that incorporate their narrative surroundings into their band sequences. This can be seen in their most famous song ‘in too deep’. In their band sequences they are seen in an emptied out swimming pool. In the narrative they are a diving team in a competition. Sum 41 are classed as a Punk band which is a sub genre of rock. We wanted to in cooperate this into our video as we thought it would help us merge our narrative and performance aspects of our music video. You can see this as the parts of performance such as the lip syncing as it involves the scenery of the beginning of the narrative. We used this as it helps us tie both our narrative and performance together making it easier for the audience to focus on the lyrics of the song more and saves them the time of trying to deconstruct the video and working

out who it all merges together.

Another aspect of the video that we used from sum 41 is the use of a cameo in our video. This is another way in which I have linked the performance and narrative story lines together. This was used as I thought it would help the audience focus on the lyrics and the song instead of trying to work out how the video all fits together. I also got this from other videos such as Arctic monkeys ‘Why do you only call me when you’re high’, fall out boy ‘thnks for the memories’ and foo fighters ‘walk’. These all help gain recognition of the band which was another aspect I tried to implement with the video as the band I represented was an up and coming band so they needed some recognition in the industry. The use of a cameo also helps the audience recognize the band members and means they

can understand who they are in the video and

band.

I decided that I would try to make the music video both conform and challenge conventions of music videos. This was because some of the music videos I had researched into didn’t always conform to the norm music video so I wanted to continue with this in specific parts of the song. I also wanted to conform some of the conventions as it means I would be able to engage the target audience easier meaning the video would be successful.

One part of our music video that didn’t conform to was the use of animation. Some people may argue that it doesn’t actually conform to the genre I choose but this is not the case. This is because a lot of mainstream rock bands have decided to adopt videos that in cooperate animation into them such as The White Strips ‘feel in love with a girl’, Linking Park ‘breaking the habit’ and Arctic monkeys ‘do I wanna know’. All of these videos show that animation in a rock music video may be seen to be a abstract method but in actual fact it is common in modern day music videos. Most of the videos have used animation throughout the video where as in my video I only had parts of it. This was because I thought it would help add effected when shown as it will act as a flashback to a time that the character was happy which links in with the lyrics. This helped me portray the underlying message in the song which is that not matter what happens in life people will always have parts of their life

that can also make them happy.

For my media A2 product I tried to conform, develop and challenge forms and conventions of real media products. As a group we tried to decide what types of codes and conventions we would conform to. These were the sorts of camera shots used in rock music videos. These camera shots include close ups, mid shots, a rare long shot and mid close ups. I have used these types of camera angles throughout the for example a mid-close up on the characters face to show the emotion trying to be portrayed. We got this idea from other music videos such as Teenage Dirtbag by Wheetus.

The narrative structure we used can relate to Todorov’s theory of narrative. This is because every time there is a flashback to a memory it breaks the equilibrium in the narrative structure and it is then restored at the end of the music video when the character realizes it’s all a dream. Todorov would argue that this is how all of narrative structure story lines should be. This type of narrative structure can be seen in modern music videos such as teenage dirtbag by wheetus which follows the same kind of structure as at the end of the video the main character wakes up.

The use of both conceptual and performance based story lines in my music video relates to Sven E Carlson’s theory in which he states that music videos should be based on either conceptual and performance based structures. We decided to stick to this theory as all music videos have either performance or conceptual story lines. We decided to use both as it would help us portray the message in our music video.

One theory that we decided not to follow was Michael Shore’s theory. This was because he stated that music videos should be seen through the view point of a teenage boy. This would not have worked with our song as it doesn’t match the genre. This is because the rock genre focuses on band performances and occasionally a storyline but never to show off the band by having them surrounded by girls and money.