In what ways does your media product use, develop or challen
On the other hand, one convention from the genre of rap / hip-hop that I did not decide to include in my music video was the concept of objectifying women in relation to Laura Mulvey’s male gaze theory. In many music videos within this genre, women are often portrayed as objects, using a mixture of mise en scene (wearing revealing clothing), editing techniques and camera work to reinforce this. I chose to challenge this convention in the genre by completing avoiding this form within my own music video, to show the focus on the artist and their personal experiences.
Likewise, I did not feel comfortable or feel it was appropriate to include this type of convention in music video, particularly as this typical form is not referenced at all in the lyrics of the song either. Taking this forward, it gave me a platform to juxtapose this convention in typical rap and hip-hop music videos, and therefore as we can see from my own video, all scenes exclude the convention due to the grunge, urban themes surrounding the style of music track I selected.
First of all, in my own music video I attempted at using incorporating the convention of the expression of wealth and success.
During my music video, I include a short clip where there is a high angle shot looking down upon my artists hands whilst they count a large amount of paper money, this of is closely followed by another canted, rotating clip of the artist featured throwing this money – demonstrating to the audience that the artist has significant wealth and enjoys showing it off. I included this element in my music video because it is very common and clear way of ensuring it fits within some of the most common conventions of the genre.
Likewise, the lyrics during this time in the video follow the lines “She don't want me locked up, Mama, I'm gon' wash up, Whip my wrist, it lock up, All my diamonds rocked up”. The lyrics here give myself a platform to visually show the literal meaning behind this via showing these clips of the money as these lyrics infer a self-reflection from being poor to becoming rich, hence the reference to expensive jewelery and wealth. In the screen shot below shows this specific convention within this specific clip at the time of this lyric within my own music video.
Additionally, the front cover of a digipak I learnt usually included only the title text and featuring artist’s names underneath, all other information such as the record label, gratifications and track list were more often than not found inside the digipak or on the back in the small print text.
I learnt about these real media digipak conventions via my own research, analysing multiple digipaks (mainly from the same genre as my own music video) to gain this understanding. Looking at my research blog posts you can see my analysis on 50 Cent and Childish Gambino’s digipaks.
Additionally, the last common convention of rap / hip-hop videos that was apparent across real music video pieces was the objectification of women via revealing clothing choices, their treatment by other characters in the videos and how the lyrics describes the females featured. I found in particular, Laura Mulvey’s ‘Male Gaze’ theory is almost an involved convention in itself within the real music videos I found in the genre of rap and hip-hop. An example of this would be from the music video 'Trumpets' by Jason Durulo - a screen shot is located below of this.
After recognizing what were the key and common codes and conventions of these types of music videos, I began to transfer and apply some of these into my own project video to give myself a platform to attempt to use, develop upon or challenge these forms found in real music videos. In the following section I demonstrate and explain upon this.
In progression of this, during my advanced portfolio tasks I also learnt and developed my knowledge of the conventions of real digipaks, as well as the conventions that I decided to include or exclude within my work. Thus, some of the conventions I found existed across real digipaks were the following.
Digipaks follow a simple structure, using 4-6 panels that incorporate a theme or design across all of these. There was a single panel for a front cover and back cover of the digipak for where the key information was located, whereas the leftover panels either maintained the theme with a graphic/image or included small text pieces.
The content included on the front panel I found was highly important factor into how the artist is represented to an audience, how we perceive and expect the type of music on the CD and the themes we would associate with the genre of music – often through the use of an image of the artist or a graphic design references this. The front cover and back cover are arguably the most important panels of a digipak as they promote the artist and the content the most, thus what it put on these must be influential.
In my music video I attempted at incorporating, developing upon and challenge the typical forms, codes and conventions of real media products within the genre of rap / hip-hop music. One key thing I learnt about what the conventions were of real music videos within the genre was that a large proportion of rap / hip-hop music videos share common traits, characteristics and themes across the board, with slight variations in each for differentiation purposes.
The typical conventions of videos from this genre of music often demonstrate the expression of significant wealth via expensive looking chains, watches, clothes, sports cars and literal money on camera.
Likewise, other conventions I learnt often appearing was the location of these music videos; in which the setting was an urban area or neighborhood such as car park, city, side street or club/trap house. This in particular taught me that the conventions of real music videos within this genre are showing the harsh reality of some of these artist’s lifestyles.
Real media video vs My music video
In relation to this, I attempted to incorporate some of these core real digipak conventions into my own digipak portfolio, these of which are described below. In my own digipak I developed 4 square panels to apply a theme/design to in relation to the themes and genre of my music video (rap/hip-hop).
Each panel followed the same colour scheme and general aesthetic to ensure there was continuity across all aspects of the digipak. The front panel incorporate an image of the artist with a large, purple galaxy themed title at a canted angle to fit around my artist, adding depth to the front cover. I felt it was important, following the conventions of real digipaks, to remove as much text as possible and focus the front cover on promoting the artist (as a star image motif) and the title of the album – ingraining the key components into the target audiences memory.
Furthermore, another convention I incorporated into my own digipak that exist in real digipaks was ensuring that the level of creativity and colourful elements is equal on the front cover as much as the back cover (where the music track list is placed). I followed this idea to attempt to make each song seem appealing visually, thus encouraging people to listen to the music.
Nonetheless, when creating my own digipak I felt that there wasn’t any noticeable real digipak conventions that I did not include. I took it upon myself to replicate the conventions and follow the existing layout, structure and ideas due to the ability to improve my work flow and though process. Templating the key conventions meant it was much easier to begin with the digipak as I had a basic understanding of how to create these and the final aesthetic I was after.
Nonetheless, in some aspects of my music video I did attempt at adapting the typical conventions of my products.
For example, in my music video I incorporated a large amount of editing effects and transitions to connect the different filming location settings rather than just using a simple, seamless connecting effect to make the change subtle. Instead I choose to focus the music video as much on the focus of the camera work and artist as the visual effects. I did this because I felt it was important to keep demonstrate a clear link between the music video and its lyrics, beat type, this of which was very grunge, “edgy” focused.
As a result of this, adding distorted visual effects and transitions to the music helps to adapt this convention, yet contribute to the keeping within the genre as well.
Across my three products created for this task, I have used a range of conventions to attempt to attract and appeal to my target audience. I tried to utilize some of the existing conventions from the genre of rap / hip-hop to ensure that I appealed to my target audience, whom of which would be interested and associate themselves with these typical codes. As previously stated, I did aim to keep as many existing conventions in all three products I created for my portfolio to give my audience a sense of realism and relation to the pieces from personal experiences with other real media texts.
One way I might have attracted and appealed to my audience was through the use of keeping consistent with the codes, conventions and themes that they would firstly associate with the genre of music; (rap/hip-hop) to the media product. Maintaining and demonstrating conventions such as urban locations, handheld camera work, the expression of wealth and dark colour scheme all helped contribute to building a basic platform for my audience to connect with the music video, digipak and poster – thus appealing to my targeted audience demographic.
In addition to this, another way my use of conventions may have attracted my audience was due to the ability for these individuals to recognize the link and common traits shared between real media pieces and my own portfolio products.
By my audience being able to identify these real media conventions in my own work could have helped them created an expectation and understanding of what the products are exactly and what they are representing – resulting in some form of appeal and interest my audience could have in these pieces due to the conventions included.